Ray Cardozo: The Power of Proximity

As we kick off Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Reed Smith appellate partner Ray Cardozo shares his personal story including migrating from Kenya to New England, attending UC Berkeley, becoming an attorney and arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court for Reed Smith. Ray discusses the impact of racism and shares solutions all of us can undertake to stop hate and pay it forward for future generations.

For more information, please visit Reed Smith's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion page.

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Transcript:

Intro: Hi, I'm John Iino and I'm Iveliz Crespo. Welcome to the Reed Smith podcast Inclusivity Included: Powerful Personal Stories. In each episode of this podcast, passions and challenges, past and present, all with a goal of bringing people together and learning more about others. You might be surprised by what we all have in common, inclusivity included. 

John: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. As always, I'm joined by my co-host Iveliz Crespo. 

Iveliz: Hey, John, how are you? 

John: Oh, great. We are kicking off AAPI our Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month here at Reed Smith and we are really pleased to have one of the superstar lawyers join us. I, I'm referring to Ray Cardozo who's been a partner for a long, long time, but among many accomplishments, probably others you might want to mention, right? But uh Ray has served on our most recently served on our senior management team. He led our litigation department globally, which is basically half the firm. He was on our executive committee. He previously served as the office managing partner for our San Francisco office. He previously served as a practice group leader for the appellate group and that he's been very active in a number of bar associations including the SABA South South Asian Bar Association, amongst others. Ray. I might have missed something but welcome to the podcast. 

Ray: Thanks, John. Delighted to be here. 

John: I say you really one of the superstar lawyers here at Reed Smith. But today we wanted to concentrate on some of the, you know, personal stories. The title of this podcast is Powerful Personal Stories. And um have Ray share some of his personal stories as we think about Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and specifically, hashtag stop Asian hate. Um We've seen a lot in, in the news and other places about incidents about Asian hate and I think it's as Ray and, and Iveliz talked before this, we said, you know, I think there's a bit of especially in, in law firms, but of the Asian Americans are viewed as the model minority and maybe they think they're in insulated from some of the incidents of racism or, or discrimination. And the like. So we thought we'd check in with Ray just as some of his past as well as recommendations for um what we all can do to be supportive of one another in this environment. So Ray, let me just start, you have a very unique background. I know you uh your descent and where you grew up and where, how you came to America. But tell us a little bit about, you know, your personal story and really how you became the person you are now. 

Ray: Sure. I mean, I think the phrase you've come a long way, baby would certainly apply to me. I'm originally from the east coast. And what I mean by that is the east coast of Kenya. I was born in Mombasa, Kenya, which is a town almost exactly on the Equator beach town on the Indian Ocean. My background was always from the start kind of a uh a minority in many ways, although it's from India, South Asian descent. My parents ethnically dating back is to the Portuguese area of India, which makes us with an Indian culture, very much a minority. We grew up Catholic English speaking. They grew up, my parents both grew up in the island of Zanzibar, which is not a Pacific Island, but an Indian Ocean Island right off the coast of Africa. And then I came to the States when I was seven, my parents uh moved us here and we landed after my, we did a year in New Haven, Connecticut. And then um we landed in a small blue-collar rural New Hampshire town in which our family were the only nonwhite family in the town. And that's where I grew up and went to all the way through high school until I went to college in Massachusetts. And then I moved out to the west coast to go to Berkeley law School and the rest is history, as they say. 

John: Well, let me, let me just follow up on that a little bit, Ray Tell us a little bit about what it was like being, you know, one of the only Asian families in New Hampshire. Now, what was your experience there? Did you see any racism or discrimination growing up? 

