Professionally, I Go By Gabrielle
Because of the nature of what I am about to devote a lot of my energy to, it feels that I should start with who I am professionally. In some ways, I have chosen my career (by going to law school, for example). And, in others, it has chosen me.
Here is my unusual but true Brief Story as to "Gabrielle Johnson" in her Profession:
Gabrielle Johnson is a child of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum Bailey Circus (RBBB), granddaughter of a queer, white, New Yorker attorney and Rocket Scientist (according to family lore, anyway), child of her Black Sheep Mother, Susan, (who dropped out of college to join The Show) and the eccentric BMX Extraordinaire, Jose "D. Cat"* Yanez, who was the first person to do a backflip on a Bicycle and Motorcycle (disputed, but I tend to believe his and BMX's generally and the RBBB's version of it, they come with receipts).
When someone asks, "Where are you from?" and what they mean is, "With which Community did you learn how to Live Life with?" I will always mean The Circus. This means, I Learned how to Live Life from folks who traveled all around this wonderful land that is sometimes called the Northern part of the Americas. Immigrants, performers, the odd, and the even. I eventually settled into a part of this land, The Desert, which some call Arizona. Settling into one place with a common set of Rules means I joined what we call tend to call a Society with even more Evens (as opposed to Troupe of Traveling Marauding Performers with all of the Odds).**
When someone asks, "Where are you from?" and they mean, "Which parcel of Land did your Mother end up in when You arrived in this World?" I will always mean North Carolina. That is where the show happened to be for three days when my mother gave birth.
When someone asks, "Where are you from?" and they mean, "I have noticed the [color de su piel] is only a little more brown that the Color of Skin that I am most used to seeing in my Community, why is that?" I will probably mean [México] to them (statistically speaking) but to the World, I think I mean, the more Southern part of the Planet, with Land hailing of beautifully Brown folks, and also from Northern Lands (so, also I hail from folks who were from England and France) of the paler-but-no-less handsome variety.
Because of Circus, I understand folks who want to see the world.
Because of Society, I understand folks who want to settle into just one place, as opposed to many, many, many.
Because of Circus, I developed a fondness for wild dynamism
Because of Society, I developed an obsession with Learning The Rules.
Which I Hope Gives Context as to my Professional Reality which is that:
I am an Immigration Attorney in North Carolina with Inner Banks Society, a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Legal Services Firm.
This means a few exciting things as it relates to someone's interest in my profession:
1. I provide grant-funded immigration help to mostly Eastern-North-Carolina residents of NC who need it as currently the singular immigration attorney at Inner Banks Legal Services (IBLS).
2. I provide sliding-scale immigration help to everyone else (with a preference toward Eastern and/or Rural folks in NC).
3. I am just an immigration attorney at this cool law firm! IBLS also has several other attorneys who practice and specialize in Family Law, Bankruptcy Law, Financial Guardianships, Juvenile Work, and soon we are hoping to do some housing work as well (pending my comity submission).
Please, give us a call or refer your friends, family, clients in need during these ever-changing times at (252) 495-0585 (keeping in mind that we are intended to bridge the legal just ice gap in Eastern NC specifically).
Or, if you want to partner with us on clinics or disseminating immigration information throughout the State or otherwise, please call me (252) 508-0162 and leave me a voicemail or email me at gsjohnson@ibxlegal.org (please cc my Legal Assistant, Adrianna Palacios Ramirez at arpalacios@ibxlegal.org).
For all other interest, use our website: https://ibxlegal.org/contact-us/.
If you want to donate to our really cool organization which provides some free (when we can!) and mostly massively discounted legal services, please do! We will need all of the help we can get and donations to our 501(c)(3) organizations are tax deductible and help us provide more free services: https://ibxlegal.org/donate/.
If you want to volunteer for immigration help, please email me at gsjohnson@ibxlegal.org. We do not yet have a volunteer arm of the Immigration Program in place, yet, but if we do anyone who expressed interest will be the first folks I email about opportunities. Law students especially encouraged.
I want to do more videos, blogs, and maybe even a podcast on the immigration system of this Country we call The United States of America, a podcast for English-speaking folks, también para mis amigos que hablando español, and for maybe more mother tongues if I can learn those languages or bring folks on, but that all depends on my professional reality of resource availability, the desire, and, frankly, funding! Please consider helping me help our big, ol' Community in whatever way you are able (even just by following and sharing our IBLS Facebook Page helps spread the word: https://www.facebook.com/ibxlegal).
¡Gracias a todos! for your interest.
P.S. As you have noticed, I may speak all of my native tongues if that is (and even when it is not) alright with folks which means English and Spanish and currently learning française.
*"D. Cat" because he lands on all fours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=N2s98oPRqDc.
**To be clear, these are the two Spherical Caps of what I like to think of as a Gradient Orb with which I can refer to two distinct versions of my own life with which I still, continuously, daily, yearly, lifelongly measure my perspective. I have experienced societies of all sorts mixed of Evens who Maraud, Odd Peformers, the Even Troupe, and the odd Rulebreaker here and there. It is not intended to define an abstract Divide of a huge swath of the species we refer to as Humans to the point of absolutism and fatalism.
