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✩ xi ✩ Preface They say life is a journey. If so, I haven’t reached the station yet, but for all I know, it’s just around the next corner. I don’t want to go away without giving the many members of my extended family, my friends across the country, and everyone else some idea of just who old Tio Mando (Uncle Mando) was. Sure that’s egotistical, but it’s also the prerogative of an old man—eighty-six years old on my last birthday. I just hope this story is interesting enough for folks to read. More importantly, I hope it inspires some youngster—inside or outside my family, Latino, black, or white—to keep on fighting to succeed when the odds against success are so great that the easiest course would be to give up. I once lived in a small house with nine relatives, and my sleeping space was any unoccupied spot—often as not on the floor. I sold magazines and tamales door to door. I picked up chunks of ice from an ice plant in San Diego and beat the ice company’s deliverymen to the door with cheaper ice. Later I dined in the White House, met some of the world’s most powerful people, and helped shape the future of my country and the world. I’m proud of all that, and I hope you can share my pride. This is more than my life’s story, though. It’s our love story, Beatriz’s and mine. More than half a century ago, Beatriz Serrano became my wife. Although it might have made a more exciting and salacious story if I’d had a succession of wives, she is still my wife. Bea was the one I wanted to marry. She’s the one I’ve grown old with and the only wife I ever wanted. If I have earned respect for any achievements, my lovely wife Bea deserves a lot of the credit. I love her, and I dedicate our story to her. Figure 1. Andres Rodriguez (Armando’s father), circa 1939. ...

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