Ep. 1: Dr. Fausto Avendaño

Emeritus Professor of Languages with over 30 years of teaching in Sacramento State University Dr. Fausto Avendaño talks about the poetry he has written, as well as his historical novels such as: Santa Maria, a Historical Novel about life in California after the Mexican American War. He presents a Romantic Novel as well: Paola and Raymond, breaking the typical rom-com cliches and giving a fresh perspective. The protagonist is a male, and the circumstances are more realistic. We get to read what the protagonist is thinking: financial frustration, fear of long term commitment and humorous moments where the protagonist can't wrap himself around how other people act around him. Dr. Avendaño is a member of Los Escritores del nuevo sol and has 2 literary prizes to his credit. As a FullBright Fellow, he was an exchange professor in a French university in Toulouse, France.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:15

Now we should be recording.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

We are live, ladies and gentlemen.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Attempt number two. We got this. We got this.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Sacramento People's Podcast. I'm here with Daniel Marquez. I'm Adrian Agenda. And we're here with Paul Agenda, Emeritus Professor from Sacramento State.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

And uh published author, playwright, and uh citizen of Sacramento. Um thank you. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. Thank you for being here with us in our uh kind of inaugural first live fire podcast with a guest. So I uh appreciate you being willing to come out to Aggie Square as a uh as a member of SAC State. You know, uh I know it's kind of the opposite, you know, the opposition here at Aggie Square.

SPEAKER_04 1:14

No, we uh we're uh we're very brotherly. No.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, um I suppose we can we can dive right in. Um I know that you while you're a resident here of Sacramento here for many years, uh you were born in Culia Cancinaloa, Mexico.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Um can you tell us a little bit about your early life?

SPEAKER_04 1:40

Well, sure. I was born in uh Culia Cancinaloa, but I came to California when I was about three years old with my mother, and uh she had she had uh married a um a veteran of the Second World War. Okay, and uh so I came here legally, by the way. So I I grew up here. I grew up in San Diego and Los Angeles, especially San Diego. I went through kindergarten, you know, the whole educational system. I went through that. But I later on I did uh study in other uh countries, like for instance, uh I studied at the University, Autonomous University of Mexico, the oldest university in the Americas. And then I also um studied in Toulouse, France, in the University of Toulouse, and um uh Lisbon, the University of Lisbon. I studied Portuguese there, Portuguese language and uh uh literature, history, uh the whole works.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah, wow. And then so what what brought you here uh up further north to uh to Sacramento property?

SPEAKER_04 3:00

Well, uh I um got my PhD, my doctorate from the University of Arizona. I was a student there. I did my master's degree and my doctorate there at the University of Arizona. And then when I got my my uh uh doctorate, I decided to get a job. And so there was a job here. And I came and I became a professor of Spanish and Portuguese. And that and later on, I actually taught French.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Okay. And this is at Sacramento State.

SPEAKER_04 3:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

All right, very nice. And then, I mean, obviously that was a huge uh boost to your career, right?

SPEAKER_04 3:46

Oh, it was great. It was great. The reason I taught French was because I got a full bright uh scholarship or grant to teach in France, and I taught at a French university, and I became very fluent in the language, and so when I came back, I um I I uh was told I could teach in French. Okay. And so I taught language.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Wonderful. And when did you start writing? What were your first kind of uh uh well when did you start experimenting with with writing, you know?

SPEAKER_04 4:29

Um well I had always um I had always written a little bit, even as as a kid, as a young boy. I used to make funny books and with little stories, you know. And um I guess that would that would be the beginning, you know. Uh but when I really started writing was at the University of Arizona when I when I um read so many works of great writers in Spanish and um and even in other languages like French. And so I I said, well, I can do this, you know. And uh and then I started writing, and one of my first books, if I have it here. Um one of my first books uh is not here, by the way, but uh later on I did write this book, and um this is the book that uh that actually got me the uh Fuentes Mare's uh literary prize and um that's in Mexico, and they actually gave me a good sum of money, and I could not believe it.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, there you go. Um and what were some of the most uh inspiring like literary uh works for you?

