When Isidore B. Torres told his high school guidance counselor he wanted to go to law school, he was told he should consider trade school instead.
Not because the Bay City student did not have the smarts, but because becoming a lawyer was not the future many envisioned then for those with brown skin.
Rather than being discouraged by racial discrimination and misguided advice, the future Wayne County Circuit Court judge turned it into motivation, said his son Felipe Torres, who is also an attorney.
Judge Torres, who died Jan. 12 at age 73, was the son of a Mexican-born migrant farm worker who himself picked crops in Texas, Traverse City and Bay City before graduating from high school to get his bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Michigan State University and his law degree from Wayne State.