When Tony Diaz attended a book signing for Puerto Rican writer Esmeralda Santiago and saw only five people show up, he was appalled (Deschamps). His disappointment was exacerbated by the fact that Diaz had literally come to Houston for its ostensible support of Latino writers. As little opportunity for Latino arts as there was in Houston, Diaz’s hometown of Chicago offered even less. But Diaz would not let himself be satisfied with marginal advancement.

That day in 1998 provided the onus for Diaz to start his own literary organization, as he realized that he could “do a much better job bringing Latinos here” (Deschamps). This wasn’t a way of placing blame on Houston Latinos, who have a rich creative and literary heritage. However, the current literary systems repeatedly erect barriers, be they financial or cultural, to Latino participation. In fact, it took until 1994 for the University of Houston’s acclaimed Creative Writing Masters of Fine Arts program to graduate a Latino student, despite the city of Houston’s Latino plurality (University of Houston). As the first Latino graduate, Tony Diaz understood both the barriers to Latino artists and the potential of their mobilization.

The result of Tony Diaz’s vision for a Latino literary presence in Houston is Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say.  For the last twenty-five years, this organization has sought to create and promote Latino writers in all facets of their art, be that technical, promotional, or political. As an important extension of this goal, Nuestra Palabra has sought to create a strong community of Latino readers in Houston that will attend readings and signings and feed a vibrant, synthetic ecosystem of appreciators and creators of Latino literary arts.

What this mission means operationally has changed from year to year — and the agility of Nuestra Palabra has been a pro, not a con. The generalized nature of organizational goals comprises a key part of the nonprofit’s longevity by providing flexibility. Adapting allows Nuestra Palabra to constantly evolve into a better organization and maintain the community support that allows the nonprofit to run in the first place.

This constant growth has led to a heavy branching out of operations to encompass various different facets of the production and consumption of literature. Some of Nuestra Palabra’s many initiatives include:

 

• Nuestra Palabra hosts acclaimed readings of works by Latino authors for the general public to attend free of cost.
• Nuestra Palabra has two radio shows broadcast in Houston: the Nuestra Palabra radio show that celebrates literature through interviews with creatives and the Latino Politics & News show that discusses the occurrences pertinent to Houston’s Latino population.
• Nuestra Palabra has partnered with literary organizations in San Antonio to expand the annual Macondo Writers Workshop founded by the literary giant Sandra Cisneros. (Rindfuss).
• As the Talento Bilingue community center in Eastside Houston faces insolvency, Nuestra Palabra has fought hard to keep its doors open. In fact, a previous plan to save Talento Bilingue involves transferring its ownership to Nuestra Palabra (Tallet). Founder Tony Diaz is often quoted in pieces on Talento Bilingue defending its existence.
• Nuestra Palabra organized the Latino Book and Family Festival, attracting 30,000 participants and ranking as the largest book fair in Houston.
• With the proven importance of engaging Latino students in school, Nuestra Palabra provides workshops for teachers and administrators in local school districts.
• Perhaps most famously, Nuestra Palabra began the “librotraficante” (book trafficker in Spanish) movement to bring Latino literature into Arizona after the Tucson school district banned Latino studies from being taught. These librotraficantes created libraries in Tucson from books transported in from Houston, El Paso, and Albuquerque. The movement contributed to the eventual overturning of the bans on ethnic studies in Arizona.
• This year, Nuestra Palabra has begun to lead workshops on seizing cultural capital in certain communities.

 

The list could go on and on — and likely will, since Nuestra Palabra is always finding ways to innovate the programming that they provide. However, their offerings do not exist willy nilly. Nuestra Palabra strives towards a greater goal: the creation of community cultural capital and the establishment of a sustainable literary infrastructure in Houston. In an opinion piece in Latino USA, Tony Diaz explains that:

 

“I define Cultural Capital as assets, skills, and knowledge we possess and can invest in empowering ourselves and our Community. This can include writing, visual art, community organizing skills, networks, being bilingual.” 

 

Diaz proceeds to give the example of Quixote Nuevo, a play that debuted at Houston’s Alley Theatre in early 2020. Not only does this play provide income for the all-Latino cast, the Latino sound designer, and the Latino vocal coach, but it also creates cultural capital. The Spanglish of the vocal coach and the historical knowledge of the sound designer have been deemed valuable. However, culture should not be given up solely for income. In this process of putting on this play, the Alley Theatre has partnered with Nuestra Palabra to promote the play (and Latino literature as a whole) around Houston with a rollout including school visits, community center readings, cast Q&A, and extensive Latino news coverage.

This symbiosis demonstrates the promise of community cultural capital as an operative principle. The existing institution (the Alley Theatre) recognizes Latino culture as valuable and therefore patronizes it both by putting on the play and by partnering with Nuestra Palabra. This support furthers the less established organizations (those that promote Latino literature) and allows them to grow into their own. Furthermore, this process creates a productive cycle wherein the patronization creates more capital — students inspired by readings, media coverage leading to more attendees. Critically, this process can allows smaller grassroots organizations to access big-time funding without compromising their identity and cultural integrity. With the Alley Theatre as a partner, for example, Nuestra Palabra is pursuing a grant that could give six fellowships to Latino artists.

