Alicia Altimirano’s campaign launch event was just everything! It was at Busboys and Poets in Columbia. She said, “Colleen, I need you there.” It feels good for a Jewish mother to be wanted, I’m not gonna lie. I had told her I wouldn’t be able to make it because of a conflicting religious obligation. But when she said, “I need you there” my heart turned to mush. Alicia has that effect on me, because, as we say to each other “te amo siempre”.
What an event! As I said, it was at Busboys and Poets in downtown Columbia, the new go-to place for HoCo political events. And: a bookstore cafe. My favorite thing in the world! I hear Baltimore had an amazing one called, “Louie’s Bookstore Cafe” long before Robert and I got here. It seems like it had been a pretty amazing place.
Alicia resigned from Howard County’s State Democratic Central Committee, right now she’s also running in the Democratic primary this year to be the Democratic nominee for Howard County Circuit Court Judge. Come November it’ll be just her versus the sitting Circuit Court.
From Central Booking to Central Committee
It’s a full-circle moment for Alicia, what she’s meant to do, because she’s so passionate about it. Her early years in litigation–representing people at Central Booking in Downtown Baltimore–boy, she sits up straight, makes so many hand motions, and her voice gets louder when she talks about that time. I could tell that day we spoke, she loved being a part of the American dream–justice for all–for her clients. And she still does!
“I went to the border to see what my clients go through,” Alicia said of her current work as an f attornamilyey. She was undocumented at one time, but she said, “I couldn’t pretend to know what those people go through.” So she walked the desert and across the border. “It made such an impression on me,” she said. It did for another RoCo bestie, Becca Niburg.
Related: Howard County Sheriff on being the County’s top law enforcement official!
Rewind a couple decades. Alicia graduated from Wilde Lake High School. She did her undergrad at the University of Utah and majored in Mass Communications. Then went on to law school at University of the District of Columbia.
“I have always felt like I have to do something to make the world better. Anything I can possibly do, I want to do,” she told me. She often thinks of the Holocaust, she said, and wonders if she’d be a resister or a follower.
“I hope that I would not be somebody who just fell in line,” she said.
Alicia told me it’s so rewarding to her, so humbling, when somebody encourages her or when they support her.
When she wins, it’ll be just the beginning for Alicia–the beginning of a journey to bring diversity of thought to the bench.
University of Washington, D.C.’s David Clark Law School has a service-oriented bent, and I assume that helped nurture the civil servant who sat before me that day.
During my chat with Alicia, I kept thinking of that quote by theologian John Wesley (though some now say it was misattributed to him): “”Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can”.
In a similar vein Alicia told me she wants to help: period.
She probably doesn’t realize this, but she’s helped RoCo’s good friend, Akbi Khan, a lot. Just by being her friend.
That’s What Friends Are For–Especially This One
“Alicia’s always made me a part of her life, and for someone like me–who’s been very damaged by her feeling of exclusion from so many things–it’s meant the world to me. I’ve been to Alicia’s daughter’s baby shower, her recent campaign launch event–which one she insisted, sweetly, that I come to when I said I had another commitment just before it and didn’t want to be rushed–we good friends so we socialize, of course.” Akbi said she always noticed that Alicia’s daughter, sons, and husband are…well, incredible in the same way. Any time she sees them, they make a point to come say hi, to welcome her. At Alicia’s launch event recently they could have schmoozed with the bigwigs–Former Sen. Ed Kasemeyer (D-12); Miss Carole Fisher, overall advocacy rock star; but Alicia’s hubby, Jorge, made a point to sit by Akbi and ask her how she was. Skylette, her daughter, made sure to introduce Akbi to her own daughter Brooklyn–the same one she’d gone to the surprise baby shower for and who is now four.
“I feel like–no, I know–I’m Alicia’s family,” Akbi said.
Alicia said she’s never had anything handed to her and takes pride in the fact that she’s worked hard for everything she has and everything she’s accomplished.
“I worked graveyard shifts at Central Booking so I could have the day to do other kinds of work I wanted to do–which was still helping people, defending people,” she told me. Again, just hearing the way she talks about her time at Central Booking, seeing it, you know it was a hugely formative time for Alicia.
Even after leaving Central Booking, Alicia said she continued to represent indigent and marginalized populations.
“My parents came to this country and worked 2, 3 jobs–why? Because they could. They came from a place where there weren’t opportunities like there are here Costa Rica.
After she decided to run for Central Committee back in 2018, Alicia says she “fell in love with the spirit of” it. That spirit is justice and fairness for everybody.
Commitments and Contentments
I could tell Alicia wasn’t thrilled about something: resigning from several of the boards she’s a member of to run for Circuit Court Judge because to do both would be a conflict of interest.
“I’m still holding on to the Human Trafficking Prevention Committee here in Howard County and the Advocacy Council for Planned Parenthood,” she said, tearing up.
