Chinwe Ohanele, Esq. – Back to the Future

Economics and Philosophy with a Minor in Pre-Law Major
Class of 2010
Founder of Ohanele Law Firm
Black Campus Ministries
Student Black History Club
Multicultural Center
Speech and Debate Club
Culturally Rich Experience Arts & Entertainment

If you have been given a vision, then it’s your job to bring it to light, no matter who believes it or who understands it…The vision was given to you, and so part of faith, part of working towards that destiny is believing enough in that vision that even when you can’t see the fruits of your labor, you continue moving forward, because that’s your job to bring that vision to life.”

thank you so as you know we’re using

this as a for our project

and we’re going to you know put on our

website

so again just a brief reminder

how i got into this project really was

about the digital narratives course we

were asked to go into the university

campus and just see if there’s something

that

you know we find a placard or some

memorial and went to the alumni house

myself and my friend karina and we saw

this information about william welfare

howard and mildred e jones being the

first two black students

in the 1900s

and i was like i was really taken aback

because i didn’t think about it you know

and then and part of our research we

discovered that they after they

graduated well mildred graduated sorry

in 24 there were no other black students

until the 1950s

huge gap

yeah so you know you know and just to

think that they actually came on board

during that time when there was

segregation equal but

equal and they broke that barrier down

and because of them

you’re where you are you know you’re on

their shoulders i’m here too

although i’m not from the states

originally but you know i can attend

because somebody took

the you know fortitude and and decided

i’m going to do this so we’re here today

so we’re we’re part of their legacy

yeah yeah of course

well i just want to thank you so much

for coming back and just being able to

share your story and helping us to

really push the narrative forward about

blacks and their involvement on campus

and how they’ve helped to shape the

campus to a degree you know

it’s very informal in that you know

we’re going to start with you just

introducing yourself

um your

you know your um major

where your graduating class um

and then from there i’ll just ask some

questions and hopefully you know if you

feel you can answer those questions but

there’s no pressure you know experience

a black student female student in

particular you know on campus so

thank you so much for joining us please

introduce yourself

um hi my name is chinway ohanaleh i’m a

2010 graduate of the college of the

pacific

um i graduated with a double major in

economics and philosophy and a minor in

pre-law

yeah so

definitely left brain right brain

after graduating from pacific i went on

to loyal mount

university

for law school where i got my jd

uh and uh i’m now practicing as an

attorney in southern california um and

i’m licensed in california new york and

new jersey

um i run my own practice

where i uh provide business legal and

intellectual property services to my

clients who um are mostly entrepreneurs

who are looking to uh

push forward some kind of mission or

purpose that they feel passionate about

that’s so amazing absolutely amazing

would you say that

your time in a predominantly white

college

um has allowed you to be able to work

well in the field you’re not just

servicing one aspect of the national you

know of people one you know one

demographic you’re servicing all

demographics so how how can you how did

you apply what you you experienced here

at uop into the real world scenario

um so i would say

so i was an r.a on campus

i was in ra for two years in southwest

and in grace covell

and

because i was an r.a you know you deal

with people from different backgrounds

and you have to be able to

sometimes do some crisis management

at various times but it was an

interesting opportunity to really just

um interact with people from different

backgrounds and in addition to that i

was a member of um i don’t know if it

exists yet still but black campus

ministries um so i was a member of black

campus ministries

and

i was one on the student i was a student

member of the

black history month committee

um and also pretty active with the

multicultural center and did a lot of

events uh in partnership with

various

affinity groups and so

i think

you know

college is a lot

kind of like a choose your own adventure

game

where depending on you know what

organizations you’re part of um what

clubs and classes you take

that can really shape your experience

and so for me i think i ended up

choosing a very

culturally rich experience

because i wanted to interact with people

who were from different backgrounds who

had different

mindsets and understandings and i think

that that was helpful because now you

know i have a diverse client base i

can’t say that it’s 100 black or latinx

api but i do have clients from all of