The idea of accelerating community cultural capital rises out of necessity for Latinx artists, who must take control of their own cultural capital lest it be appropriated for the profit of others. Regardless of whether society recognizes it or not, culture is always a form of capital, and some cultures are understood to have more capital than others. It becomes a question of creating value for one’s culture and ensuring who then has access to that capital. Unfortunately, in the status quo, much of Latinx cultural capital is controlled by outside actors. Diaz cites the scandal of the recent bestselling American Dirt novel that appropriated Latinx narratives of crossing the United States-Mexico border as well a recently deceased professor, H.G. Carrillo, revealed to have been faking his Afro-Latinx identity.

The idea of “community cultural capital” motivates much of Tony Diaz’s work. Community cultural capital recognizes history, time, energy, networks, and family as equally valuable to traditionally accepted forms of cultural capital like cuisine, language, and clothing. This expansion of cultural capital validates the vast resources of a community and underscores that they are assets to be protected and expanded, invested in.  They empower a community.  On the other hand, the affixing of “community” to cultural capital recognizes that when culture is commodified for financial gain, that income stream should benefit the community originators of the culture. The example above of American Dirt is one in which the writer received huge advances, and the publisher is making money.  None of this is happening with an eye toward the health of Latino arts.  For Diaz, community cultural capital involves speaking the language of the powers-that-be in order to ensure benefits to those that make culture valuable in the first place.  His plan to develop greater community cultural capital is therefore two-pronged. Internally, build the value of communities for future generations, raising consciousness and fighting back against the idea that they do not already possess cultural capital. Externally, use cultural capital as a means of monetarily uplifting the community or at the very least exchanging for other forms of societal value.

The ability for community cultural capital to demonstrate value to the state is critical to Tony Diaz’s ultimate goal of affecting policy via Nuestra Palabra. Just as financial capital influences policy and elections, so too can cultural capital. In fact, Diaz is active in a variety of political activities, ranging from his Latino Politics Podcast to his librotraficante group to his committee dedicated to electing a Latino mayor of Houston in the next election. Nuestra Palabra serves as an accelerator for cultural capital that can then effectuate political change.

Nuestra Palabra also advocates for using community cultural capital to build political capital, a key strategy for Latinos whose political legitimacy is still under construction. A nonprofit exists in a constant battle to prove itself both to funders and those it serves. Especially when it comes to the Latino community, the efforts of a nonprofit are constantly both devalued and forgotten.

Existing narratives surrounding Latinos perpetuate through counterfact and paradox. Latinos as individuals are constantly told by schools and nightly news that they are not good readers, not an engaged or voting population.  At the same time Latino organizations are paradoxically told that the fault lies in their organizations not doing enough. When people, organizations, and communities disprove these racist assumptions — such as when Nuestra Palabra hosted Texas’ largest book fair for Latino readers — their actions can be subject to cultural amnesia in the collective memory. Society forgets and persists in whitewashing history. Community cultural capital and policy change resist this intentional amnesia, as they attempt to instill both authority and memory into the collective local and national psyche.

With this community cultural capital and political capital, Tony Diaz and Nuestra Palabra hope to usher in a new era for Houston that can celebrate Latinos and Latino arts. For Diaz, 2019 was about cataloguing the existence of Latino arts and their immense value to the city. His findings, presented during the Houston mayoral race, attempted to force the city to address Latino arts. He proposed changing the rules of distribution for the Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT Tax), which funds much of the city’s arts, to better benefit Latino communities.

Unfortunately, the changes to the HOT Tax fell short of giving the Latino community the support they needed. While Diaz and Nuestra Palabra will continue to push for alterations to the tax structure to better fund Latino arts organizations, they also recognize that much of Houston’s system simply isn’t built in a way that will benefit them. The Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs and the Mayor’s Hispanic Advisory Board have not yet been effective in changing the status quo of Latino arts organizations.

Toward a goal of greater effectiveness, under the umbrella of the Hispanic Advisory Board, Tony Diaz has founded the Arts Committee, which can guide the City of Houston towards a better future for Latino arts. This is just the start of Diaz’s overall plan.  He is taking steps to seek institutional support for the mission of Nuestra Palabra at  local, state, and federal level. These aims speak to the necessity of political capital, not just cultural capital, in making lasting changes for the Latino community.

