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View Winners → Opinion Mar 05, 2021
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Alhambra is my hometown.
In 1941 my parents brought me home from the hospital in South Gate where I was born to our house on South 4th Street, which still stands today. Those first 10 years of my life in Alhambra filled me with happy memories – from my sister and I making the long walk to watch a movie at the El Rey Theater on Main Street to my Mom buying me my first baseball mitt at Kiner West sporting goods store to our Sundays at Saint Steven’s, where my family helped to start the growing parish.
My Dad and Mom were immigrants to the U.S. My Dad was a grocery store worker who was able to buy five acres of land when I was 10 and moved us to live on a farm where we grew lemons and raised chickens. From William Northrup Elementary School to UCLA, I never forgot my Alhambra roots.
And maybe it was that understanding of what it took for my Dad to purchase five acres of land for farming or later a four-unit apartment where we lived that made land the through-line of my career. Growing up, my parents instilled in me a deep sense of stewardship and responsibility.