Ray: I, I did, but I would say it was a somewhat unique experience in the sense that there were no other minorities in, in that town in the early seventies. And so among other things that were unique, people couldn't even place the ethnicity. So a lot of the kind of racial slurs and stuff I grew up with were people calling be the N word because they didn't even realize, you know, they'd hear Africa and they didn't even realize looking at me that I'm not actually of African descent or so on. Others was well meeting and innocuous. But I think, um, useful learning experiences for the, well, for this podcast, what we're talking about, I remember my dad, you know, he hated the cold. And so we'd always take off and go to Florida or things at least once, if not twice during the winter. And every single time we came back without fail, someone would make the not as a slur, not meaning anything but say, oh, I see you got a nice tan and everyone would invariably laugh. And, um, you know, I think when you're young, those things make you very self conscious, they make you very aware of your ethnicity and they also made you made me kind of want to blend in and be invisible, the thing that uh those remarks remind you of. And so it was interesting when I first got to Williams College in Massachusetts and for the first time that other people of color and other Asians around, I shied away from, I didn't join the Asian affinity groups and things like that because I think I was still in that mode of this you constantly taught when you're the only one in the crowd to try to blend in and not stand out. And it was a simple gesture when I first got to Berkeley Law School by a couple of people who went on to become some of my best friends. And still to this day, they, they reached out their upper class, but they reached out and said, oh, you should really join also pills of Asian American Pacific Islander Law Students Association and they were aggressive about it like, you know, they, it wasn't like think about it as you're coming. And that's a sign of how a small gesture from someone who's in a more secure position to someone who's new and feeling their way around can make a profound difference. It did did for me, made a lifelong difference because, you know, Berkeley is a different place. Berkeley is a place where people are proud of their ethnicity, they wear it on their sleeves, they hunt in packs, they do all of those things that, you know, coming from my background. I didn't even realize it until I started in, I craved and found my voice found validation. And, you know, that really helped me because when you step into the legal profession for people of all ethnicities, it's a foreign beast and you're a fish out of water. And that kind of experience, validating experience is so helpful in having the confidence to achieve what's within you and your ability within you. But which, you know, without that helping hand from someone else would have been much harder. 

John: Such an amazing story and, some of those folks, where are they now, your friends from Berkeley? 

Ray: So they're all over the place. We've all had kids at about the same time, raised them. They're still our best friends. Our kids know each other. They're all actually almost all right here in the Bay Area. Uh most stayed because like me, everyone who comes here just loves the place. There's no place like it on earth and no one ever leaves. And so they're scattered throughout in house. One is independently wealthy. So she does all public interest, nonprofit work, volunteers and others have been in house for a long time, a couple of others and big firms now. 

Iveliz: So, right, you mentioned uh earlier, this need, this desire, you know, initially to wanna blend in, right? To not stand out. And I'll, I'll just let you know that you have not done a great job with that. I Reed Smith because you are very well regarded and, and by your colleagues for your legal acumen and your, and your, and your skills as an attorney. And so you have not done a good job of, of blending in every Smith, right? Uh Because you truly stand out because of how great of an attorney you are. And you mentioned again that some of the things that you've experienced through throughout your life, right, have, have been on a scale of something really egregious to something a little bit more innocuous but still really had the impact of making you feel like you did not belong. And I know that these things don't occur in a vacuum, right? They don't just occur in childhood, these things are happening in workplaces. And so I'm curious if you want to share what are some of the areas that people should look out for in terms of how bias shows up against Asian Americans, right? And in the workplace and some of these corporate spaces. 

Ray: So I, I think one of the classic ones is um kind of delegation of assignments in a way that um sends the stand up roles to certain people and sends the analytical grunt roles to others. That's not just a pattern that involves Asian Americans or other ethnic backgrounds. It's uh it's a pernicious one particularly for women, et cetera. And I think it, it's very important in what we do that we're, you know, we're grooming future leaders and future lawyers. And the whole piece of that puzzle is worth developing in each and every person that comes through the door. And so the typecasting and piece mulling of opportunities is something we're vulnerable to because of the social construct we all grow up in and it's something we need to be proactive about because at the end of the day, we're in the talent business and maximizing our talent is the name of the game. And when you do, when you fall into these patterns, that sort of society puts on you, you're not hitting your stride, you're not hitting your uh maximum because the people that come in the door are just amazing if we ever got the time to spend with them. 