Understanding that necessary change means swimming against the current, Nuestra Palabra is focusing on a longer term plan for the future. The hard work must be put in, slowly but surely, to build a Latino infrastructure of cultural capital that can slowly begin to seize political capital. This slow burn will hopefully culminate in a blaze of success. During a recent interview with the research team for Literary Houston, Diaz repeatedly stressed the importance of electing a Latino mayor of Houston as the tip of the pyramid in Latino arts. To Diaz, a Latino mayor would represent a massive  accomplishment for Latino arts, but also an opportunity for further growth in Houston. However, this is the long term goal, so at this time, Diaz and Nuestra Palabra are focused on setting the foundations for change. That means encouraging more Latinos to be civically involved by voting and running for office. Hopefully, the fact that only 1 in 16 of our city council members is Latino (as opposed to Dallas’ 5 in 16) will change in the coming years as Latinos accrue more political capital.

Through this cultural and political capital, Houston can hopefully fulfill its potential as a place where it is as easy to find Latino arts as it is to find Latino food. Nuestra Palabra does not ask to be the face or forefront of that movement, instead acting as a shepherd both for the city and for up and coming Latino artists and arts organizations. Through their hard work and determination, Nuestra Palabra continues its original goal of promoting Latino writers, though the scope has expanded.

Of course recently, the COVID-19 catastrophe has brought many arts endeavors to a halt as events are cancelled and funding dries up.  Nuestra Palabra programming is adapting by focusing on more remote services like radio shows and perhaps even online summer camps. The situation is much more dire for one of Houston’s other Latino arts institutions, the now defunct Talento Bilingue Houston. Even though this organization no longer exists, ownership of its cultural center was in the process of transitioning to Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts (MECA). COVID-19 has completely disrupted this transition process however and put the organization into a holding pattern. Nuestra Palabra, meanwhile, is also attempting to see its way through these difficult times.

The pandemic, however, is not the only deadly illness requiring pressing attention in the summer of 2020. With the murder of George Floyd, we have seen Americans across the nation open their eyes to the virus and contamination of racism and take to the streets. I asked Tony Diaz how Nuestra Palabra was planning on addressing the issues of anti-blackness in our nation, and he identified that black and Latino Americans are ultimately fighting the same enemy of white supremacy. In fact, separating the two movements erases the ways these issues intertwine as well as the very real presence of Afro-Latinos.  He is alert to Nuestra Palabra’s commitments to anti-racist movements, and indicated that the organization is always exploring how to better be an ally to combat anti-blackneses.

In his theoretical piece Black-Brown Solidarity, Houstonian and critical race theory Professor John Márquez identifies that the forces of white supremacy have made black and brown (Latino) Houstonians at times natural allies with one another, specifically identifying how the communities have historically shown up for one another. He cites the example of African American organizers in Baytown who fought a political campaigns against police violence toward Latino immigrants. To note solidarity is not to discount the issues of anti-blackness within Latino communities or anti-immigrant sentiment within black communities, but history suggests that these issues can at times be set aside for solidarity collective actions. This is the kind of power that Nuestra Palabra can help focus for the acceleration of cultural and political capital against racism over the next months and years.

Overall, Nuestra Palabra faces both a challenge and an opportunity. Despite the continued amazing efforts of Nuestra Palabra, Houston still has much room to grow when it comes to the sufficient appreciation and subsequent funding of Latino arts. However, Nuestra Palabra has continued to amass community cultural capital over the past two decades and has begun using that cultural capital to maneuver itself towards more political capital. With more recognition of cultural capital and more Latino representation in local politics, Nuestra Palabra can position itself as a constant accelerator of community cultural capital, inspiring, facilitating, and celebrating the talented Latino writers of Houston.

 

Works Cited

Deschamps, Claudia. “’Nuestra Palabra’ Celebrates 18 Years Showcasing Latino Literature.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 27 Apr. 2016, www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/nuestra-palabra-celebrates-18-years-showcasing-latino-literature-n562671.

Diaz, Tony. “Only Art Can Save Us: How Two Organizations Are Partnering To Bring Theater To Houston Latinos (OPINION).” Latino USA, NPR, 23 Jan. 2020, www.latinousa.org/2020/01/23/onlyartcansaveus/.

Marquez, John. Black-Brown Solidarity: Racial Politics in the New Gulf South. University of Texas Press, 2013.

“Poetry and Prose.” UH Libraries Events & Rooms, University of Houston, uh.libcal.com/event/4552422.

Rindfuss, Bryan. “Partnership with Latino Literary Organization Nuestra Palabra Opens New Chapter for San Antonio’s Macondo Writers Workshop.” San Antonio Current, San Antonio Current, 29 Apr. 2019, www.sacurrent.com/ArtSlut/archives/2019/04/29/partnership-with-latino-literary-organization-nuestra-palabra-opens-new-chapter-for-san-antonios-macondo-writers-workshop.

Tallet, Olivia. “Talento Bilingue De Houston Is on the Verge of Insolvency. Latino Leaders Are Determined to Save One of the Arts and Culture Group.” Houston Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, 2 Sept. 2019, www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Latinos-demand-government-support-to-save-14405775.php.

Tate, Jacob, et al. “Zoom Interview with Tony Diaz.” 17 June 2020.