Valor: The American Odyssey of Roy Dominguez

Foreword

ix I first met Roy Dominguez in the mid-1980s when I was decidingwhetherornottorunfortheofficeofIndianasecretaryofstate. He seemed to be a bright, articulate young man with an interest in good government whose encouragement I much appreciated. I got to know him during that campaign and when I ran successfully for governor in 1988. Even though he had been stricken with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a potentially debilitating muscular disorder that limited his mobility, he did not allow that to prevent him from having an active, vigorous life. Admiring his tenacity and devotion to public service, I appointed him chairman of the Worker’s Compensation Board, the first Hispanic to head an Indiana state agency. His charge: to overhaul the rules and regulations of a board that had ceased to serve properly those in need of its services. With skill and patience he forged a consensus that modernized worker’s compensation and made the agency responsive to those to whomitministered.AfterRoyreturnedtonorthwestIndiana,Ifollowed his political career with interest. Reading Valor, Roy Dominguez’s absorbing life story, reinforced my admiration for him and his parents, whom I was honored to meet when he was sworn into office in 1989. It is a fascinating story that not only will serve as an inspiration to Hispanics and others from workingclass backgrounds but is a truly American odyssey of one who seized upon the country’s unique opportunities and made the most of them. I recommend Valor to young people who aspire to a life of public service. Foreword Evan Bayh The center of everyday life was the family-household and the proximate community. It was here that past values and present realities were reconciled, examined on an intelligible scale, and mediated. John Bodnar, The Transplanted The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics, whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men [and women] who can dream of things that never were. President John F. Kennedy, in Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 1963, addressing the Irish Parliament x ...