Scenes: Arte Público Press: an interview with Marina Tristán

Briefly describe your press’s history.

Arte Público Press, the oldest and largest Hispanic press in the country, was founded in 1979 in Gary, Indiana, as an outgrowth of the pioneering literary magazine Revista Chicano-Riqueña (founded in 1972), which later became The Americas Review. In 1980, the press’s founder and director, Nicolás Kanellos, was invited to join the faculty of the University of Houston and bring the press with him. Through its publication, promotion, and dissemination of twenty-twenty-five print and digital books each year, Arte Público Press is committed to reforming city, state, and national culture to more accurately include, value, and reflect Hispanic historical and contemporary contributions.

How would you characterize the work you publish?

Arte Público publishes books by and about US Latinos for children, young adults, and adults in English, Spanish, and bilingual formats.

The press is the original publisher of Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street (1984) and has published many Latino luminaries, including Obie-award-winning playwright and filmmaker Luis Valdez; playwright Miguel Piñero, winner of the New York Drama Critic’s Award for Best American Play; and bestselling authors Diane Gonzales Bertrand, Nicholasa Mohr, Pat Mora, Tomás Rivera, and Victor Villaseñor.

Recent publications include Daniel Chacón’s award-winning Hotel Juárez: Stories, Rooms and Loops (2013); an anthology of personal essays, Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence (2013), edited by Sarah Cortez and Sergio Troncoso; a new edition of Rolando Hinojosa’s award-winning The Valley / Estampas del Valle (2014); Sergio Elizondo’s wrenching novel about racism in Texas, Muerte en una estrella / Shooting Star (2013); and Houston poet laureate Gwendolyn Zepeda’s poetry collections, Falling in Love with Fellow Prisoners and Monsters, Zombies and Addicts (2013).

In addition to its publishing program for adults, Arte Público created an imprint for children and young adults, Piñata Books, in 1994, which is dedicated to the publication of children’s and young adult literature that authentically portrays themes, characters, and customs unique to US Hispanic culture. As part of this imprint, Arte Público publishes bilingual picture books that contain English and Spanish text on the same page, bilingual “flip” books for intermediate readers, and books for teens in English or Spanish. All are written from within the culture; none are translations of fables or fairy tales that have no relevance for US Hispanic youth.

Recent Piñata Books publications include Estela Bernal’s debut teen novel, Can You See Me Now? (2013); Ray Villareal’s novel for young adults dealing with death and homelessness, On the Other Side of the Bridge (2014); René Saldaña, Jr.’s third bilingual novel in the Mickey Rangel Mystery series for intermediate readers, The Mystery of the Mischievous Marker / El misterio del malvado marcador (2014); and Diane Gonzales Bertrand’s picture book, Cecilia and Miguel Are Best Friends / Cecilia y Miguel son mejores amigos (2014). The books are used in classrooms and libraries around the country and frequently serve as a bridge from school to home. Parents who do not speak English but are literate in their native language are able to share books and reading with their children.

All of APP’s books are distributed nationally through wholesalers, distributors, book stores, commissioned sales representatives, online distributors, and directly to consumers at events.

In 1990, Arte Público Press launched the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, a national program to locate, identify, preserve and make accessible in a variety of formats the literary contributions of US Hispanics from colonial times through 1960 in what today comprises the United States.

Recovered literary materials are available as print books, and a recent example is In Defense of My People: Alonso S. Perales and the Development of Mexican-American Public Intellectuals (2013), a volume of academic papers about the work of this pioneering Mexican-American leader who was one of the co-founders of League of United Latin American Citizens. Other recovered material is available in two databases, The Latino-Hispanic American Experience...