those backgrounds and so i think

um that experience from pacific probably

really helped with

my sensitivity

to different cultures

i think that’s great i mean at the end

of the day we’re all human beings that’s

the main thing that you know connects us

all together so i think that’s a

wonderful um way of being able to adapt

your experiences on campus being

involved in all those different areas

and then taking it into you know the

other real world because this was still

real world right

you know partition of it as it were

right

as a

african-american female

on campus did you ever experience to

your knowledge any biases do you think

so i think the biases that i experienced

were

kind of like backhanded compliments

i entered the university of the honors

program um

and i actually ended up leaving the

honors program after the first year

um because i don’t think that

at the time they did a great job

really highlighting the benefit of it it

just felt like i was taking

additional courses just to take them

um but i remember my first

i don’t know if we were taking a tour as

the honors students like of our dorms

but i guess someone remembered my

uh entrance essay and so when they heard

my name they’re like oh are you chinwe i

was like yeah and you know they were

like oh you know your

entrance essay was so moving

and there was something about that

response that i mean i’m an immigrant

and so obviously what i was talking

about was

my experience growing up in the us as an

immigrant when a lot of people don’t

assume that you’re an immigrant being a

black woman

and so

um i think that there was a level of oh

wow

you know how impressive how you know

unique how exotic

which

some would say oh that you know people

just appreciate it but i do think that

sometimes in some environments

it’s

like um

you’re a unicorn like there aren’t they

couldn’t possibly be other people like

you

and it’s like actually no there are

plenty of other black women who are

articulate who’s you know speak well i

was also part of speech and debate you

know and that was another thing there

are

barely any black people in the speech

and debate circuit

um and you just find a lot of times that

people are

overly impressed by

your abilities and things like that

so i would say that’s definitely

something that i saw

the other thing i would say is

i started as a pharmacy major so the

primary reason i started i went to

pacific was because i got into the

accelerated program and i was in the

three plus three program

and

when i

had issues with some of the classes

i felt like

i wasn’t getting support

i remember one

this was the straw that broke the

camel’s back i had a chemistry

course it was one of the general

chemistry courses that you know has

hundreds of students in it

and i remember doing the assignments and

struggling and i reached out to the

professor and i said hey can i come into

office hours i just have some questions

about you know some of these assignments

maybe i’m missing something and so i

made the appointment and i showed up and

there was this other um young white kid

i don’t ever remember seeing him in

class

um and he was seated there and i didn’t

know if he had an appointment or not but

when the professor opened her door

she spoke to the to the young man first

even though i had an appointment for

that time

and when i you know i first assisted i

said well i have an appointment for this

time

the professor looked at me and said well

have you done the assignments

because if you do the assignments first

i’m sure you shouldn’t have a problem

and i was like

i did all of the assignments and i’m

trying to get some understanding and the

professor was like

well you’ll have to wait

and took the young man inside and i was

seated outside for maybe 20 or so

minutes before i was just like

this is ridiculous and i left because

you know

sure i’m a student and you’re the

professor but if i’ve put in the time

to learn the material to my level best

and i’m reaching out for assistance

i should at least be directed to

some resource

and i just wasn’t and it wasn’t until

i went to the dean of the pharmacy

school to say i was leaving the pharmacy

school because i had to get her approval

to switch from college to the pacific or

from the pharmacy school to the college

of the pacific

um and she was

she was like oh you know we really don’t

want you to leave is that how can we

support you and i was like the time to

support me has passed you know i’m in my

second year i’m not on track to you know

finish the courses i need to move on to

pharmacy school and the the people who

were supposed to help me

just weren’t there you know and she’s

like well what are you gonna do now

after you you know move and i was like

i’m gonna become a lawyer and she’s like

well you can get a first degree in

pharmacy and then go and become a lawyer

and do all this stuff and i mean sure

i could have become a patent attorney

and maybe that would have been a more

lucrative direction but for you to be

giving me this advice and this feedback

