SAN ANTONIO — Tony Diaz is spreading the Latino libro (book) gospel on San Antonio’s West Side with a blue blazer and some banned books.
“Come get your banned books! Banned in Arizona, unleashed in San Antonio at the Cultural Arts Center Latino book and gift store,” Diaz shouted.
Even though he lives three hours away in Houston, he’s excited to curate the Guadalupe Latino Bookstore and its gift shop, the only one of its kind in this barrio. This bookstore rests in the heart of the West Side — in front of the bookstore is a bus stop where Hispanic Elvis catches the number 68 to downtown.
“We are in a book desert and just the fact that book deserts exists is proof of structural discrimination,” Diaz said.
It’s the same structural discrimination he says he realized when he became the first Chicano to receive a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Houston. He sees it even more now that he’s working in the most impoverished ZIP codes, such as the 78207, where 95% of students are considered economically disadvantaged.
Diaz walked outside the store and pointed across the street to one of the three schools that are walking distance —J.T. Brackenridge Elementary School. The other two are Lanier High School and Tafolla Middle School.
“There’s three schools within walking area of right here. Right now, they are in a book desert,” Diaz said. “They are about to be a part of a national literary movement and we are going to make sure that they have the leading curriculum in art, literature and culture.”
Not only will there be books from Latino and Latina authors, there’s handcrafted coffee cups as well as clothing and art from the illustrators. Starting in 2022, Diaz said there will be a monthly author series where they will feature one Texas author.
“We want writers from the Valley (Rio Grande Valley), Houston, from El Paso, from Dallas, todos lados (everywhere),” Diaz said.
The bookstore officially opened on Oct. 1 and will also serve as the main information center for the West Side’s Cultural Arts District and Diaz said this couldn’t have happened at a better time.
The bookstore is a part of Guadalupe Cultural Arts, a nonprofit that has served this barrio for over 40 years, and executive director Cristina Ballí explained how vital this resource can be.
“If we are not seeing anything in print that relates to us that reflects our true history, we are getting taught wrong and we are getting indoctrinated wrong,” Ballí said.
Authors like Sandra Cisneros, Carmen Tafolla, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto and Adan Medrano — names and stories that a barrio can relate to.
“Because Carmen Tafolla, Texas poet laureate, will then walk across the street with us, with a lesson plan, a school visit and I’m happy to help as well since I’m a national expert on Mexican American studies,” Diaz said.
That Latino representation alone can help bridge the gap. According San Antonio Youth Literacy, the ratio of books per child in low-income neighborhoods is one age-appropriate book per 300 children.
“We want them to grow up expecting it to rain books, expecting poet laureates to cross their paths,” Diaz said. “And my personal dream is that in a few years, we are just debating if they are growing up to be novelist, poets, or if we are going to lose them to the stems.”
Whichever path these chamacos (children) choose, Diaz is glad that they have more options.