With his mother and brothers on top of him about the importance of school, and with his father always working hard to provide a roof over their heads, the values of hard work were instilled into him early on in life. “The one thing I always take notice of is that you’ll never see a Mexican out on the street because we go out there and we work, we make it happen,” Alfred Valenzuela said.
This is your first Father’s Day celebration. Watching you become a father to Levi has given me the opportunity to see all the things I love about you in a new light. The day Levi was born, you automatically went into dad mode without hesitation. Thank you, for this journey. Happy Father’s Day!
I ask, “Why was my father incapable of saying the three magic words—’I love you’—to his children and wife?” Without getting all Freudian, I’ve learned that it goes back to his turbulent and harsh upbringing in a small Mexican rancho in the beautiful state of Michoacán: Zajo Grande. At the rancho, along with his parents and 10 siblings, he experienced/witnessed poverty, violence and death.
One thing is for certain between the pinky promise I made to my dad at 10-years-old – I was going to study and pursue higher education so that his hard work would pay off because he wanted me nowhere near the grapevines like him. Little did he know, I wanted to be just like him growing up. I realized all the sacrifices and obstacles he endured, and while Sundays were hard on me, they were hard on him too.