at the point that i have made the

decision to leave the college of the

pacific

uh sorry the pharmacy school and

there wasn’t any direction or support

before that i think is

just

too late

um and i think part of the reason why

she was fighting so hard was because

i think i was the only black student in

our entering pharmacy class and i want

to ask that question actually you know

because that’s one of the things

on our journey throughout this research

that

black people are represented

more represented in certain areas but

not in others you know and so those

engineering and pharmacy you know

what what is it like so thank you

because that was part of my question and

i do i do i i can i too identify with

some of the um issues that you you’ve

shared there about

not necessarily being

seen do you know

yeah

yes yeah

so how so

so that was that experience but then

you’ve obviously moved on and you

majored in just remind me again economy

economics philosophy and philosophy yeah

and then pre-law minor

pre-law so um

you obviously shined

so did you feel that you got assistance

when you moved over

into this new area

areas sorry

think that um

what was

great about when i moved over to the

college of the pacific had more to do

with who i was assigned to

um for my advisors and i think less to

do with the college itself because i do

know that there are other students who

were

black or um minorities who had you know

were in the college of pacific and

didn’t necessarily have the same

experience as i do

or i did and part of that was you know

with the pharmacy school each professor

has maybe 12

15 students that they’re advising but in

the college because it’s one of the

biggest colleges

you have one professor maybe they’ll

have 30 40 50 students that they’re

advising so there isn’t time to really

have a conversation about well what do

you want to do

or what are you hoping to do or what

kind of courses have you felt you

succeeded at you know that sort of

individualized ex um attention

but

i was lucky because

in the philosophy department my

advisor was eleanor woodruff

and she was also one of the professors

that i had i think before i even

switched out of pharmacy because

philosophy and economics were actually

the courses were electives for the

pharmacy program so that’s how i got

exposure i took them i think

my second semester

of um

my first year and i really liked them

and then i decided that i was going to

take some of the courses

that i needed for the pharmacy school

over the summer so that i could sort of

get a little bit ahead and when i took

those courses over the summer i still

enjoyed it so

having professor woodruff and then um oh

what’s his name

the economic the head of the economics

department

i can see his face in my head he has

like a really long white beard um he

kind of looks like santa claus um he’s

very friendly and even though i knew he

had a lot of students that he was

advising he gives you that time right

he’ll he’ll ask you what are you working

on what’s your trajectory it wasn’t

obviously as in depth as some of the

other

as what i experienced in pharmacy but at

least you could tell he was trying

um and i also think that

what helped me was the fact that i was

doing well in those classes and i showed

up and i asked questions and i was

engaged and so

i think that helped because then the

professors were like okay this is

someone who’s really interested and

engaged we’re going to support her and

so i’ve got a lot of that support i

would say more support from the farm

from the philosophy than the economics

department just because

i may have been one of the only black

students in the philosophy department

like if i’m being honest um

so i think there was just a lot of

encouragement to the point where

my philosophy professors were saying

that i should have gone to

do a phd in pharmacy or sorry in

philosophy um when i was considering law

school but i didn’t want to take the gap

year to do like research so you know i

went on to do law school but

i really think

my experience in the college of pacific

had more to do with who my professors

were

and

um who my advisors were yeah right so

if you were

um gonna advise any um i’m gonna be more

specific african-american females or

black females attending uop what would

you advise them to help them to kind of

overcome some possible issues they may

have or just to be successful in their

college career

i think that if you can develop a

relationship with at least one professor

who you feel like you can be

your authentic self with

that

will go a long way

because

one of the first professors who

i really connected with was professor

hernandez who is in the she’s in the

college of the pacific but i think she’s

in the sociology department um or ethnic

studies if they rolled them into

each other

um and she taught this class called race

gender and ethnicity

oh who’s that me or you i think it’s you

[Music]

hold on

i don’t know where that is coming from

that’s so bizarre

[Music]

