BOYLE HEIGHTS: May 2 was a very special day for a very special mother. The Mexican Mother of the Year Association selected Alicia Salinas Ayala to reign as this year’s Mexican Mother of the Year, honoring her before more than 100 family members and friends at a special event celebrated in Boyle Heights on May 2.
Among the guests were elected officials who presented Mrs. Ayala with proclamations acknowledging her prominent achievement. Among them were Senator Gloria Romero, Assembly member Kevin DeLeon, and L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina. Dr. Marie Torres of AltaMed Health Services delivered a special acknowledgement to their winning nominee.
Mrs. Ayala’s selection as the 58th honoree continues a long tradition of honoring mothers of Mexican descent begun in 1951. The event annually honors a deserving woman of Mexican origin or descent for her contributions of time, talent and commitment to family, church and community, thereby promoting positive role models and calling attention to Catholic ideals, cultural pride and traditional family values.
This celebration of motherhood and community service was the original idea of Consuelo de Bonzo, owner of La Golondrina Restaurant at Olvera Street and founder of the Franciscan Guild, a group of Catholic women now known as the Mexican Mother of the Year Association based at St. Mary’s Church in Boyle Heights.
Mrs. Ayala (center) poses with former honorees.
For more than twenty years, Mrs. Ayala has served as a passionate advocate and dedicated volunteer for various community organizations and causes. She was a pioneer facilitator and instructor in preventive health education for the Spanish-speaking community through Santa Martha Hospital in East Los Angeles and community groups convened at St. Lucy’s, St. Alphonsus and Soledad churches. Her volunteer involvements over the years have included:
· Debate judge for the Adelante Youth Program
· Health Care Press Conference speaker - Lt. Governor John Garamendi
· Member, LAUSD Student Assessment Review Board
· Surveyor for Beverly Oncology
· Cancer Society Patient Services Support Group Facilitator
· Recruiter for the LAUSD Kinder-Elementary Integration Program
· Facilitator of the Community Start, Quit Smoking Clinics
Mrs. Ayala served as a peer mentor at AltaMed Senior Buena Care Center in 2007 and has served on the AltaMed Health Services Corporation Board of Directors for the past six years as a consumer representative. She serves on both the Quality Management Committee and Legislative and Advocacy Committee for the agency. Her participation in community town halls has made her a strong advocate for preserving services and affordable health care for seniors.
Mrs. Ayala has received more than sixteen awards and certificates of recognition for her contributions to numerous local health and education programs at local schools and community centers. She has been a resident of City Terrace for forty-seven years and is a member of St Lucy’s Church choir.
When notified of her selection as the 2009 Mexican Mother of the Year, Ayala said that she was very undeserving of the honor but would accept it in name of the many faceless and nameless mothers in her community for whom she has advocated and whom she has represented these many years.
She considers herself to be primarily a caregiver for the sick and elderly and hopes to live to be one hundred because there is so much work to be done
The daughter of Maria del Refugio Gomez of Sonora Mexico and Jose S. Salinasof Monterey Nuevo Leon Mexico, Mrs. Ayala was born in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of First Street and Evergreen Street more than seven decades ago.
At the age of two, her family relocated to Cananea , Sonora, Mexico where she received her primary education. She was five when the death of her father left her mother caring for three very young daughters: Alicia, Ofelia and Bertha. The Salinas family returned to Los Angeles when Ayala was 15 years of age. She continued her education at Stevenson Jr. High and Roosevelt and Central high schools but the loss of her father forced her to go to work at an early age to help her mother support the family.
The honoree married Rodrigo Ayala who became a successful newspaperman at La Opinion in Los Angeles. The forty-four year marriage was blessed with two sons: Rodrigo and Raul. Rodrigo has worked for the U.S. Postal Service for many years and Raul is a successful criminal lawyer in Los Angeles.
A woman of deep devotion, Mrs. Ayala was also committed to higher education. She and her husband struggled to give their sons a Catholic education at Santa Isabel Parochial School and Salesian High School. At great personal sacrifice they supported their son Raul who graduated from Pomona College in Claremont and earned a degree at the University of California Hastings College of Law.
Now a widow of fourteen years, Ayala is a grandmother of five and still lives in the house where her sons grew up.
Following the tradition of more than half a century, a Mariachi Mass was celebrated in Mrs. Ayala's honor at St. Mary’s Church in Boyle heights on Saturday, May 2, followed by a reception and luncheon in the Parish Hall. All proceeds from the luncheon and the group’s other fundraising events benefit church projects.
