William Weeks

Introduction to how I came to write Barrio Barristers.

Who do you call when it's the police committing the crime?

 BARRIO BARRISTERS is a 67,000-word debut historical novel inspired by the true story of attorney Miguel Garcia, whose persistence led to California's landmark Pitchess Motion—a powerful tool for exposing police misconduct. He also gave us the Murgia Motion which is being used today to aid victims of ICE.

It will appeal to readers of Lucha Corpi's Eulogy for a Brown Angel, which similarly explores police brutality against the Chicano community during the 1970s, and Brando Skyhorse's My Name Is Iris, whose dystopian vision of surveillance and state violence against Mexican Americans shows where unchecked discrimination leads. While Skyhorse imagines a near-future where citizens must prove their "American-ness," BARRIO BARRISTERS reveals the historical legal battles that created tools to fight such oppression. The novel also resonates with Luis Alberto Urrea's The House of Broken Angels, blending Mexican American family saga with civil-rights legal drama. Non-fiction readers of Joyce Vance's Giving Up Is Unforgivable and Keith Ellison's Break the Wheel will also appreciate the legal strategy and activism.

While volunteering at the Police Malpractice Center, Miguel witnesses brutalized victims of sheriff's deputies—that transforms him from aspiring doctor into a civil-rights lawyer seeking a tool for exposing bad cops.

Despite attempts to prevent him from joining the Bar--Miguel persists, eventually taking his fight to the California Supreme Court. In 1974, wearing his only court coat with a marijuana burn hole, beard and shit-stomping boots, his 7-0 victory gives attorneys access to police personnel files used daily in courts. His triumph also involved personal loss.

Later, working with Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers, Miguel wins another unanimous decision—Murgia vs. Municipal Court—forcing courts to confront systemic discriminatory law enforcement that involved all the legal entities of Kern County.

BARRIO BARRISTERS connects the courage of the early Chicano activist lawyers with the urgent need for political action today. It draws on court transcripts, archival material, personal interviews, and on the support of Miguel Garcia himself, (advising this project from its inception).

Dedicated to Paul Weeks, an L.A. Times journalist whom Newsweek named "one of the ten most important writers of the Civil Rights Movement." Miguel Garcia and I were close friends since 1976. Contributor to Medium.com.

Sincerely, William Weeks Member: IWOSC / WPN / Writers Guild / P2P/ Terminal Islanders /Harbor Area Peace Patrol