Hi DLG Blog Readers – Jacki here…long time no blog! For those of you who don’t know me, I used to be an attorney with the firm and a frequent blogger. A few years ago, I made the genius decision to throw away my snow boots and move to sunny Los Angeles. I was thinking about the blog since I just had a fun (and informative!) visit with Protima and Carolyn in Los Angeles when we all attended a conference to discuss visas in the arts and entertainment field. Long story, short – I begged Protima for a guest blog because I had the perfect Friday photo!

While walking along Melrose Avenue, I came across the famous Cisco Home wall, normally displaying the “Made in LA” mural, painted over with new details to reflect the importance that immigration has had on shaping the culture of this city and beyond. Rumor has it that the artist behind the Cisco Home wall takeover is “HiJack,” an anonymous street artist who is active in Los Angeles. In a caption to an Instagram post he made about this wall, “HiJack” comments, “We need to remind ourselves of what we are composed of as a city and more broadly as a nation.”

Jacki Granet was born and raised in beautiful Santa Barbara, California. After what she describes as a “very stereotypical” and “really nice” childhood including frequent visits to the beach, youth soccer, football games on Friday night, a stint as captain of the high school basketball team (“We were terrible,” she says), she decided to attend college at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. “Most people who I meet constantly ask, ‘You’re from Santa Barbara, why did you ever leave?’” she says. “I just loved the Midwest, the big school. My dad’s college roommate went to Wisconsin Law School, and he always raved about it. It was the first school I got into. I applied and got in a week. The application was just a front and back piece of paper. I remember getting the acceptance and saying, ‘Like I would ever go to Wisconsin.’ But we went to visit in April, and I just loved it. It was beautiful. And it snowed and I still liked it.”