“A story that
begins in revolutionary Mexico and travels to Hollywood during the film
industry's transition from silent films to talkies, The Five Acts of Diego León breaks greater silences—taboos of race
and sexuality, of reinvention and assimilation—in a fantasy called
Hollywoodland.” --Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street
"Fresh,
surprising, and delightful. There is nowhere this gifted writer can't go."
--Luis Alberto
Urrea, author of The Hummingbird's
Daughter
“An elegant,
startling vision of a Mexican in America, The
Five Acts of Diego León proclaims the ascendance of a unique new talent,
Alex Espinoza—a Chicano in America certain to surpass the fame of his novel’s
silent Hollywood hero. Espinoza takes our literature from a mute, black-and-white
era to a national stage with full-spectrum color, in high-tech surround sound.”
--Dagoberto Gilb, author of Woodcuts of
Women
These are
fabulous reviews, Alex! Te lo mereces! I've been thinking about how you
switched from fiction to historical fiction, but Still Water Saints does have hints of historical fiction. There is
history within Still Water Saints,
yes?
Alex Espinoza:
I suppose there are some elements of historical fiction in Still Water Saints. But I think of it as
somewhat of an “alternate” history, one where the city of Agua Mansa was not
destroyed in a flood in the 1860s, but one where the settlement thrived and
grew into another Southern California working class suburb and exists alongside
all the others dotting the landscape.
Amelia Montes:
When did you first begin creating The
Five Acts of Diego León? What brought you to this story?
Alex Espinoza:
I was doing research for Still
Water Saints and was nearing the completion of the manuscript and working
on edits with my agent when I came across an interview with Ricardo Montalbán
in the LA Times where he recounted, in great detail, the frustrations he felt
as an actor of color in Hollywood. Montalbán was consistently being typecast as
the “Latin Lover” and forced to play anything but a Mexican, he stated. That
interview, and his memories, got me thinking about the ways in which artists of
color are always being forced to make compromises that pit culture against
craft. About this time I took a trip to the Pátzcuaro region of Michoacán where
I met a mask maker who told me about the myth of masks and their significance
for the Purépecha people. I also learned about Vasco de Quiroga, the first
bishop of the region, a devout believer in Thomas Moor’s Utopia. Quiroga taught the indigenous how to be self-reliant and
assigned each village along the lakeshore a specific “craft.” All of this…the
Montalbán interview, the masks, Vasco de Quiroga’s legacy…got me thinking about
roles and identity and the way fate shapes destinies and how we sometimes find
the will and courage to challenge all of it. Diego’s story was born out of
that.
Amelia Montes:
Thank you for relating your journey to create Diego’s story. It reveals how open, truly open you are
to the world around you. So after
this trip and the history you learned in Mexico, how did you then continue to
learn more. Tell us how you
conducted your research.
Alex Espinoza:
Oh, the research is always the best part, ¿que no? Where to begin? I
spent many chilly winter days and nights in my pajamas, buried under blankets,
watching tons of old films on Turner Classic Movies, focusing on those produced
when sound was first introduced to Hollywood. I visited historical archives in
Mexico City, unearthing documents and photographs from the Mexican Revolution
and the Cristero Rebellion. I read countless books, both fiction and
nonfiction, on everything and anything having to do with Hollywood, focusing
specifically on the experiences of actors and actresses of color. And I watched
the Spanish-language version of the classic 1931 film “Dracula,” which starred
Lupita Tovar (the inspiration for the character of Alicia Prado in The Five Acts of Diego León), over and
over again.
Amelia Montes:
I love that Spanish-language version, and have showed it to my students
who prefer it over the English version. What a great way to do background
research! I feel as if this is also a love letter to Hollywood (specifically a
“Latino” Hollywood). Yes? Comments?
Alex Espinoza:
To some extent, yes. It’s a love letter to the Hollywood of yesterday,
to the glamour, the glitz, and the sophisticated movies that were well scripted
and well acted (Not that they aren’t today!). But, at the same time, I think
it’s also an “angry” letter to an industry that has systematically ignored the
contributions of Latinos/as over the years, an “angry” letter to an industry
that consistently misrepresents us, that seems to despise us even as it tries
to court us.
Amelia Montes:
Yes. That comes
through. As well, I’ve been
wanting to ask you about Diego in terms of your first novel, Still Water Saints. I see Still Water Saints as a bildungsroman in terms not only of Perla,
but of the entire community of Agua Mansa. How is Diego, in a way, part of Agua
Mansa-- regarding his own "coming of age."
