I am a product of all that East Anaheim has had to offer its communities over the last forty-five years.

My parents taught me that hard work and perseverence would help me to reach my goals. They also inculcated in me the idea that only I could own my decisions, and that at the end of the day I would answer only to my own conscience. I was also taught that integrity has a price, but selling out is even costlier to one's soul. My sister, Maricela, and I speak two languages fluently because that is how our parents planned it; and they made sure it happened.

"Know who you are and say it like you mean it," my mother would say often. My father taught me in his quiet and gentle manner to be a gentleman. Yet my mother also taught me a deep intolerance for all injustice. So at times the gentle side is overwhelmed by the sense of justice at whatever the price.

I hail from two regional traditions that are part of a proud country. My father, Tomás, was born in Guanajuato, México, and Zacatecas, México is where my mother came from, respectively.