Iveliz: Absolutely. We talk about this all the time, right? How biases are learned throughout life, right? Of that societal conditioning. Uh and we've been conditioned to view asian-americans and these stereotypes and other negative connotations that we associate with different groups. So thank you so much for sharing that because I think it's true, I think oftentimes, right, Asian Americans and workplaces are are relegated to certain jobs and certain uh roles and certain responsibilities and they're also expected to behave in a certain way because of stereotypes that we've learned that this is how Asians should behave. So I really appreciate you taking the time to kind of explain that to us. Uh because as I said before, right, these things aren't occurring on a vacuum and it's important that people are able to identify where these biases come up so that they can mitigate these biases and make sure their workplaces are inclusive of everyone. 

John: Ray, one of the examples, you know, myself as an Asian American. One thing that commonly happens to me is that people mistake me for somebody else. What is it that saying that all Asians look alike. And I think about it a couple of incidents, one fairly early in my Reed Smith career when a senior officer of our firm came up to me and, you know, mistake me for another Asian American partner and said, oh, you know, um really great to see you. You know, I know you, I owe you a response on this, you know, on, on that issue. And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about, but I think you're mistaken me for Thomas. Oh, right, right. right, you're John. That's right. But this is like literally like last month I was at the dinner. Thank God. We're out to be able to go out to dinner here in California and, and I was passing by a table and I saw someone I recognized from um, another group that I work with and I said, hey, how's it? Going and she, she looked at me and said, oh, hi, Steve. Right? And, and I know that Steve that she was referring to is another Asian leader and said, oh, well, no, it, it's John. But, you know, yes, I, I can understand you make, make that mistake. That kind of stuff happens all the time. It's almost like, is it that, is that a microaggression? Yes. But it's just, you know, it's kind of wears on you. I don't know if you've had something similar happen to you in your experience because it, as I say, it happens to me all the time. 

Ray: Yeah, I, I have, I laugh about it because the person, my first summer in, during law school, I was a summer associate at the O’Melveny and Myers law firm and there was another lawyer of South Asian descent or lawyer and training of South Asian descent by the name of Sri Srinivasan, who they just mixed us up all summer people throughout the firm always calling us by the name. I laugh about it because now he's the chief judge of the DC circuit. So I'm hoping someone um mixes us up when uh Joe Biden names him into the US Supreme Court and I get the call instead, but I don't, you know, I don't think that's going to happen. Um But II, I think it is a, I think there is a helpful lesson, a reminder about having the serenity on the one hand to accept that some of these things are going to happen. I mean, it's, you know, these are often made by people who are very well meaning and people I ended up going on to have very good relationships with O’Melveny very good teachers and mentors. And it's just a reminder of um what the civil rights legend Bryan Stevenson says is a cure all for a lot of these things. And that's just to get proximate because all of these things are, those are function as someone who doesn't know you hast spend enough time with you to lapse into that. But if you could find a way to connect or spend time one on one with more people, you'd get past that and that relationship would be different. And that's one of the things about my unique background that I appreciate is the blue collar town I lived in. People were from very different and some very tough circumstances. But everyone knew one another when you went to school together and you knew each other, you knew and you went over to their house as you played in their neighborhoods. And that proximity is something that is a challenge in the organization of our size, but something we should always continually be striving up our game on because when we get proximate, good things happen. 

Iveliz: No. Absolutely. And, and, you know, I think I love that you use that quote because one of the things that we know about bias and what social science tells us is that that's how you can help mitigate your own biases, right? Is, is that because we've been exposed to societal mess messaging, you have to retrain your brain how to think, right? So instead of having this negative association with a particular spending your time getting proximate, right? Getting exposure to particular groups so that you can challenge those negative stereotypes that you've learned throughout your life and help mitigate that bias and prevent you from making those automatic associations that are negative and negatively impact folks. So I really appreciate you sharing that quote by Bryan Stevenson who I also admire. 