If people got to know her, Alicia said, they’d know she’s a very sensitive person. “I think I come across assertive and that I’m going after what I want.” She’s going after what she wants, certainly, and always has, but she’s tender-hearted. When I told her I couldn’t come to her launch event, she said, “I need you there.” My heart broke into so many little pieces, and I was like, “I’m going to that launch event if it’s the last thing I do!” But I also loved that Alicia, like me, tells people what she needs emotionally. It’s a great but rare a quality. If you don’t tell people what you need, you might not get it. But pride stops people from being vulnerable, because when you say, “I need this,” people have ammunition against you to hurt you. And I think Alicia would agree with me that they sometimes take it. The answer is not to stop being open-hearted, it’s to stop being hurt by cruel people by realizing they’re…sad, just plain sad. Those are my words, not Alicia’s, but I’d wager she’d agree.
“I’m scared a lot of time that I’m going to let people down,” she told me at her launch event at Busboys and Poets. And I could see she wanted so much to make her friends and family and supporters proud. After she spoke, she got down from the stage and I could see her mouthing things like, “Was it OK? How did I do?” to her friends and supporters like Shahan Rizvi (chair of Democratic Central Committee) and Herb Smith (fellow member of Democratic Central Committee). In that vein–of making people proud–Alicia reminded me she’d be the first Latina judge of the Circuit Court.
And: Del. Eric Ebersole (D-12) told us what it takes to me a good legislator.
Alicia’s sees her running for elected positions to serve her community as, well, simply just what she should be doing. She told me that that’s why it’s so meaningful to her when people thank her or congratulate her for it. No matter what happens, she’ll always remember people’s words of support, their volunteering their time and energy for her.
“I do things because I genuinely believe I should be doing them,” she said, pushing her spectacles up to get a good look at me looking at her. “I feel like I’m not doing anything special.”
Whoa–Hold on a Sec There, Girl!
The next words out of her mouth were that her average day during her campaign starts anywhere from 3:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
I thought, “That’s not only special…it’s totally insane!” She says, later in the morning she makes some calls, checks her calendar to plan her day, and goes to her office to do some ifamily-attorney work. And then in the evenings she has those events that every candidate for office and elected has to go to. But it’s also when she can spend time with her husband and children. They mean the world to her, it’s obvious. When she told me about a challenging time she went through last year, I knew without asking that it had something to do with her husband or children. I didn’t want to push and make her cry more, though!
“I have to do my due diligence to make sure I’m serving my clients that I committed to serving before this race,” she said. She looked at me sidewise, almost, to underscore how serious she was.
Alicia described herself to me as “having a strong faith”. She believes in God and that there’s a plan for her. This is part of it. All of it: serving on Central Committee, running for Circuit Court Judge, sitting at our house talking to me. Looking fabulous every damn day, no exceptions. How does she get her hair to like it weighs about as much as marshmallow fluff and is as soft. She always smells good too. But sometimes she can’t see how amazing she is. I absolutely loved the picture of her that I took for this article. Even before showing it to her, I was sure she’d veto it, because her blouse had gotten wrinkly in the humid weather and from sitting and talking to me for an hour and a half.
Alicia’s fellow Central Committee Member, Co-Chair Shahan Rizvi (he other chair is Mae Beale), who’s running for reelection, told me he has great faith in Alicia to be a great circuit court judge.
“She understands the unique challenges black and brown communities are confronted with daily, especially when it comes to interactions with law enforcement and our justice system,” he told me in a text exchange.
Siempre…forever. That’s a long time. But I really do believe Alicia and I will love each other forever. That’s just how we are. The great beyond can seem so vast, but it’s a little more manageable when your friend is holding your hand. And Alicia often holds my hand…just because. Her hands are so soft, I always think. But after talking with her that day, I was more impressed by this than usual. She’s been working hard for so long. And when you’re invested deeply in what you’re doing, that hard work can wear your body down. Not for Mrs. Altamirano! She really looks like she’s in her late 20s (and come to think of it, I have no idea how old she is!). I guess it’s her young attitude–the one that leaves her feeling genuinely surprised when people tell her how much her work means to them. In fact, her husband and children are oddly ageless too.
Smile and the Whole World Smiles With You
What I always notice about them is their ever-present smiles. They, like Alicia, love people. They simply love them. I remembered, then, when Alicia’s daughter came upon her surprise party, she cried. It was like she was learning for the first time that we all love her! How lucky these Altamiranos are. They get to relearn that the universe is full of magic, and light, and beautiful things over and over again. Alicia brought me back to the present then, when she told me if she had the money, she’d use it to see that the people who help her along the way to Circuit Court Judge are paid for their efforts.
“I’d love it if I could say to the people who have helped me and will help me, ‘You did this huge favor for me.’ Who knows where it could take them, but I do know that I’d want to pay them,” she said, smiling.
Also: See what we learned at HoCo’s Alpha Ridge Landfill!
Alicia said she’s always in awe of people’s faith in her. I totally got it. She’s the opposite of arrogant. She works from the most fundamental place of doing good any way she can and as long as she can, as that quote goes. She’s always been this way–siempre!
Thanks for reading! Check back with us each here at rocoinhoco.com every week as Robert, Colleen (and pup, Moses) get to know the many facets—one each week–of this prismatic place called Howard County. We want to take you along with us, so follow us on Twitter at @rocoinhoco, join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @rocoinhoco.