Alex Espinoza:
I think I see The Five Acts of
Diego León more as a künstlerroman, I suppose, more a story about the
maturity of a young artist who is exploring his medium, who is doing everything
he can to figure himself out as an artist, testing the limits and possibilities
of his craft. I guess I see the journeys Diego and Perla and Agua Mansa not so
much as stories of people and places that are “coming of age” but more as those
of people and places that are “coming into being,” forever forming and changing
and morphing into new and exciting entities.
Amelia Montes:
A continuous “coming of age!”
Tell us the process of writing this novel. Did you divide sections to
work on? How did you organize the development on the sections?
Alex Espinoza:
I started first by writing one thousand words a day, every day,
following a vague plot. Once something resembling a story emerged, I began the
arduous task of cleaning it up, tightening up the language, the plot, and the
characters. After many attempts, after much kicking and screaming, the five
actual acts emerged. Once things were separated, I would sometimes focus on
specific acts, knowing each piece was part of a bigger movement and that
everything needed to be precisely synchronized.
Amelia Montes:
Also on process: When you sat down to write, did you use notes or did
you first just write and bring in the historical facts later?
Alex Espinoza:
Sometimes as I wrote, I looked over notes I had taken. Other times I
didn’t. I brought in historical facts as they seemed relevant to the scene or
moment I was writing.
Amelia Montes:
What were the most challenging aspects in writing The Five Acts of Diego León?
Alex Espinoza:
Constantly wrestling with my own self-doubt.
Amelia Montes:
What kinds of things do you do or do you tell yourself to push through
the self doubt, which helped you write the 1,000 words a day.
Alex Espinoza:
Whenever I'm faced with self doubt, the best thing I've found to do is
turn to a piece of writing that inspires me. I read it again and again. Or, I
talk to my friends, other writers, or people who believe in me and my work more
than I sometimes do. They help me put it all in perspective.
Amelia Montes:
What came very easily--almost like magic? What is that like when that
happens?
Alex Espinoza:
Anytime I wrote scenes involving the character of Fiona Falk. She was
just a joy to write, to explore, and to watch develop. Writing scenes involving
her was the most fun I’d had in a long time.
Amelia Montes:
When you finished your first draft, did you let it sit for a while or
did you immediately have someone or a group read it for responses (or were you
doing this all along the way?)
Alex Espinoza:
I let it sit for a long while and tinkered with it off and on before
passing it along to my editors at Random House.
Amelia Montes:
What is your favorite section in the book and why?
Alex Espinoza:
There’s a scene where Diego is running through the back lots of Frontier
Pictures, the fictional film studio in the book, when he imagines seeing his
old friend Javier, who is back in Mexico. It’s my favorite scene precisely
because it’s my own small homage to a scene from one of my favorite novels:
Nathaniel West’s Day of the Locust.
Amelia Montes:
What challenges do writers have today in the publishing world?
Alex Espinoza: Finding readers, I think. And getting
book reviewers to review us. Book review space has dwindled down to almost
nothing.
Amelia Montes:
In the publishing world, in what ways are Chicana and Chicano writers
marginalized?
Alex Espinoza:
¡Ay! Where to begin? Well, for one, the term "Chicano" or
"Chicana" isn't one most book people know anything about. We're
talking about New York City after all. The Latino presence there tends to be
largely Puerto Rican, Dominican, or Cuban. Mexican Americans and
Chicanos/Chicanas haven't really been a significant presence. They’re not
seeing us everyday, and if they’re not seeing us, they can’t begin to
understand us. However, on a recent trip to the city, I did see some signs that
the Mexican and Chicano/Chicana presence was beginning to assert itself. I
think, also, publishers--like the media in general--tend to gravitate towards
books or stories that affirm what they already think they know about us which,
as I said previously, isn't much. Thus you get a glut of books about poor
"illegal" Mexicans, gang members and pandilleros, domestics, migrant
workers and sex-crazed macho drunks. And if you're not writing that then
chances are they won't want anything to do with you. Anytime you offer up
a different view of us Chicanos/as where we’re portrayed as anything but a maid
or a gardener or an undocumented lettuce picker, say, anytime you challenge
perceptions, you’re venturing into some tricky waters. And I’m not saying we
shouldn’t write those stories. Or can’t. We certainly can! But we should also
be able to have the ability to write stories about Chicana elementary school
teachers, Chicano insurance salesmen or, God forbid, a Chicana mayor, a
millionaire, or even an actor. And we should not have to educate publishers
about who we are anymore. Who wants to run around always having to “explain”
themselves?
Amelia Montes:
Who is your audience for this novel?