LOS ANGELES: Mother’s Day is one of those special days celebrated throughout the world. The celebration of motherhood is a historical tradition dating back to a number of ancient cultures that paid tribute to mothers as goddesses.
In most countries the celebration of Mother’s Day is a recent holiday derived from the original U. S. celebration that first introduced by Anna
Reeves Jarvis in 1858 as a day for families to honor their mothers.
When Anna Reeves Jarvis passed away in 1905, her daughter Anna Jarvis pledged to realize her mother’s lifelong dream of creating a national day to honor mothers. She began her campaign by handing out white carnations to congregants at her mother’s church in West Virginia and in 1908 the church granted Anna’s request to hold a special Sunday service in honor of mothers, a tradition that quickly spread to other churches in other states. In 1909, Anna dedicated herself to a full-time letter-writing campaign imploring politicians, clergymen and civic leaders to institute a national day for mothers.
By 1912, her efforts resulted in her home state of West Virginia adopting an official Mother’s Day and two years later, the U. S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution, signed by President Wilson, establishing a national Mother’s Day, and has since been celebrated by Americans on the second Sunday in May.
Ironically, Anna Jarvis never had children of her own, yet that didn’t keep her from making the celebration of Mother’s Day her lifelong mission. Mother’s Day, therefore, is also celebrated in honor of women, who although did not bear their own children have often served as surrogate mothers. Many of them have been teachers who have taken countless children under their wing, foster or adoptive parents who have provided loving homes, stepmothers who have helped raise their spouse’s children, aunts and uncles, grandparents and others who have mentored and nurtured children not their own but with whom they have shared a special bond of love.
FAMOUS MOMS: Among the
world’s famous mothers, a few come
to mind, among them Mother Teresa, Josephine Baker, Isabel Allende, Gloria
Estefan and Ellen Ochoa.
The Albanian-born nun and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Mother Teresa,
a spiritual mother to the downtrodden, touched millions with her missionary
work, aiding lepers, the blind, the disfranchised and the terminally ill.
Josephine Baker, who fled home when she was 13 and became the toast of
Broadway, France and Europe as one of the best known jazz entertainers, worked
with the Red Cross during World War II, gathered intelligence for the French
Resistance and entertained troops in Africa and the Middle East.
After the war, she and her second husband adopted 12 children from
around the world, prompting her to return to the stage in the 1950s to finance
the project. She later returned to the U.S. where she crusaded for racial
equality, refusing to entertain in any club or theater that was not integrated,
helping to break the color bar at many establishments.
Novelist, journalist and playwright Isabel Angelica Allende, the
author of several novels and a short fiction collection, as well as plays and
stories for children, was born in Lima, Peru, but was raised by her mother in
Santiago, Chile.
Her most memorable works include House of the Spirits (1985) and Paula
(1995), a heartrending account of the circumstances surrounding the lengthy
illness and death of her daughter in 1991. Paula, who was only 28 when she
died, worked as a volunteer in poor communities in Venezuela and Spain
dedicating her skills as an educator and psychologist. In December 1996,
Allende paid homage to her daughter by establishing the Isabel Allende
Foundation.
Singer, songwriter, actor and author of
children’s books, Gloria Estefan
has been entertaining fans since she joined The Miami Latin Boys in the
1970s. Establishing a music empire with her husband Emilio Estefan, the couple
became the first Hispanics to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame of the National Academy of Popular
Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame. Donors to many philanthropic causes, the couple
formed the Gloria Estefan Foundation to support charities for disadvantaged
youngsters.
Selected by NASA in 1990, Los Angeles native Ellen Ochoa became the
world’s first Hispanic female astronaut in 1991. A mission specialist and
flight engineer, Ochoa is a veteran of four space flights, logging more than
950 hours in space. Her technical assignments have included flight software and
computer hardware development and robotics development, testing and training.
Besides being an astronaut, researcher and engineer, Ochoa is a classical
flutist and mother of two.
LOS ANGELES: La Fonda Wilshire pays special tribute to all Mothers beginning Friday, May 8 through Mother's Day Sunday, May 10, featuring live mariachi and ballet folklorico performances all weekend long.
The restaurant will be celebrating with traditional Mexican cuisine and a Passion Fruit Margarita and special Mother's Day Brunch (10:30 am, 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm). Friday and Saturday Shows: 7 pm., 9:30 pm, 11 p.m.
La Fonda Wilshire is located at 2501 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. For reservations or more information, call (213) 380-5053 or visit lafondala.com.
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