Biography « Miguel Rodez

ORIGINS

Miguel Rodez [Miguel Angel Rodez Roca] is a contemporary artist who was born at Monte y Arrollo, Havana, Cuba in 1956.   His parents were involved in the restaurant and catering business until their retirement.  In addition to his culinary skills, Miguel Rodez’s father was a very talented singer who performed traditional Cuban and Latin-American ballads as well as Spanish zarzuelas with much finesse. Although Miguel Rodez’s father did not pursue a musical career, he was quite popular at parties, where he let his talent flourish.

GEOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND

Golden Twist

At the age of thirteen, Miguel Rodez travelled with his parents and three siblings aboard one of the Cuban Freedom Flights from his native Havana, Cuba, to the United States.  The family arrived in Miami the day before Thanksgiving (November 26, 1969) and a few days later they relocated to New York City.  For the first few months in the U.S., Miguel Rodez and his relatives shared an apartment with another family at 46th Street, at Manhattan’s Theater District.  At that time, the area was gaining a well-deserved reputation as “Hell’s Kitchen” due to the high amount of crime in the area, which has since dwindled significantly.

As their economic conditions gradually improved, the family relocated to better housing.  They first moved to a one bedroom apartment at Washington Heights, which accommodations proved a bit challenging for a family of six, but a year later the family moved to a nicer two bedroom flat overlooking a park in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood., a venue known  to house artists in the heart of the city.  In the summer of 1972, the family moved to Union City, New Jersey overlooking New York’s beautiful skyline.   They remained there until the following summer, when the family relocated to Miami, Florida in August 1973.  By the time he graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School in 1975, the family was living at a charming Mediterranean-style home on Alton Road in an upscale Miami Beach neighborhood. After his high school graduation, Miguel Rodez spent a year and a half living in New York’s upper East Side, near the Guggenheim Museum, returning to Miami in 1977. Other than a stint in Bloomington Indiana while attending Indiana University School of Law from 1982 to 1985 and various extended overseas trips, he has called Miami home.

INTEREST IN HUMAN RIGHTS

Due perhaps to the temporal and geographic circumstances of his childhood, Miguel Rodez developed a strong affinity for the protection of human rights, particularly the rights of association and expression.  He chose to pursue a legal career where he could satiate his interest in human rights and became a lawyer in 1985.  As a lawyer, he developed a laudable reputation by providing extensive amount of effective legal services to the needy free or at a minimal charge.  He also engaged in extensive volunteer community service work, including encouraging artistic development in South Florida, promoting rapid transit, seeking fraternity among various ethnic groups, and providing sports opportunities for African-American and Latin-American children in the inner city.  For his community service, Miami Dade’s County Commission issued a Proclamation in his honor in 1994 and United States’ Attorney General Janet Reno awarded him a National Volunteer Service Award in 1995.  These community service activities were quite spiritually satisfying to Mr, Rodez, as it was something that he felt that he needed to do at the time, but giving free advice to the poor and working as a volunteer for various charitable organizations was obviously not financially rewarding. Consequently, in 1994, Miguel Rodez accepted a quasi-judicial position in the Human Rights field.  This move not only satisfied his interest in a subject that fascinated him, but it also enabled him to earn a reasonable income and to travel extensively.

In September 1996, slightly more than ten years after beginning his solo practice as a lawyer, Miguel Rodez ran for election, seeking the post of Circuit Court Judge.  Based on the legal reputation and devotion to public service of both candidates, the Miami Herald newspaper indicated that in their race, whichever candidate prevailed, the public would be the winner. However, Miguel Rodez lost the race in a close county-wide election to a well-connected and distinguished opponent who raised nearly four times more campaign funds than Rodez managed to accumulate to win the election.

 

Knowledge Quest

CULTURAL INVOLVEMENT

In 1993, Miguel Rodez joined the Board of Trustees for Miami’s Art in Public Places Trust, an organization that commissions artists to create public art for Miami-Dade County. In 1996, he became Chairperson of said Trust and continued to serve in that role until 1999.  During his tenure at Art in Public Places, Miguel Rodez participated in the selection of artists for small and major projects for the county, including major works for the Arscht Performing Arts Center, MetroRail,  and Miami International Airport.

As a Board Member and Chairperson, Miguel Rodez participated and led in the selection of artists for major projects, including such noteworthy artists as Jose Bedia,  Cundo Bermudez,  Anna Valentina Murch, Michelle Oka Donner, Martha Schwartz,Robert Rahway Zakanitch, and many others.

While involved in Art in Public Places, Miguel Rodez also participated in cultural professional non-profit organizations.  For example: He served as Chair of the Miami Symphony Orchestra.

He was a member of the editorial board of The DCBA Bulletin for the Dade County Bar Association.   He founded Herencia [Heritage] magazine for the Cuban National Heritage  organization in 1995 and founded CABA Briefs magazine for the Cuban American Bar Association  in 1997, the latter of which he almost entirely designed and illustrated through a publishing graphic design assistant.  Although Miguel Rodez left those editorial positions to pursue other in