Ray: Yeah, I mean, the image they always show you in diversity and inclusion training is off that iceberg. The bias is just what we always react to and see is the tip. But when you get proximate, you find out that below the surface, you know, two people are gonna have more things in common. If they're both mothers with young Children, then whatever the difference in backgrounds and so on because that's such a profound bonding experience in, in common. And that same thing is true of all of the innumerable things that are below the water level on that iceberg metaphor. And so our reaction to the tip of the iceberg is it's, it's just that it's our your first reaction. But getting down below the water is where all the actions at. 

John: You know, just trying to get to know each other even more. You mentioned, your, your parents came from a part of India that's not part of the, the, the mainstream. And I think so many people lump first all Asians together, then they lump all South Asians together. But certainly we know there's uh well, hopefully we can all learn more about all, you know, all the differences and I think of something recently in connection with, you know, the Atlanta shootings and hashtag stop Asian hate. And the like I saw a press release that went out that referred to, you know, Asian American Pacific Islander and the desi DESI community in in the US. And we had some discussion around that because whether or not that term in itself is a little bit overly um not succinct enough and that it doesn't really cover all of South Asia. And I don't know your thoughts in terms of the broadness of, of all of South Asian, all the different cultures there and how they, how they different. 

Ray: Yeah, I mean, it's amazing in the case of goa it has a different colonial history. It was colonized by the Portuguese. And so my Catholic upbringing is a product of that uh very different cultural colonial history and it, it gained its independence in 1961 more than 14 years after uh partition and so on. So the history is different, the culture is different. Um and that's true throughout our vast Asian and Pacific Islander communities. And there's a lot of richness in those stories. But I think that richness also highlights why um it's very important for all of us to stand up and resist whenever you see this hate. Because it's really true. It's a superficial and destructive anger that underlies that hate. And it's really true that when you demean any one of us, you demean all of us. And it's a matter of, you know, what we want, what we want for ourselves in our society and our community, we can do much better than this. And that kind of thing is, is destructive. I mean, we're in the middle of a global pandemic but hates infectious too. And standing up together is very affirming and it stands up for, you know, what we want, our aspirations, our dreams. 

Iveliz: That's great, John. A good point. And just in terms of what hashtag stop Asian hate means to you personally, you can just do all of us. You don't have to be Asian American Pacific Islander to be supportive of the uh of the concept. Great analogy. 

Ray: Hate finds everyone. 

John: Exactly. 

Iveliz: Thank you so much for sharing your, you know, your lived experiences and your experiences, not just growing up but in workplaces and your journey of being an attorney and just, you know, how you've been able to apply your lived experiences to create a very successful career for yourself. I really want others to learn, you know, from, from the conversation that we're having today. And I specifically want people to learn how they can support their Asian American Pacific Islander friends and colleagues. What are some examples of experiences from people supporting you that meant a lot to you because I want to make sure that we leave people with those, those tools and those skills to support these members of our community. 

Ray: Well, I mentioned one which is the um reaching out to someone who isn't soliciting it. And so on. Another one that, that I'll mention is for the senior attorneys who may view this. And it's I caught the break of my career when I landed in an appellate group that had people who really believed in and valued teaching. Jim Martin, Paul Fogle, these people took the time with me individually to teach me the craft of appellate law. One of our beloved former colleagues, John Camus was a, a great mentor to me and a great teacher on an individual one on one basis and again, in a people and talent business, there's no substitute for that. So I'd encourage everyone who watches this video to remember that one on one time you spend with every one of our colleagues, just has tremendous value, not only to our business and its success, but to you personally, I mean, that has stayed with me and enriched me throughout my career and made me, I think a better person towards others and how I treat others in the firm and um how I interact with them 

John: And what, you know, we, we hear it so much that kind of play it forward. But we were just on an earlier uh webinar where someone just said, you know, I think it's my obligation to play it forward for all the mentoring and support that, you know, the people before him gave him. What are some of the things that you're doing now, specifically when you think about helping others people that may look like us or may look, may look differently as well? 

