Iconic writers movement Nuestra Palabra celebrates 20 years
No one would have thought that what started in 1998 as a small group of aspiring young Latino writers, chatting away with big ideas at the Chapultepec Lupita Mexican restaurant in Houston, eventually would become a movement that had gained national recognition.
Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say will showcase dozens of accomplished poets and writers reading samples of their creations today at Talento Bilingue de Houston from 7 to 9 pm.
“It’s been a wonderful, 20year party,” said Tony Diaz, a professor of Mexican American Literature at Lone Star College who is recognized as the principal founder of Nuestra Palabra. The phrase means “Our Word” in Spanish, and the group came together at a time when the Latino written word didn’t matter much to the mainstream publishing industry, he said.
The group eventually moved to Talento Bilingue, a cultural center east of downtown, where they still host a monthly free workshop that includes writing classes and the readings for anyone interested. Over the years, the Houston group flourished and become an activist movement for Latino literature and education.
Among their nationally recognized projects, they launched an audacious campaign called Librotraficante, or book traffickers, where they drove in caravans to Arizona to “smuggle” and distribute Mexican-American books when the state passed a law in 2012 prohibiting the texts in schools.
Producing results
In Texas, they have been at the forefront of the campaign for Mexican-American studies in the state schools, a four-year battle that is now producing results. This month, the State Board of Education voted to create an elective curriculum preliminarily called “Ethnic Studies: An Overview of Americans of Mexican Descent.”
But in the literary realm, Nuestra Palabra “has not only launched the careers of local writers but brought national writers to the heart of the community,” said fiction writer and teacher Icess Fernandez Rojas.
“For so many of us, going to the monthly Nuestra Palabra showcases were the first time we saw or heard our identities reflected back at us,” said Fernandez, who is also a journalist that started her career at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Back when Nuestra Palabra began, “the literary world, as it still very much is, was white and male, as were a lot of the accepted narratives that were worthy of ‘literature,’” explained Leslie Contreras Schwartz, author of the book “Fuego”, published by Saint Julian Press in 2016.
She is about to publish a second book called “Nightbloom & Cenote.”
Leslie Contreras remembered that 20 years ago, she didn’t think her early writings would be of interest to anybody, but her brother Russel Contreras, another Nuestra Palabra’s founder and now a journalist with the Associated Press, encouraged her to share a poem at the first group’s reading.
Now, 20 years later, Contreras can count among her accolades being a finalist for the 2018 Houston Poet Laureate and the 2017 Tupelo Press Dorset Prize, judged by nationally renowned poet and critic Ilya Kaminsky.
Nuestra Palabra is now recognized as a stepping stone in a movement that helped launch the careers of accomplished writers and educators. Some of them have created other poetry groups in the city, helping to make Houston a literary hub in the country.
Expanding the efforts
Lupe Mendez, a member and one of the group initiators and a teacher, founded the Tintero Project (Inkwell Project), as an emerging writer’s arm of Nuestra Palabra. Most of the initial participants of NP focused on English language writings. Tintero is expanding the movement with workshops and open mics also in Spanish, Indigenous Languages and Portuguese. They recently launched the Ink Well podcast showcasing writers and community movers and shakers.
To Mendez, Nuestra Palabra provided much-needed space for Latino writers with little experience or places to learn and expose their creations. He has a forthcoming book, “Why I am Like Tequila,” scheduled to be published by a Michigan publishing house.
Other projects seeded by members of Nuestra Palabra include Stephanie Saint Sanchez’s all-female film event “Señorita Film Festival” in Houston.
But their influence has surpassed the perimeters of the city.
An example is The Royal Mexican Players theater group, a “national touring performance troupe” founded in Houston by Alvaro Saar Rios, who graduated from Northwestern University. His acclaimed play “Luchadora!,” about a woman who became a Mexican wrestler was presented in Houston, New York and other cities. He later took the group with him when he became a professor of Playwriting & Analysis at the University of Wisconsin.
“I don’t think I would be doing this if it wasn’t for Nuestra Palabra,” Saar said. “I feel it gave me permission to write, it inspired me with its workshops, and now I also teach playwriting and work with young people to inspire them,” he added.
Building inspiration
And today, Nuestra Palabra continues to inspire new writers.
“It’s time to re-imagine the role” of the group, Diaz said of the anniversary. He said that “the world has changed and we now have tools to spread our work that was not available before,” such as self-publishing, social media, podcasts and live streaming of poetry performances.
The sad thing, Diaz said, “is that years ago we were pushing for mainstream publishers to pay attention to Latino writers, but they didn’t care.” They went to national book festival to showcase artists and participate in literature panels, “but at the end, they just say thank you and goodbye.”
Now that the traditional publishing industry is struggling to keep afloat, “perhaps they would look back and realize that they missed an opportunity” as they are looking at last for “ethnic writers” in an attempt to stay relevant with the U.S. changing demographics.
“Would they now be interested in Latino authors like those we have inspired in Houston?” Diaz wondered.
If so, he believes that publishers should catch up quickly, because there are already empowered Hispanic writers that have learned the ropes and are capable of promoting their “Palabras,” their words on their own.