Attorney. Author. Activist.

 

Magda Montiel Davis left Cuba, her homeland, at age eight with a mix of sadness and fear, wonder and aspiration. She landed in Miami's inner city, where public-school education was dismal, but where she learned first-hand racial, cultural and socio-economic prejudice, invaluable lessons in the way of the real world.   

 

Despite the lack of academic education, she graduated magna cum laude from the University of Miami, had her first baby while attending law school on an honor scholarship and by age 24, had her law degree in hand. Soon, she not only found herself a mother of three under five years of age, she also founded what would then become the largest immigration law firm in the state of Florida. It started as a one-woman firm and grew into a force.

 

A former Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress, Magda was named one of the Best Lawyers in America. She also became the first recipient of the American Immigration Lawyers Association's national Pro Bono Award for founding South Florida's first pro bono immigration project, delivering free legal aid to thousands of immigrants.

 

At 60, she left the courtroom for the classroom, joining the famed University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program. Her first book, KISSING FIDEL: A Memoir of Cuban American Terrorism in the United States, won the Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction.

 

Today, Magda writes, speaks, and still fights the good fight. She divides her time between providing consultation services to immigration clients and writing, be it at her tiny beach cottage in Hollywood, Florida, her farmhouse in the Iowan countryside, and Iowa City—the first UNESCO City of Literature in the U.S.