that was so strange i’ve never

seen a call come in on my phone or in my

computer not on my phone

that was so strange my apologies that’s

okay that’s okay

wow uh

okay that was strange

yeah so she was she was a young

professor um she just graduated with her

phd i think pacific was maybe her first

or second position um and i remember i

think she was in like her late 30s or

something so

she was so cool i was like she’s the

black woman and she’s young and she’s a

professor and she’s so smart

um and i did well in her class and so

any time i was having any issues um she

was always kind of the person that i

would reach out to

and then of course professor woodruff

down the line but i would definitely say

as you’re going through classes

see if there are professors who

you feel like really see you and

understand you

um and then

your advisor or the professors in your

you know in your

major

aren’t supportive you can go to them and

ask you know how can i navigate this

because there’s a level of politics for

professors too and they sort of

understand how these things work

and so they can sort of point you in the

right direction

um when you’re feeling kind of lost wow

thank you so much for that that’s really

very helpful information really to share

i think we come into college we’re not

quite sure what to expect and then we

hit the road running and we’re like

there’s no time and you know so it’s

kind of difficult

i just think i took a couple more things

you double majored and minored

yet you were involved in black campus

ministries student uh was it student

black history club multicultural center

speech and debate where did you find the

time to study

and do all these things

yeah and i didn’t even mention that for

my last two years i was a part of arts

and entertainment i was the event

coordinator my junior year

i so

i i operate well when i’m busy i i don’t

really like having just like empty empty

time

um i’m kind of like that even now like i

run my own law firm but i have a bunch

of other things that i do on the side

um and i think

i don’t know if it’s necessarily like a

healthy thing

if i’m being honest but i i just

function well when i have i’m you know i

have a lot of things that i’m juggling

so like for example i had two part-time

on-campus jobs and so i would yeah

and my last year was three actually

because i worked at the university

center too when it first opened but i

think for me i just i’m very

um uh schedule oriented you know like

i’d use my calendars i’d use my planners

and so

you know i would do my homework and i

had when i had down time i would read

and review and

i just kind of made it work um

and

you know i had to pay for law school

applications which is part of the reason

i had three jobs last year so

you also know what you’re working

towards right so i think that once

you’re kind of clear on your objective

you can

you can you can make the time i will say

that

i i graduated just short of honors like

i think i had a 3.4 something

and

i don’t know necessarily if i had worked

less i would have graduated with a

higher grade because part of that was

also

moving from the pharmacy program over to

you know the college of the pacific so

you know those grades were usually lower

than the

other courses so i do think that that

was part of it um so if there’s one

thing that maybe i i might be frustrated

about is the fact that i didn’t graduate

with honors but then at the end of the

day like no one asks you nobody cares

after you’re done you know you start

working um nobody cares if you graduate

with congress so you graduated that’s

the main thing and exactly you’re saying

3.4 that’s still a very good

that’s still really good achievement so

congratulations on that

my last thing for you then would be

a quote something that encouraged you

something you heard or read that you’d

like to share to encourage

other students coming in

so this this isn’t a quote that i’ve

heard but um

i’m going to try and

and condense it

so i’m i’m christian

and

i believe that everyone is given

how am i going to say this okay so

you have been given a vision

right

then it’s your job to bring it to light

no matter who believes it or understands

because it’s not their job to understand

it the vision was given to you

right and so part of faith part of

working towards that destiny is

believing enough in that vision that

even when you can’t see

you know the

the fruits of your labor that you

continue

moving forward

because that’s that’s your job to bring

that vision to life

wow

wow that’s amazing powerful words

thank you so much i think that we forget

that you’re actually bringing tears to

my eyes and we forget

sometimes

we get so lost in the

everything that’s going on that we think

the words keep coming i can’t i can’t

when in fact with all with with god all

things are possible so you can yeah

because he gave you the vision in the

first place

powerful words

you know thank you so much for your time

i you are a busy lady

and

do you ever plan on coming back to uop

at all

as an alone

i was um

i was the black alumni

president for like

oh yeah that’s how i know marshay right

at one ricky boylan stepped down i was i

think i was the second or the third

black alumni president and i was the

president for like three years or

something so i was actually on campus

quite a lot

um i haven’t been on campus recently

because i live in los angeles and so um

i’m just not around that often but um

i mean i’d love to come back one of the

things i’m hoping to do is just i want

to do more speaking and encouraging

because i feel like you know my

experience is kind of unique of

of all the lawyers in in the us uh black

attorneys make up three percent and in

my particular profession

um one all one percent of all attorneys

are intellectual property attorneys so

if one percent

ip attorneys and we only make up three

percent there’s barely

you know what i mean so

i’ve had to sort of operate in heavily

white dominated spaces you know heavily

male dominated spaces and i feel like

when you’re young and in college it can

be intimidating and it can be a little

frightening to like figure out how can i

navigate these spaces

um but at the end of the day you

navigate like you navigate every other

thing one day at a time and

just making sure that you have the right

people around you for those days when

you are

um struggling or you can’t sort of see

the light at the end of the tunnel so

yeah hopefully i can come back and you

know do more stuff like that because

you know i’m i i’ve been gone for a

while i graduated 2010 but yeah

wherever you are i have your email and

maybe we can stay in contact and i’d

love to have you back and uh

yeah yeah yeah of course i appreciate

your time so much thank you for making

the time busy lady and um

i just

yeah

i’m in all of you thank you so much

thank you thank you i appreciate it and

thank you for you know reaching out and

connecting with me this was fun you’re

welcome thank you so much you have a

great great day

thanks you too thank you so much

Chinwe Ohanele, Esq., Elaine Hanly, Stockton, April 25, 2022