Ray: Well, one of the things I do in the firm is I, I teach a lot about writing. I mean, that's close to what I, what I do day in day out. And so both in legal teams, I work on brief writing boot camp. I'm a member of an organization called the Center for Youth Development through Law. That's a diversity mentorship pipeline organization that focuses on kids at the high school level and paid summer internships and usually from families who never had anyone who's gone to college. And I think that is really important in our efforts to achieve greater equity in our society, focusing on the kids who don't have the resources and opportunities the rest of us have take for granted and, and that investment is invaluable. So those are a few of the things I do. 

Iveliz: Well, that certainly hits a chord for me. 

John: And I can just think of so much that you've done in terms of pro bono as well and you've argued in front of the US Supreme Court a number of times as well. You're really giving back. You wanna give us some examples of some of those cases. 

Ray: Well, actually that's the example I'll remember is it was a pro bono case that a colleague at the firm took in at the district court level. And when it landed in the Supreme Court, I went off to argue it. And you know, I still remember the feeling because my dad, the guy who had put us on a plane in 1974 and basically created this opportunity came to the argument. So did my 10 year old daughter. And that was, that was just a neat thing to walk out of that, you know, the Supreme Court of the United States that day and have Nina Totenberg stick a microphone in my face and to see my dad standing over there in the corner watching it all. It's pretty cool. 

Iveliz: That's amazing. And to be able to do that full circle, Right? I'm my eyes are tearing up. Uh How about we just open the floor if there's something right, is there something that we didn't ask you? 

Ray: One other thing to think about as we're moving forward and COVID is lifting and soon there will be a time when we're off the Zoom and getting back to traveling and in person. One other piece of advice that I would recommend to people is when you're traveling to another Reed Smith office, look up someone that you wouldn't normally socialize or connect with that isn't in your circle and just look them up and have a cup of coffee or get a drink or something. One of the great things about being on a senior management team and chair of the litigation department was all of the time I spent in other offices and all the opportunities I got to spend time with people who were completely outside my normal circle of people. I weren't working on cases with other things like that. There is a tremendous richness and diversity in this firm in every way imaginable. I don't think I've ever regretted a conversation, a random conversation I had with someone I didn't know at this firm. 

Iveliz: I love that you ended with get proximate. 

John: Yeah. What great advice, Ray and, and not only within Reed Smith, but all of our audience is thinking about what, wherever you travel or wherever you're interacting with folks, especially as we're getting back to um opening our offices, just spend some time with some folks that you haven't in the past and it could even be within our own offices. Iveliz and I were just on a webinar earlier today and just spending time with, with folks that, you know, for attorneys spend the time with the professional staff, spend time with folks that you normally don't and the richness of like you said, right, the richness of your life and how we can overcome some of these biases that Iveliz mentioned just by getting to know people that, you know, we normally wouldn't or getting to know people that don't look like us. So what great great advice. Going though you're interacting by Zoom, makes you kind of appreciate the value of uh and in person, 

John: We can't wait to everyone back there. I was, I was thinking about it, Iveliz and I have been working together for a year and two or three months now, we've actually met in person twice and we see each other every single day and it would be great to actually get back together and, and do something in person. So well great, great, great having you on the episode here as we celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. You just as I said at the outset, you're just a superstar and all the things that you said for audience so true and we hope to fall on your, follow your lead. 

Ray: Thank you guys, both. I really enjoyed this. 

Outro: Inclusivity Included is a Reed Smith production. Our producer is Ali McCardell. This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google play, Stitcher, PodBean, and reedsmith.com. 

Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. 

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