#latinxsinkidlit
¡Qué bonita bandera! AKA what heritage(s) do you claim?
I am Peruvian. Born in Peru to a mother who was born in Peru whose mother was also born in Peru and so on and so on.
When was the first time you saw yourself represented?
I didn’t really see myself represented in books until fairly recently—but maybe that’s my fault for being a less-than-stellar reader as a kid. The first books that were read to me were picture books in Spanish, and they’re books that I still have and treasure. But when we moved to America it was a huge cultural shift and all the entertainment I consumed was super Americanized. I didn’t really see any Latinx characters in anything I read until adulthood when I picked up Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I was honestly delighted to read Spanglish right there on the page—Spanish words that weren’t translated into English. To me that was a clear message that this was written for me, for us. Reading that and identifying with the Hispanic/American/New York cultures in that book was a thrill.
In YA it was really cool for me to see a Jewish/Latina character in Anna Breslaw’s Scarlett Epstein Hates it Here and an undocumented character in Nicola Yoon’s The Sun is Also a Star.
How do you connect to your heritage through your books (if at all)?
In my latest novel, No Good Deed, the protagonist is named Gregor Maravilla—a nod to both his Eastern European and Latino heritage. A motif in the story involves his bunkmate constantly teasing him for being just another white boy and Gregor constantly having to stand up for his heritage and remind his bunkmate that he’s actually half-Latino. That was written from experience. There’s been plenty of times in my life where people pull the classic Mean Girls line and ask me why I’m so white if I’m really Latina, or they don’t believe me because of my name. It was important for me to show that Latinxs come in all different forms, and we’ve all got a connection to our Latinx heritage.
What do you hope for the future of Latinx books?
I hope to learn more from cultures that aren’t my own. I want to see every kind of Latinx on the page.
What is the book that inspired you to write for kids/teens?
Gossip Girl!
What are you writing now?
Working on something brand new but it’s way too early to talk about it just yet. My latest novel, No Good Deed, just came out this summer from Scholastic.
Goldy Moldavsky was born in Lima, Peru, and grew up in Brooklyn, where she still lives. Her debut novel, KILL THE BOY BAND, is a New York Times bestseller, and her latest novel is NO GOOD DEED. Both books are published by Scholastic in the US and MacMillan in the UK.
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¡Qué bonita bandera! AKA what heritage(s) do you claim?
My father is a Mexican immigrant and my mother was born in New York, of Dominican parents. A bit of both heritages have trickled down to my sisters and I.
When was the first time you saw yourself represented?
In the hit 80s TV show CHiPs. It was filmed in southern California, where I was living. It’s hard to overstate the impact of dark-skinned Erik Estrada, accidental star of the show, on a little Latino kid. Miraculously, he didn’t portray a manual laborer or the bad guy. He played a charming cop who chased down criminals and hooked up with beautiful women.
How do you connect to your heritage through your books (if at all)?
In my first book, the main character has grown up in Florida without much family around. He’s a Latino kid who is sometimes rejected by his own for not speaking Spanish well. He doesn’t have a very strong connection to his heritage, which was my own experience growing up.
The book I’m currently writing features some culture from Mexico, where I’ve lived as an adult for many years. The main character has dual identities, Mexican and American. At times these identities overlap and at other times they clash. That sort of reflects my life now.
What do you hope for the future of Latinx books?
Diversity! Latinx people have different socioeconomic statuses, different struggles, and passions. Unfortunately, some people in publishing expect our characters to reinforce their conceptions of what it means to be Latinx. Authors are still told their characters aren’t Latinx enough.
What is the book that inspired you to write for kids/teens?
It might have been The Outsiders, which I’ve read five times. It a great story about the challenges of growing up poor and marginalized in an Oklahoma town. I’m always moved by the narrator’s authentic voice, how he observes the world and feels things deeply, as teenagers do.
What are you writing now?
A second novel. An uncool teenager with low self-esteem attempts to erase and recreate himself. It’s about the dangers of reacting to certain societal pressures, and the mistakes we sometimes make in the name of self-improvement.
Fred Aceves was born in New York but spent most of his youth in Southern California and Tampa, Florida, where he lived in a poor, working class neighborhood like the one described in The Closest I’ve Come. At the age of 21 he started traveling around the world, living in Chicago, New York, the Czech Republic, France, Argentina, Bolivia, and Mexico, his father’s native land. Among other jobs, he has worked as a delivery driver, server, cook, car salesman, freelance editor, and teacher of English as a second language. The Closest I’ve Come is his first novel.
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