We recently sat down with Monica Rosenbluth, a Mountain States ADL board member, No Place for Hate® program liaison and attorney to talk about kids, civil rights, and her insatiable sweet tooth.
How are you involved with ADL?
I went through the Glass Partners-in-Leadership program about 10 years ago, then participated in the mentorship program as a mentee, and was nominated to the board of directors after that. I’ve been on the board for several years now, and I’ve served as the co-chair of the LGBT subcommittee, the co-chair of the Government Affairs subcommittee, and I’m currently in my second year as the co-chair of the Civil Rights Committee. I’ve also been a mentor, and a liaison for the No Place for Hate Program.
What’s your favorite holiday?
Halloween. I have an insatiable sugar tooth and Halloween is a good excuse to feed it. I also love spooky stories. And both of my kids have birthdays right around Halloween, so often their birthday parties are Halloween-themed.
What’s one thing every person should know or experience?
Substitute teaching a class of 8th-graders. The Denver Bar Association has a program where lawyers can fill in for a day as a substitute teacher. We had just moved back to Denver from England and only one car, and I had to take two buses to get to my school in Montbello that morning. There was one little guy on the bus with me, couldn’t have been more that 7 or 8, who took two buses to school every morning, on his own.
What are you passionate about personally? What can’t you stop talking about?
Kids – my kids, but also other kids – when I worked on the ASSET bill, which passed in Colorado this year after 10 years of effort and which gives undocumented kids the ability to pay in-state tuition rates to go to college, I met so many middle- and high-school kids who just knocked my socks off. Some of these kids were so smart and so composed and had a presence of mind that I think many of us never achieve. Many of them are in college now, because they can finally afford it, and they’re going to be an incredible asset to the fabric of the community.
Tell me a story that immediately pops into your mind that was a defining or significant moment for you.
It’s an ADL story – going through a morning-long ADL training many years ago to be able to do anti-bullying sessions in some of the schools. There were two teenage girls in the training with us, the rest of whom were adults, and I was astounded at how devoted to it these girls were, they were so genuinely interested in the subject matter. I was a disaster at that age – I think most of us are – didn’t know up from down – and to see how grounded these girls were really had an impact on me.
How do you envision ADL’s Centennial Theme Imagine a World Without Hate?
A perspective on what’s been accomplished so far, and what still needs to be done. A celebration, but also a recognition that we can’t let things move backward.
If you had to write a six-word biography, what would it say?
She didn’t sleep much, but she sure covered a lot of ground. No, that’s too long – how about, loved her family a lot, and hoped to make the world a better place than it was before. I guess that’s even longer!