About 25 years in the making, “The Family Izquierdo” will be featured in “A Fiction Reading & Conversation with author Rubén Degollado” from 8 to 9 a.m. and 12:30-1:30 p.m. Tuesday in Liberal Arts Building South Room 304.
The graduate of legacy institution University of Texas-Pan American with a bachelor’s degree in English will talk with UTRGV students about fiction writing, the publishing process and his professional journey as an author.
“It’s exciting to be invited back to the university as an author and just to give back to the university that gave so much to me,” Degollado told The Rider in an interview Sept. 26.
He said he worked on “The Family Izquierdo” (W. W. Norton & Company, 2022) for 25 years, the last 10 of which was spent trying to get a publisher for it.
“It got rejected a few times,” Degollado said. “The challenge for me was being seen at the right time by the right people. And the obstacle was just continuing to believe in it, to believe that it was a good book and that it was going to be published in its own time.”
He describes it as an epic of an intergenerational family living in McAllen with a lingering curse by a jealous neighbor and is told through the voices of different family members. Through trials and tribulations, the family still finds success. The colorful book cover comes from the story itself and revolves around a lot of the family’s celebrations.
Amy Cummins, a professor in the department of Literatures and Cultural Studies, planned the event and told The Rider she has been following Degollado’s work for the last nine years.
“It’s great to see alumni achieving so much,” she said. “He’s coming here because he’s an inspiring, nationally known author who is a graduate of the legacy institution in Edinburg.”
Cummins said it is important to have Latino writers and literature on campus year-round, not only during Hispanic Heritage Month, and for students at all grade levels.
Degollado also said it is crucial to have events like this for the younger generation of Latinos since he benefited from them when he was in school.
He gave an example during his time at UTPA when playwright Milcha Sanchez-Scott came to campus with her play “Roosters,” which was made into a movie and performed live with the help of Valente Rodriguez, another UTPA alumnus.
“The visual representation of [Sanchez-Scott] and Valente Rodriguez … encouraged me as a young Chicano writer to continue doing what I was doing because I wasn’t seeing a lot of people coming down to our public spaces,” Degollado said. “… So that’s my hope. Is that, by coming to the university, [students] are going to see one of their very own, and I sat in that English building and dreamed of being published. … So, hopefully, some undergraduate is going to see me and say, ‘I have stories to tell and I’m the next generation.’”
English sophomore Elidaisabel Rodriguez told The Rider she thinks it is inspiring that the event will feature someone who is from the Rio Grande Valley and can relate to the culture.
“I feel like a lot of young writers … need that motivation,” Rodriguez said. “A lot of the time, peers and family try to tell us to go more, like, the medicine route or whatever brings us more money and just by having [Degollado] here to show us you could make a living out of it and be successful is very inspiring.”
Planning to attend the event Tuesday, she hopes to ask questions about Degollado’s writing process and career.
Degollado’s advice to young Latino writers is to believe in themselves, study and celebrate those who have come before them and to ¡échale ganas!
For more information on Degollado or to purchase his books, visit rubendegollado.com.
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