Cavallaro teaches several classes on human rights and oversees projects that take him and his students abroad to investigate human rights abuses.
“At any given time, you’ll see Jim in Guatemala vetting work for Panama, translating work and also coordinating things in Boston,” says Claret M. Vargas ’96, a third-year Law School student and co-president of HLS Advocates for Human Rights. “He has boundless energy and yet never makes you feel guilty in terms of how much work he does.”
While Cavallaro ran the Human Rights Program, Marques wrote a memoir. The goal, she says, was to preserve the stories of her mother and grandmother for the day when her daughter Mara would be able to understand the memories.
“Mara is at an age where she starts asking questions. She’s too young to understand some things, but I’d like to answer her questions,” Marques says. “And then I decided that before I forget, before it’s too late, before I don’t have the energy, I wanted to write.”
“Born Subversive: A Memoir of Survival,” was published in April 2008. It is currently being adapted into a play. Now, Marques spends her time as a research coordinator at the Harvard School of Public Health working on a global health initiative project.
MASTERS OF THE HOUSE
The pair live only a few blocks from Harvard Yard in a cozy home that they meticulously redecorated themselves. Every small detail is loaded with meaning, from the African masks hanging on the walls to the music playing in the background, “Obrigado Brazil” played by cellist Yo-Yo Ma ’76.
But before the next academic year, the two will pack up their belongings, rent out their house, and move back to where Cavallaro lived over 20 years ago—the Radcliffe Quad.
Along with their luggage, they will also bring their passion for bettering the world to Currier House. Indeed, the pair says they are most excited to advise undergraduates as they make major life decisions. But not everyone in the family shares the same priorities.
“My daughter’s most excited about the soft-serve ice cream,” Cavallaro says of their nine-year-old daughter Mara.
Vargas can vouch for the pair’s ability to connect with students. The couple regularly invites HLS students over to their house to watch human rights movies as they snack on food, courtesy of the couple.
For a breakfast meeting at 8 a.m. at the pair’s house, Cavallaro brought the students danishes and even offered to make them scrambled eggs, according to Vargas, a former Currier House resident.
“He’s basically the reason I went to Harvard Law School,” Vargas says. “The amount of enthusiasm and dedication to the Human Rights Program—there’s no comparison in terms of other programs and other directors.”
And Cavallaro says that becoming interim House Master might even help develop a renewed vigor for his work.
“At some level, I just find that being around students recharges my batteries,” he says. “There’s an enormous energy, idealism, and capacity that students bring to their work. I feel that energy, and it moves me as well.”
—Staff writer Danielle J. Kolin can be reached at dkolin@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.edu.