Book Reviews
A Father’s Legacy to the Latina Katie Couric
I Am My Father’s Daughter: Living a Life Without Secrets
by María Elena Salinas with Liz Balmaseda
María Elena Salinas, an
Emmy-award-winning
Spanish-language journalist,
has interviewed everyone from dictators to
heads of state to
everyday people. One
of her most memorable experiences was
covering the recent
immigration marches
in Los Angeles.
One cannot blame
her for being passionate about the issue of
undocumented immigration. Although Salinas was born
in Los Angeles and raised in both
Los Angeles and Mexico, her father
was an undocumented immigrant.
But was she an American, since she
was born in the United States and
her mother had a green card, or was
she one of “them”? In her book, she
recalls that while her
father was an intellectual
who held several degrees
and could “debate the fine
points of philosophy, law,
real estate and baseball in
six languages,” in others’
eyes, he was something
else: “a one-dimensional
statistic. The worst of the
bigots might have had two
easy words to describe
him: ‘illegal alien.’”
Salinas, the co-anchor for
Noticiero Univision, started her
journalism career at a small Spanish
broadcast station—KMEX-TV
Channel 34—in Los Angeles. The
central theme of her book is about
discovering her father’s secret past,
that he had been a priest in Mexico
before he met and married her
mother. That was partly why he
moved to the United States.
Salinas set out to understand why
he left the church—partially because
of her curiosity as a journalist, and
partially because as a daughter, she
wanted to know. She traveled several
times to Mexico to interview priests
and her father’s family members,
some of whom she had never met.
She shared many views with her
father. “When I read his letters
about what he felt about war, when
I see what his convictions were, I see
I inherited his convictions, his
dreams of social justice,” she said.
—By Carmen Cusido
Grassroots-Activist Women
Lighting The Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America by Karenna Gore Schiff
When one thinks of
women who helped
shape America’s history,
most people think of Betsy Ross,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eleanor
Roosevelt or even Hillary
Clinton. However, Karenna Gore
Schiff’s novel tells the story of
nine women who worked behind
the scenes of major political
movements of the 20th century.
Gore Schiff, the oldest daughter of former Vice President Al
Gore, begins her book profiling
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist
and anti-lynching activist and the
daughter of slaves. Other profile
subjects include Alice Hamilton,
who fought for better health con-
ditions of the working
class; Virginia Durr,
a former segregationist who fought for
black civil rights;
Dolores Huerta, who
co-founded the
United Farm
Workers; and Helen
Rodriguez-Trias, a
doctor who campaigned vigorously to
stop coerced sterilization.
Gore Schiff, who grew up surrounded by politics, writes that
“the positive turns of American history have often come about
through unheralded efforts of those
who took heart in dark days, guid-
ing politics—and
politicians—toward
our nation’s ideals.”
She found that the
womens’ “stories give
insigt into how political movements are
built” from the
ground up.
Yet, Gore Schiff’s
book often reads more
like a history textbook
than a biography of nine women
pioneers. While the subject of the
book and the women themselves
are fascinating, the book does not
present the most interesting
account of their struggles.
—By Carmen Cusido
