Previous to that, he was assistant secretary of the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and special counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices at the U.S. Department of Justice.

[5] After graduating from Stanford Law School, Trasviña began his career as a deputy city attorney in San Francisco from 1983 to 1985, and then went to MALDEF in Washington, D.C., from 1985 to 1987 as a legislative counsel.

[5] During the Clinton Administration he was appointed to be Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices at the U.S. Department of Justice in 1997.

[6] After leaving DOJ in 2001 he was the director of the Discrimination Research Center in Berkeley and taught at Stanford Law School.

He has served on the boards of the La Raza Lawyers Association, CORO of Northern California, the Lowell High School Alumni Association (elected President in January 2016), the League of Women Voters and the Pacific Coast Immigration Museum, Latino Issues Forum, Campaign for College Opportunity and the Harvard Club of Southern California.