A Journalist Investigates Her Own Past

When my father’s friend asked me to meet him at the gas station next to KMEX Channel 34 in Los Angeles a few days after he passed away, I didn’t think much of it. I figured he was just one of the many people my father had touched in his life who just wanted to personally give his condolences. But he did not arrive empty handed. The box he brought me had been given to him by my father to be kept in a safe place. With him gone, there was no point in keeping it anymore.

After my newscast that night I went home guarding the box like a treasure chest. I sat down and went through each and every one of its contents. There were books, pictures and miscellaneous documents. What really caught my attention was an accordion type file folder covered in carved leather. In it were rent receipts, birth certificates, old letters and a small pamphlet commemorating the 25th anniversary of my uncle’s priesthood.
That’s where I found the bomb. Father Jose Antonio Cordero Salinas was thanking those who influenced his priestly vocation including his brother “The Reverend Jose Luis Cordero Salinas.” What did this mean? Why was the title Reverend in front of my father’s name? I immediately ran to my mother and asked for an explanation. She cried. “I know nothing,” she said. “When I met him he told me he had suffered a great disappointment with the church that had drawn him away from it.”

Maria Elena Salinas

I did not insist. Grieving the death of her husband was enough sorrow for my mother to bear. She and I now shared a secret. I became her confidant. But something changed in me. Suddenly everything I thought I knew about myself and my family was put into question. My Catholic upbringing. My family history.

Upon discovering my father’s secret I embarked on a journalistic investigation into my own past. For the next two decades I would come to meet family members I never knew and realized some didn’t even know we existed. I dug into the archives of the Catholic Church in Mexico and at the Vatican in search for answers. I needed to know why my father left the priesthood and what role my mother played in that life altering decision.
In the late 90’s, when I first considered writing a book about my career as a journalist in Spanish-language media witnessing the explosion of the Hispanic population in the United States, my father’s story was just one of the many anecdotes I would include.

There was so much I wanted to share: My experiences growing up in Los Angeles as a daughter of Mexican immigrants in a bilingual, bicultural environment. It would be a rags to riches story about a low-income family whose youngest daughter had become a successful network news anchor. I wanted to show that it is possible to juggle motherhood and a career, and tell the stories of news events I’ve covered that have left an indelible mark in my memory.

All that and more became part of my first book. But the more I discovered about my father’s past the more I realized that my story would have to revolve around him. After all, the more I learned about him, the more I learned about myself. The book is titled I am my Father’s Daughter: Living a life Without Secrets because I always wanted to be like my mother but I ended up being like my father. I inherited among other things, his convictions and social conscience. And contrary to the way he lived his life, I want to live with my daughters, a life without secrets.
 

By Maria Elena Salinas