Jose Casal Reflects on Living His Father's Dream and Creating a New Hispanic Culture in the U.S.
Holland & Knight's Diversity Council and Hispanic Affinity Group are proud to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and pay tribute to the generations of Hispanics who have enriched America's history and continue to play a role in its future success. We now present the 2024 video series showcasing some of these conversations. We hope that the stories conveyed in these videos inspire those struggling with recognizing their roots and shine light on the contributions that Hispanics have offered the legal community and beyond.
In this video, Jose Casal, Holland & Knight's Professional Responsibility Partner, kicks off this year's series sharing how he's creating a unique American Hispanic culture in the U.S. Inspired by his father's interrupted dream of becoming a lawyer, Mr. Casal is committed to serving underrepresented communities in South Florida as a proud Hispanic attorney and leader in the firm.
Jose Casal: Saludos. I'm Jose Casal, a partner in Holland & Knight's Miami office. I am the professional responsibility partner for the firm. I also have a practice that spans business and real estate litigation, international arbitration and bankruptcy law. Join me for this Hispanic Heritage Month spotlight as I share how my background shapes my legal career.
I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1963, of Cuban parents. My parents left Cuba right after the Cuban, the Castro revolution. My father fought in the Bay of Pigs. He promised that he would go back to Cuba and to try to liberate it from communist rule. As we all know, the Bay of Pigs invasion was not… was a failure. My dad did land, and he saw many of his friends get killed. And it was a very humbling experience for him. He escaped. He was not captured. And what was interesting about my father's experience is that instead of being captured, he actually escaped on a life raft with four other men and they floated in the Gulf of Mexico for seven days with no food or water. And it was only a passing ship, a freighter going to Corpus Christi, Texas, it was a sailor that went out early in the morning to smoke a cigarette and actually saw a dot in the horizon, and it was the raft that my father was in. So if that sailor had not gone out to smoke a cigarette, I would not be here today. We lived in Ponce, which is a small town in Puerto Rico, and then we moved to Miami in 1967. And there I went. I started going to school. Interestingly enough, I grew up in a household that spoke Spanish, but the school that I went to and the area where I lived was predominantly English-speaking. So I actually grew up in a very mixed language situation where I would struggle to speak Spanish with my parents, and I would struggle to speak English with my friends and people in school.
What I believe has happened is even though we have, you know, our all of our cultural background from our home countries, whether it's Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, we now have to create our own Hispanic culture here in the United States. And it is a culture that has been created and has been formed by not only the people that arrived from different countries, but the people who were born here and who were raised here and have adopted not only the, not only had to, they have some of the, you know, some of the culture and some of the nuances of their family, of their, of their parents, but now of the home where they live with their friends, with their, with their other new loved ones, with their spouses, with their children. And so I think we're creating our own American Hispanic culture, which is unique in this world and sets us apart.
We try to keep alive some of the Cuban traditions that were, you know, that over time they may be lost, but you hope that they’ll be maintained. One of the things, for example, that we love doing as a family is Nochebuena, which is Christmas Eve where we go all out and we roast the whole pig and everything like that. And my dad, ever since I was a small child, was the person that did that for the family, and I took over the reins of that in around 2000. And now my son, who's a lawyer, by the way, has, is the one who now roasts the pig. And it's a fantastic event. It's all about family. It's all about friends. It's all about celebrating life. It's all about celebrating joy. I think it's really important as Hispanics to not only maintain the old ways, but to see it and then look ahead and say, how can we make the new ways better. As a lawyer, for example, there's many things we can do. Obviously, because of our language skills, we have the ability to represent people who are not well represented in the legal system or don't have the ability to hire lawyers or don't have the ability to, do the, to protect themselves.
I joined Holland & Knight with a group of four other Hispanic lawyers who also came in as partners. I came in as the fifth-year associate, and I thought that move was transformational for me because what it did, it kind of cemented my legitimacy as a Florida lawyer, as a Hispanic lawyer and as someone who was now associated with a, with a large law firm with a tremendous reputation. And there was a big difference now when I went to court and I announced myself as Jose Casal of Holland & Knight on behalf of a client, and it was at that point that the judges who are not Hispanic would stand up and pay attention, because now here you had this Hispanic lawyer who was with a major law firm and was now… demanding respect to a certain extent.
My father wanted to be a lawyer. He started studying in Cuba to be a lawyer. And the revolution interrupted those life plans for him. Seeing him and the things that he went through and the struggles he went through and the way he comported himself, you know, through his life because despite the things that happened to him, I think that was the stuff that really, you know, helped me become the person who I am today.