During college and until 2003, Barragán worked as the executive director of the Gillian S. Fuller Foundation (formerly the Fuller Foundation); she was in charge of giving money to worthy nonprofits focused on education, the environment, and youth programs. Funded organizations included Heal the Bay, the Nature Conservancy, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Para Los Niños, Proyecto Pastoral, and Literacy Partners.[5]
Legal career
In 2003, Barragán was as an extern to Justice Carlos Moreno at the California Supreme Court. In 2004, she worked as an extern at the Los Angeles Legal Aid Foundation, a law firm for low-income people in Los Angeles. There she helped pro per workers who needed help filing claims for unpaid overtime and meal breaks.[6]
Barragán then joined Latham & Watkins LLP, where she worked on cases from land use to securities. While at Latham, Barragán was the lead lawyer in an immigration asylum case for a mother and child from Guatemala that took three years. After Hurricane Katrina, Barragán and her colleague Blake Megdal flew to Biloxi, Mississippi to provide pro bono help to victims of the hurricane with insurance claims. She also served as a child advocate and was the Spanish-speaking adoption lawyer for low income families seeking adoptions.[7]
Early political career
Barragán started her political work with the ClintonWhite House in the Office of Public Liaison. She was doing African American outreach, and helped the President with African American groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Afterwards, she volunteered for many federal and local candidates while on the Board of the L.A. County Young Democrats for three years prior to attending law school.
In 2012, Barragán took a break from her law firm to move to Florida to work on President Barack Obama's campaign with the voter protection team. She worked as the out-of-state volunteer lawyer director and recruited other lawyers across the country to volunteer in Florida to make sure every eligible voter had the chance to vote.[8][9]
Hermosa Beach City Council
In 2013, after working in Florida for Obama, Barragán ran for Hermosa Beach City Council, fighting an oil company's proposal to drill 34 oil and water injection wells in Hermosa Beach and into the Santa Monica Bay.[10] Barragán beat six candidates and was the top vote-getter.[11] She became the first Latina ever elected and the first woman in ten years. She resigned from office on July 31, 2015 to run for Congress in the state's 44th district.[12]
In June 2015, a local newspaper said that her reason for running was that "The district is one where only 60 percent graduate from high school and 10 percent go on to college. That's how people live. I'm one of those 10-percenters who beat the odds. (…) I've achieved the American dream. Now I’m coming home to make sure others have the same shot at the dream."[14]
