I Am My Father's Daughter: Living a Life Without Secrets – A News Professional's Story of Family Discovery and Personal Balance

by María Elena Salinas

Five nights a week, María Elena Salinas looks into a television camera and delivers the news to millions of television viewers. But when the newscast is over, she is like so many other women across the a wife and a mother, struggling to find balance between her personal and professional life. When María Elena accidentally discovers her recently deceased father had once been a Catholic priest, all she knew was suddenly thrown into question. Turning her investigative eye on herself for the first time, she begins a long, arduous journey for answers.

In I Am My Father's Daughter, María Elena tells the amazing story of her journey to the top amid her struggle to come to terms with family secrets. From her childhood in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of Los Angeles and her adolescent years spent working in a sweatshop, to her astonishing break into network television, along with her coverage of some of the world's major events and disasters, Salinas frames her life behind the camera in the same warm and straightforward tone that is her on-air trademark.

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Mélina LeBe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Assez facile à lire avec un niveau d'Espagnol intermédiaire/avancé. je croyais que ce serait écrit sous forme d'histoire mais c'est plus des bouts de vie mis un après l'autre donc c'est un peu spécial à lire... Les passages où elle parle de ses aventures en tant que journaliste sont vraiment supers, les autres... m'ont fait pratiquer mon Espagnol!

[Suzanne Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good Spanish practice but weakly written story of the famous univision news reporter seeking why her father left the priesthood.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I could sit here and say this is your average memoir of a famous personality - and it is. Except to me, it isn't. It's a memoir of a person like me and that makes a difference. Hearing the story of another Latina of immigrant parents resonates deep within me. She gives a voice to my story. It's something that many don't understand. It's important to be exposed to successful Latino/a faces to show it can be done - more than si se puede - si se pudo and to know that there are others like you out there.

In her memoirs, Maria Elena Salinas recounts her childhood, her search for her father's history, her rise as a journalist at a time when Spanish media was in it's infancy, her glimpse into the stories she reported on that touched her heart, her interviews with world leaders - but it's her letter to her daughters - Julia and Gaby - that I believe are the biggest impact of this book. If you read nothing else in this book, read the letter opening Chapter nine. It's nothing short of amazing.

[Alma Garcia]

A box given to the author after her fathers death reveals his secret: he had been a priest. She spends years searching for the details, finding his family in Mexico and finding herself. In the end she is comsummed with finding out if her father left the priesthood for her mother... She is given a letter in Latin from the vatican; she ends up asking other priest in Miami to translate the letter among them Father Albert Cutié how it turns out has just recenlty left the priesthood.



What I found hard to believe is that a journalis couild live her hole life and not know when her parents were married. In the end she realised that her sister has her mothers wedding band on a necklace. Inside is their wedding date, which is only three day after the last mass he said.



Valgame Dios!

[Hilda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book. It was well-written and easy to read. Salinas has had an interesting, eventful life. Her story of how she - practically accidentally - became the television personality she is today, intertwined with her personal sotry and parents' love story keep it from being like the usual journalist's memoir.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such an intelligent dedicated hard working Latina role model ...loved this book.