septiembre 16, 2024

Picture it: It was the summer of 1999

It was deemed the Season of the Latino. Ricky Martin was Livin’ La Vida Loca. Jennifer Lopez was On the 6. Shakira was everywhere with “Whatever, Whenever.” As for me? I was working as a fledgling freelance entertainment writer for Latina magazine, for which I got to interview legends like Rita Moreno and Celia Cruz, among other celebrities. My then-editor recommended me to a publisher, which led to my first book offer: I was commissioned to write an unauthorized biography of Ricky. Shortly thereafter, I was asked by another big-name publishing house to write a young adult novel about quinceañeras. But cue the record scratch: I’d never been to a quinceañera in my life. (Still haven’t.) So I counter-offered to come up with another idea for a story that would resonate with young Latinas.

Many Latinas Like Me

I knew there had to be many Latinas like me: first, second, or third generation, toggling between two worlds of being Americana while still wanting to explore their Latin roots. In 1994, I had moved to New York City, where my Puerto Rican parents grew up, from Southern California, where my parents raised me and my younger sister to be True Americans: with anglicized names, without an accent or even knowing how to speak Spanish, 3,000 miles away from our culture. (I was a shy, gordita bookworm who loved Roald Dahl, Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, and Maurice Sendak.) Looking back, I realize my parents were only doing the best they could with the resources they had, given their own upbringing and experiences. (Who could predict in the ‘70s that being bilingual would be an asset?)

But ever since relocating to New York, I was discovering what it means to be Puerto Rican, and found out I was also Black Dominican. Feeling more comfortable in my skin, I started soaking up Latine and hip-hop culture, music, and history–-studying it like a newfound college course. I took salsa dance lessons. I grew the courage to speak my mediocre, academic Spanish in public. And somewhere along the way, I picked up a book entitled The Altar of My Soul, written by a santera named Marta Morena Vega.

Fascinated by Mythology

As a kid, I was always fascinated by Greek and Roman mythology. Suddenly, I was drawn in by a whole different pantheon of gods and goddesses that originated in Africa and traveled to the Caribbean via the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Why did I never learn about this? Having left my parents’ evangelical church at 15, I was searching for something that spoke to my spirit. And this did.

At the same time, the wizarding world of Harry Potter had usurped the zeitgeist. My two younger cousins, Andrew and Robert, were obsessed with the books in grade school. I would babysit them often, and I would read myriad chapters to them, as well as listen to the books on tape as they drifted off to sleep. I was freelancing as a copy editor at Scholastic, so I also got them into Goosebumps and Lemony Snicket, among others. I would relish their wide-eyed rapt attention as I narrated these wondrous stories to them. Children make the best audiences. But where were all the female protagonists, I wondered?

This became the impetus to create Maya Beatriz Calderon Montenegro. I wanted to create a strong character that Latine children could relate to, to root for, to laugh with, to aspire to. Someone I never had growing up, nor even my cousins 20 years later. And so, I set out to create Maya’s World.

I chose a restaurant setting to pay homage to the 10+ years I spent as a waitress and bartender to get me through college and my twenties. I modeled Cafe Taza after one of my favorite neighborhood criollo haunts when I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I chose to create a tight-knit family of loud, loving, cook-their-culos-off Latines based on my extended family of second and third cousins from The Bronx. I wove in magic and the stories of the orishas to give it a mystical flourish. Alas, after much back and forth between bouncing editors, my manuscript was ultimately rejected by the publisher. And then 9/11 hit, and nothing in New York was ever the same. I wasn’t the same.

Decision Time

Dejected and broke, I had a decision to make: Could I continue to sustain myself as a freelance writer or would I have to get a “real job”? Sure, I was making a name for myself–having penned features in The Source, Honey, Vibe, and had even helped found a short-lived magazine for Latina teens called Latingirl–but was very much living hand to mouth. Then, in 2004, a major life change happened: I became pregnant. I knew then and there that I would have to “settle down” in order to be a “responsible” single mom. I moved to Brooklyn and got a full-time job as an editor for a pregnancy and parenting website. The six ensuing years would be an ongoing struggle to raise a baby on my own in Bedford-Stuyvesant, just before gentrification hit the hood. And while Maya and her family never left my thoughts, the manuscript sat untouched as I desperately tried to figure out what the future held for me and my child.

In 2010, I made the difficult decision to leave my beloved NYC. It was the Great Recession, I had been laid off from my managing editor role at Nickelodeon, and I could not find another job to save my life. I was down to my last $300. A former boss was moving to the DC Metro area and offered me a contract gig if I could find my way down there. Fortunately, my parents and my child’s father lived in the region, so I packed up my preschooler, my dog, and all our belongings into a cheap moving truck and took a leap of faith down I-95.

After that year-long contract ended, I went through intermittent bouts of under- and unemployment that took their toll on me for the next few years. I was suffering from depression, fat and friendless in Maryland, and could barely afford rent. There was a period where I was on food stamps and Medicaid just to keep afloat. To boot, my kid needed spinal surgery. His father and I had reconciled, but we still struggled to make ends meet. I was broke and broke down.

Inspired Support

And yet, every so often, and always serendipitously, I’d get an email from Joy, the agent for a Latina anthology book to which I was a contributor in 2004. Back then, I had told her about SALSA MAGIC, and she was intrigued. But I never really followed up on it. Nevertheless, about every nine months, she’d simply ask me, “So, how’s the book coming?” I seemed to always be in the throes of survival mode when she reached out, which made it difficult for me to be creative and carefree with my thoughts and ideas. However, Joy’s one-line emails of support always inspired me to take stock of where I was in life and remind myself that yes, at my core, I am still a writer. And so, I’d end up making some revisions to the manuscript here and there. Still, I was still too stressed out to really commit to full-throttled writing. However, by the summer of 2018, I had been employed full time at an education nonprofit and financially stable enough to recommit to completing the book in my spare time.

By then, I had raised my own bookworm, and Jaylen was old enough to be my main audience. So, in addition to Joy, I had my son as my creative consultant. Like my cousins before him, Jaylen enjoyed Harry Potter and was also a huge Rick Riordan fan, so he was well equipped to be my mini middle-grade critic. Meanwhile, I conducted more research on santeria so I could be respectful of the religion and the orishas as I wrote. The budding romance between Maya and Kayla happened organically, as Jaylen and I both were embracing our individual queerness.

Taking Shape

Slowly but surely, Maya’s World was coming to life, and SALSA MAGIC began taking shape. Two years and umpteen revisions later, Joy began pitching the book to publishers. While the manuscript was well received, it still got rejected more than a dozen times…until an editor at Levine Querido saw its potential. Maya and I had finally found a home–nearly two decades after I started this journey. But I’m absolutely a better writer and a better person because of my experiences. I believe everything happens for a reason, and the timing is just right–and Maya’s story is ripe–for now.

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