Alex Espinoza:
Anyone who loves a good story, I suppose. I hope to have given my
readers an opportunity to explore another aspect of the Latino/Latina experience
beyond those we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on television; the plight of the
undocumented, the poor, the campesino/campesina, the domestic, and the gang
member. True that those stories exist, and they are very valid stories, but the
Latino/a experience in the U.S. is vast and varied. I hope to attract an
audience of readers eager for a different Latino/a story, with characters that
shatter stereotypes and expectations.
Amelia Montes:
There are also very gruesome scenes in the novel as there are light and
humorous. The gruesome scenes, of course, are during the Cristero period. Tell
us about that period in history. When did you first learn about it? (and is
this why Mexico maintains a definite separation between church and state? --
which helps us understand why Mexico has already had gay marriage (civil
marriage & rights) much before the U.S?
Alex Espinoza:
I’m not a historian, so my knowledge of the period is limited to the
research I did for The Five Acts of Diego
León, but I first heard of the Cristero Rebellion from my mother. It
remains a particularly bloody period in Mexican history, a moment of civil
unrest between two powerful and opposing forces ruling the country—the Catholic
church and the government. What I discovered while researching was that, by and
large, the church came out looking rather innocent in the whole thing, the
“victims” of a ruthless atheistic government bent on destroying it. But, upon
further digging, I discovered that the church wasn’t as innocent as one would
have initially thought. When my own mother, a devout Catholic, used to recount
stories, she always portrayed the church rather sympathetically. But the church
was just as guilty of committing heinous and violent acts against innocent
people as the government. More than anything, I wanted to show both sides of
the conflict.
Amelia Montes:
Did you receive family stories about the Cristero period? Did they
remember or were they involved with that movement?
Alex Expinoza:
My mother remembered attending baptismal ceremonies in remote cactus
fields in Michoacán. She remembered the shortages of priests, and she told me
stories of people dying without taking Last Rites. Very sad stuff.
Amelia Montes:
Tell us about the Hollywood period. What did you find out in your
research that was surprising to you.
 |
| Alex Espinoza interview at The Los Angeles Book Festival |
Alex Espinoza:
I found out that Latinos/as helped shape and influence the film industry
from the very beginning. I also discovered that, despite many pressures to hide
their sexuality, many gay actors and actresses in Hollywood lived perfectly
happy lives while working in the industry. Sexual and racial taboos were
“tolerated” in strange ways even back then.
Amelia Montes:
For the writing of this novel, what writers influenced you?
Alex Espinoza:
Nathaniel West, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, and Graham Green.
Amelia Montes:
What plans do you have for a third book?
Alex Espinoza:
Currently, I'm toying with a few novel ideas but it's too early on in
the process for me to talk about them.
Amelia Montes:
Alex—it has been a pleasure talking with you about your new novel, The
Five Acts of Diego León. My
students loved Still Water Saints and
they are very much enjoying reading Diego León’s journeys. Wishing you all the
best!
Alex Espinoza:
Amelia, the pleasure was all mine!
BIO:
Alex Espinoza
was born in Tijuana, Mexico to parents from the state of Michoacán and raised
in suburban Los Angeles. In high school and afterwards, he worked a series of
retail jobs, selling everything from eggs and milk to used appliances, custom
furniture, rock T-shirts, and body jewelry.After graduating from the University
of California-Riverside, he went on to earn an MFA from UC-Irvine’s Program in
Writing. His first novel, Still Water Saints, was published by Random
House in 2007 and was named a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers
Selection. The book was released simultaneously in Spanish, under the
title Los Santos de Agua Mansa,
California, translated by Lilliana Valenzuela. His second novel, The Five Acts of Diego León, was
published by Random House in March 2013. Alex’s fiction has
appeared in several anthologies and journals, including Inlandia: A Literary Journey Through California’s Inland
Empire, Latinos in Lotusland, Huizache, Silent Voices, and The Southern California Review.
His essays have
been published in Salon.com, in
the New York Times Magazine,
in The Other Latin@: Writing Against
a Singular Identity, and as part of the historic Chicano Chapbook Series. He has also reviewed books for the Los Angeles Times, the American Book Review, and NPR.
Alex was the 2009 Margaret Bridgeman Fellow in Fiction at the Bread Loaf
Writers’ Conference and is an active participant in Sandra Cisneros’ Macondo
Workshop and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.
Alex is also
deeply involved with the Puente Project, a program designed to help
first-generation community college students make a successful transition to a
university. A Puente student himself, he has since served as a Puente mentor
and often visits Puente classes to talk with students and teachers about
writing, literature, and the opportunities he gained through
education. Currently, Alex is an associate professor of English at
CSU-Fresno where he teaches literature and creative writing. As always, he is
at work on his next book.
