Ode to MICHAEL. With love, from Laura Padilla

M: Magnanimous. Michael was noble and generous in his unique, larger-than-life way, with his time, wit, and heart.

I: Inimitable. No single one of us can fill his shoes. That’s why we must rally, unite, work together, and carry on his legacy.

C: Committed. To Tina. To mentoring. To scholarship. To accountability. To the mission.

H: Honored to know you from the time I entered the Academy in 1992 and to be mentored by you since then. Honored to be free to communicate honestly, and to love and support each other.

A: Ass kicker. Enough said. If you knew Michael, you know this is true.

E: Example to follow. Michael entered when there were a handful of seats at the table, and he worked tenaciously, ferociously, and at great cost to his own aspirations, to make the table bigger and to make sure we were there. We will build on the example Michael set – part of GO LILA’s mission – to increase Latina leadership in the Academy.

L: Loved. We love you Michael. I love you Michael.

A Tribute to Michael Olivas

Prof. Anita F. Hill

In “The Chronicles, My Grandfather’s Stories, and Immigration law: The Slave Traders Chronicle as Racial History,” (“My Grandfather’s Stories”)[1] Michael wrote about his raconteur grandfather Sabino Olivas and the elder Olivas’s stories of “politics, baseball, and honor.” One example from the 1990 essay was a tale of a New Mexican senator’s death in a plane crash that Sabino Olivas attributed to the politician’s attempts to help “Northern New Mexico Hispanics regain land snatched from them by greedy developers.” Another of his grandfather’s stories was about how a restaurant owned by Anglo Texans refused to serve Sabino Olivas and other soldiers of Mexican descent who were in route to a military training camp in Ft. Hays, Kansas. To his grandfather everything in the stories he told “was connected, and profound,” according to Michael.[2]

Like his grandfather, Michael was “predisposed to tell stories, and accordingly, to listen to them” because of his ethnic heritage and in Michael’s case his education in the humanities. Michael had a unique ability to see how different stories, particularly those of oppression, were strongly related. He recognized the significance of the links between the stories of the Cherokee Removal and Trail of Tears, Chinese Exclusion, The Bracero and Operation Wetback, and slavery.[3] He acknowledged that the social constructs that supported racism also supported bias based on gender[4] and sexual identity.[5]

And, in “My Grandfather’s Stories,” Michael pointed out that “The funny thing about stories is that everyone has one.”[6] I cannot separate Michael Olivas’s story and those that he went on to tell from the timeframe in which he came of age. Michael was born in Japan[7] in 1951, four years after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Mendez v. Westminster[8] that a California school district’s practice of segregating Mexican-American students from their White peers was unconstitutional. When Michael was six-years old, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka[9], declaring the unconstitutionality of Black student segregation. This period of judicial awareness of the narratives of Brown and Black children had an enormous impact on many of us who were growing into our awareness of race and racism. The connections between Mendez and Brown were clear and profound. A generation of outstanding legal scholars of color were forged from that time. Michael was a leader among us, for his immense contributions to law and policy related to immigration policy and discrimination against immigrants. His brilliance showed in his ability to teach and develop scholarship on these topics as well as support litigation and introduce legislation that would undo discrimination. And Michael’s ethos was drawn from the stories behind the cases as much as the decisions themselves.

I will always remember him for his genuine interest in his peers in law teaching and our stories. Like Michael, some of us were grappling with issues of racism and sexism in our schools and in the world. After I testified in Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearing, my tenure and my life were threatened. Michael actively supported me and my right to be heard. I weathered that initial storm. And he continued to champion me and my work. With pride and sorrow, I recall that on April 9 of this year, Michael sent me and a group of his friends an email with a link to my commentary on the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearing. Along with the link was a note of appreciation that spoke to Michael’s generosity and his belief in the law as an instrument of justice. He reminded me to make standing by and standing up for others an essential part of my story.

Michael Olivas’s story is much richer than I have the capacity to convey. Perhaps Dr. Augustina Reyes, Michael’s wife and the love of his life, is the only one who can tell it completely. But I’ll end my tribute to my friend on a personal note and a different quality that was essential Michael. Michael's love for Dr. Reyes, was always evident.  The joy he took in talking about her work and the work they did together was equally apparent. Michael and Tina showed me what a gift--blessing--it is to be with someone whom you love and respect deeply and whose values you share.  And they taught me the importance of sharing my appreciation for spouses and family and for others who are our champions and who make our lives joyful.

Posted for David P. Bell, University of Houston
Remarks upon receiving the Esther Farfel Award, UH's highest faculty award, May 8, 2001

My Life As a UH Faculty Member

Michael A. Olivas, William B. Bates Distinguished Chair in Law, UHLC

I should have turned 50 earlier.  I have attended this lunch several times before, either because I was being acknowledged for one of the earlier awards or because someone I knew was receiving the Farfel.  Thus, I have heard Nicolas Kanellos, Jim Gibson, Mark Rothstein, all win.  I could not bring myself to attend Paul Chu’s last year, for what I readily admit was the sheer petulance of being a semi-finalist myself, and thinking, “Hell, didn’t he win this before?” So, I know what it is like to be among the five Oscar nominees, insisting with clenched teeth that I was pleased for Gene Hackman (or even worse, Anna Pacquin) to win and that it was a genuine honor just to be nominated.  Yeah, right, and I’m Susan Lucci.

