What Mike Davis’ family put into his ofrenda, and what he offered them
The head of one of Houston’s largest and most successful Hispanic businesses died early Friday morning from a heart attack.
His son-in-law, Mike Davis, was a powerful man. He was an elected official — Texas representative and mayor of Houston — and was the owner of a large-scale real estate development firm. He was the chairman of the Harris County Democratic party. He was a successful businessman and philanthropist.
And on Thursday, he had told his children that he loved them and thanked them for their help in creating a life that was better for his wife and three boys than the life he had known, or could have known, before the start of 2016.
Davis had lived his entire life within the Hispanic community of Houston. He had been born here. He had grown up in the neighborhood where his family lived. He had gone to high school with many of his neighbors and friends.
When he started dating his wife when he was 19, she was 17. He had grown up watching his older sister marry his father for the first time.
“And, for the first time, she had a friend who was marrying the man she fell in love with,” Davis said. “And I was his best man.”
He was part of the inner circle of Harris County Democratic power brokers, many of whom were from the Hispanic community. He attended gatherings with them at their homes and even in their cars. He helped arrange political fundraisers for them and gave them campaign contributions. He went to their weddings. He hosted their barbecues. He was like family to them.
In the spring of 2016, as the Republican presidential election cycle took root, he started getting texts and phone calls from his neighbors and friends in the Hispanic community, urging them not to vote for Donald Trump or Ted Cruz and telling them he was in their corner. Many of them were immigrants themselves. He told them to keep their heads up and to vote.
“They were telling me, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing,'” Davis said. “Keep doing what you’ve been doing.”
And he kept going. When he was first elected to Congress in 2010, he said he thought he would be doing his community a favor by staying away from the debates
