Olivia Cadaval died on April 8, 2025, at the age of 82. Her passing leaves a void for the countless individuals whose personal and professional lives she touched. She was born and raised in Mexico City, where she attended the American School Foundation (Colegio Americano) before moving to the United States in 1961 to study at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. There, she met her lifelong partner and collaborator, David Bosserman. They moved to Chicago in 1964 and in 1968 to the Washington, DC, metropolitan area.Olivia's transition into the DC region coincided with an emerging Latino community that had come to the United States to escape social injustice and political unrest. She became aware of this community after attending the Latino Festival, now known as Fiesta DC, in the mid-1970s. Olivia became active in this community, working on various community-based cultural projects and organizations, including participating in the Latino Festival. This Festival was a constant in Olivia's personal and professional life.Olivia often said she was an outsider member of the Latino community because she did not live in the physical location of this community. David and Olivia had worked tirelessly to refurbish a home in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. Still, her commitment to the Latino community compelled her to move into the Washington Latino barrio toward the end of her graduate work. Family stories say that David was up for the move but was concerned about the parking challenges in the District. Olivia had to promise to find a house with parking. They settled into a row house on Irving Street in the heart of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood. Olivia was very much in her element, surrounded by the vibrant activities of the local Latino grocery stores, community centers, barbershops, and restaurants.Their home, christened La Orilla (The Edge), was the base of Olivia's community and academic work. Over the years, they hosted colleagues on short-term and extended stays. They were known for their yearly Día de los Reyes (Three Kings) parties that filled the home with great food, music, and stories. There was always room at Olivia's kitchen table for one more. For those of us fortunate enough to have joined David and Olivia on one of their regular walks through the neighborhood, the experience was delightful. It seemed like she knew someone on every block. Over the years, she explored every corner of her beloved Mount Pleasant community.Before working at the Smithsonian Institution, Olivia directed El Centro de Arte, a Washington, DC, arts organization that created opportunities for Latino artists. She started graduate work in the late 1970s, pursuing a PhD in American Studies at George Washington University. The Latino Festival became her dissertation research topic.Her tenure at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (CFCH) began in the Summer of 1976 when she worked as a cultural liaison for the Bicentennial Festival. This event celebrated the nation's two hundredth anniversary and took place for 12 weeks. After completing her PhD, she returned to the CFCH as a curator. At the Smithsonian, she collaborated with many colleagues across the Institution. She was part of the Latino Working Committee, which worked to create more interpretation opportunities for presenting Latino topics and sought greater representation in leadership.Olivia had a highly productive professional life. She curated many Smithsonian Folklife Festival programs including US Virgin Islands (1990), US-Mexico Borderlands (1993), Culture and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (1994), The Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin (1998), El Río (2000), Nuestra Música (2004 and 2005), México (2010), Colombia: The Nature of Culture (2011), and Perú: Pachamama (2015). She also curated several exhibitions such as the American Folklore Society (AFS)’s Notable Folklorists of Color (2019), La Esquina (2018), Culture and Environment in the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin (2003), Write Here (2001), and Nuestras Voces en la Capital de Washington. While at CFCH, she developed training workshops on how to conduct field research and how to develop Festival programs. From Festival program research and the documentation that was collected at the Festival, she developed educational kits such as the Borders and Identity: Identidad y Frontera kit that was used in public schools and community cultural centers.Olivia published her dissertation, Creating a Latino Identity in the Nation's Capital: The Latino Festival (Garland, 1998), and she co-edited Curatorial Conversations: Cultural Representation and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (University Press of Mississippi, 2017). She was an active writer, publishing many journal articles and Smithsonian Folklife Festival essays.Olivia joined AFS in 1979 and received the AFS Américo Paredes Prize in 2012. She was selected as an AFS Fellow in 2018 and received the Smithsonian Institution's Innovation in Education Achievement Award in 2006.As a scholar, activist, mentor, and cultural worker, Olivia was driven by the principles of cultural democracy and reciprocal learning. She saw her role as a curator and cultural worker as creating spaces for people to speak for themselves. She encouraged countless young scholars and community members to pursue cultural heritage work. After retiring in 2017, Olivia remained active in her community, working with young scholars and consulting on projects.In many ways, Olivia's approach to work was the same as her approach to life. She was about relationships and community. Her son Arnold describes Olivia's life as having many families. Granddaughter Jaime fondly remembers her storytelling talents, which kept the memories of long-gone family members alive.Descanse en paz (Rest in peace)¡Olivia Cadaval, Presente!
Cynthia L. Vidaurri (Thu,) studied this question.