But as I have prepared these remarks, thought back over those luncheons, and taken congratulatory emails from friends (and especially nominators), and after Rudolfo Cortina called to tell me I had ten minutes -- not even the fifteen promised by the late Andy Warhol-- I was in a panic.  My footnotes are longer than ten minutes, and my texts much more synoptic yet.  The problem, I trust you realize, is that I do not get enough honors to be any good at this.  (At least until this year.) Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks, Jean Kirkpatrick, Desmond Tutu, Paul Chu -- all these folks collect awards and honorary degrees all the time, so they must know the deal.  I do not.  I’m more afraid I’ll be remembered as Sally Field, and say something really stupid.

And then, as I was beginning to despair, several things happened: on the same day, two of my several students who now teach at UH (COE and College of Business) both published new articles, ones that filled me with hope and joy.  That same day, one of my students helped pass an important piece of education legislation in the Texas legislature, where I have had several former students serve (two of them my former R.A.’s).  Then, I got a phone call from a lawyer in town who had also been my R.A., saying he had interviewed at the White House to be the director of the INS.  (Just so you know, I have had Republican and Democrat students.)  And then I saw a program flier for an international IP trip, hosted by a former student who is chair of Physics.  And Leah Gross won 2 CASE Awards for excellence in design.

All this within a 24 hour span. And there I had my idea for this brief moment: I am at the stage of my career where I am more delighted at my students’ achievements than I am at my own.  It isn’t even a close call. When they publish, get elected to judicial or legislative office, start a law firm, start a family, win an important case, I feel very fulfilled.  I delight in their returning to see me, their attending UHLC functions, their calls, their emails.  Don’t get me wrong - I’ve also had a half dozen students (that I know of) disbarred or admonished.  I cringe reading the Texas Law Journal disciplinary listings, the way my grandfather used to scan The Santa Fe New Mexican obituaries, to see how many primos or cuates he had lost.  But most have done extraordinarily well, and I celebrate them today with you.  Education is truly our society’s engine of upward mobility and stability.

As satisfying as a recent book or article or testimony is -- and there is almost nothing better than laboring at the keyboard and bringing forth a piece into print -- I really believe that nurturing young professionals, especially young professors, is the highest calling, the most rewarding vocation.  Now I know why my parents honored teachers; in our home, we often had our grade school teachers over to our house on important occasions, and they would sit in my father’s chair -- something I don’t even do to this day, three years after his too - early passing.  Every year, he would accompany each of us to the first day of school, a ritual that to this day haunts me.  (I am the oldest of ten children.)  He would say to each new teacher:  “I’m Sabino Olivas, and his teachers say my son Michael is smart but can be lazy.  I would like homework assigned every night, or a note from you telling me there is no homework.  You can punish him if he deserves it, but you must inform me so I can also punish him.”  No litigation in my family. Needless to say, I always dreaded the first day of classes, and classmates at my 25th high school reunion remembered these humiliating “teaching moments.”  But they had their desired effect, and I guess I always understood I would be a teacher of one sort or another, if only to gain my father’s approval.  And it was hard to win this approval. Years later, I would return to my native New Mexico, and run into one of my Dad’s friends, only to discover that they knew all about what I was up to -- writing a book or giving a lecture somewhere -- because he’d been bragging about me. But never to my face.  Praise, like allowance, was carefully rationed in the Olivas household.

 At a Cougars football game in the Astrodome, my UH/COE colleague Bob Houston once met my parents, about a dozen years ago, and to make nice, Bob told my dad that some day I would win the Esther Farfel Award -- something I had never even heard of at the time. Thereafter, every year Dad would ask me if I had won the damned thing, and of course, I had not.  (Susan Lucci, anyone? Harold Stassen?)

Thus, in the spirit of this extraordinary Award, I thank the Farfel  family who gave so generously.  I accept it on behalf of my parents, Sabino and Clara Olivas; my wife, Dr. Augustina H. Reyes; Dean Nancy Rapoport; all the colleagues who wrote letters for me, which were, fortunately, not subject to any Texas oath requirements for truthfulness (and believe me, they checked the statutes); and especially to Professor Irene M. Rosenberg, who made it her life’s work to secure this Award for me.  I think the committee simply gave in when they heard from her.  I accept it for all the many teachers who shaped me.  But for the most part, notwithstanding these wonderful friends and colleagues, I accept it on behalf of my hundreds and hundreds of students, from Ohio State English composition classes, and Education and Law students from the various schools where I have visited, but especially my UH students, and especially those who have become professors.  You are truly my greatest gift, and I thank you all for this honor at the midpoint of my life as a professor.  I will try to be worthy of it.

What other profession, perhaps save that other teaching vocation - - the religious life - - gives back so much to its practitioners?  To be good at it, we must contend with ideas, reconcile contradictions, grapple with evil - - especially the evil of ignorance and hatred.  But, with practice, and on a good day, we have our breakthrough articles, our wonderful classes, our worthwhile service. We should guard this splendid privilege and not squander it on self-indulgence, passing politics, commerce, or mean spiritedness.  In this transcendent sense, I share this with all of you, my UH colleagues.    Thank you.