We all need role models — heroes to blaze trails for us, to inspire us to do more.
It must have been very difficult for then 22-year-old Eleanor Oducayen when she entered prestigious Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California in Berkeley in 1969. There were no other pinays in her class. In fact, they had never seen one at Boalt Hall. More than that, Eleanor, was the first-ever pinay at any law school in California. Eleanor had no role models to look up to in the profession she aspired to enter. She was it.
When she graduated from Boalt and passed the bar in 1972, Eleanor was hired as a Deputy Attorney General in the California Attorney General’s Office in Sacramento, the first Filipino to hold that post. Of the 32 Deputy AGs in her office, 30 were males, and almost all of them were white. In short order, Eleanor ascended the ranks and was appointed Administrative Law Judge to handle unemployment insurance cases. She rose to become Chief Judge in her department. Both were firsts for her as well.
In 1981, when there was a critical mass of Filipino attorneys in Northern California, Eleanor and a dozen of us organized the Filipino Bar Association of Northern California. Although virtually all of us were men, there was no question of who was most qualified to lead us to become a professional organization. Eleanor was unanimously elected president of FBANC.
After 35 years of working for the state of California, Eleanor quietly retired this month and was set to celebrate her retirement with her husband and her now-grown kids by going to dinner in San Francisco from their home in Oakland. On the way, they stopped by a friend’s retirement party in Oakland’s Chinatown.
It was not a friend’s retirement party, as it turned out, it was hers. Eleanor was genuinely surprised to see her family members, her fellow judges and old colleagues from the Attorney General’s office, some of whom flew in from Los Angeles, and her FBANC and community friends who all had been waiting at the Silver Dragon to shower her with warmth and affection in a testimonial roast.
The surprise party was planned by Eleanor’s husband of 35 years, Mike Nisperos, who will readily admit that his role model is his wife.
Mike, a U.S. Marine veteran, did two tours in Vietnam and was returning to Oakland in 1971 when, at a party, he met Eleanor, just graduating from law school. In terms of academic accomplishments, they seemed an odd pair at the time, but love conquers all. After a brief courtship, Mike and Eleanor married and Mike went to college on his G.I. Bill, graduating from UC Berkeley in 1975, and then, following Eleanor’s lead, going on to Boalt Hall as well, graduating in 1978.
Recently, Mike accepted an appointment as Deputy Attorney General for the Marianas Islands to serve in Saipan, where he will be joined by Eleanor. They have two kids, Marlo, a Deputy District Attorney in Sonoma County, and Mike Jr., a law student at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.
By any standard, Eleanor Oducayen Nisperos fully fits the bill of a positive role model for the Filipino American community.