To Begin Again, We First Have to Look Back

Recognition, Acknowledgement (and the Occasional Floral Bath) Are Key to Renewal

At the beginning of last night’s Zócalo event, “How Do We Begin Again?,” moderator Gustavo Arellano asked everyone watching live at the ASU California Center at the Herald Examiner and online to close their eyes and think about somebody they’d lost in the last two years.

The author and Los Angeles Times columnist shared that the person in his own thoughts was a man he’d profiled but never had a chance to meet, Father Francisco Valdovino. The beloved priest of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mecca, California, spent all of 2020 protecting …