SPEAKER_04 6:01

Well, there was uh since I was um concentrating on Spanish literature, you know, from the peninsula, I I read a lot of Spanish plays, uh Spanish novels. Galdos would be one of the great um realists, uh writers, but there were others, and some of them from the 18th and but especially from the 17th century, where you have the what we would call the classic Spanish literature and and I even taught um medieval literature. Oh wow that's why that's why I wrote uh Rodrigo El Cid Campiador y Los Infantes de Carrion. This is the book about the um the life of Rodrigo, who was uh a um El Cid. He was called El Cid by the Arabs, by the Moors at the time they were called Moors in uh in Spain, and this was from the 11th century. So I did a lot of research on um the legend, because this is based on the legend and also on the history, because we do have some historical knowledge about the Cid.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

So I just wanted very interesting stuff. In case you wanted to jump in. Oh, thanks. I did I felt like I was kind of hogging it here. I didn't want to move.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Um we saw a movie about Azid, and um you did mention, you know, is it is it exactly a hundred percent a true story, or is it like a gorrido like something that was passed around as a story?

SPEAKER_04 7:59

Well, they uh they can do anything with it because a lot of it is just legend. But there is historical fact, and I mix it with historical fact because I wanted to give a complete picture of the Cid of Rodrigo El Cid Campiador. Um But uh what I uh felt was not done well with that series was the fact that not much money was put into it. So it was it was kind of shabby in in certain parts. And then um they added a couple of things that were just Hollywood, you know, Hollywood elements. And uh I thought they could have done a better job. Now the actors were good. The actors were good, they were not they were not bad. It was just the the entire um the entire film, the way it was set up, and the the props that they had, they were you could tell they were not very good.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

It was more V-rated personally.

SPEAKER_04 9:06

Well, if you s if you see one of these um historical movies uh about England, you'll see the difference. There's there's a lot of money put into it where it really looks real in every sense. You know, the palaces are palaces, and the army and and when I saw the palaces uh of uh El El C, you know, the the production that they made, they were kind of shabby put together very cheaply. But that's just my my interpretation. Uh maybe some other people loved it, right? And I wouldn't take anything from them.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

And that's so that book is your kind of own spin on your own rendition of the of the list.

SPEAKER_04 9:57

Oh yes, yes, yes. But what I think makes it um uh more reliable is the fact that I do include historical facts. And um the the we do have a a long poem, medieval poem of the Cid, and I I include some of that in this book, but um it it is they really don't put a lot of uh historical facts in it. It's uh it's just um legend that they put in. And here here I actually bring them bring the characters alive because they actually speak, they actually act, uh, and it's not just a poem, a long poem. Uh there is some action in the poem, but it's not the same as a novel. In a novel, you you see how people think, you you uh see what they do, uh the culture of the times, all of that is in the in the book because I did a lot of research and I knew a lot about that part of um uh Spain's history because I read a lot of history, medieval history, which you need, you need in order to write.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Right. That's uh kind of a well, go ahead. I was gonna say that's kind of a perfect segue. Um, you know, again, a little bit of behind the scenes, but um very recently on on Sunday, we were at uh La Cultura bookstore here in Sacramento, and you were telling us about your your projects, um, among which one of them is here, right? You know, front and center. Um Santa Maria.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

Santa Maria, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Like you said, you're you're very proud that you do the research and you write um, you know, in in the context of history. And this one, you know, uh was of particular interest to me um personally, as again, as the title shows, you know, the the cover shows historical novel of of California. Um you said that you you know delved deep into the research so that you could get a good context of of the time and of the history. Can you uh you tell us a little bit about more about uh what inspired you to do that?

SPEAKER_04 12:22

Well, um the reason I wrote this is because I read a lot of um history of California, and I knew there was a lot of stuff missing and misrepresented, a lot of misrepresentation, um but omissions, that's the thing. The omissions were really bad. And um the what I read, uh the novels that I read, uh they pictured the Mexicans as, well, just completely stereotypical. And um I wanted to write about the 1850s all the way to the 1870s, and so I wrote this this book from a standpoint of the Mexican uh existence here in uh California because they were around, they were around. And as I said in my presentation, um you see how they and I and I characterize that in this in this book, you see how the landowners lost their land, the Mexican uh rancheros lost their land to the new immigrants, the Anglo-American immigrants. And um uh they were but like I said before, they were did not become uh victims. I mean, they they fought back in different ways. But one of the ways was, and this is kind of sad, but at the same time you can understand why it happened. A lot of them went to the Sierra Nevada and became bandits. Well, they were called bandits by the Anglo-Americans, and they were called guerrilleros by the Mexican community, because they exacted a um a penalty for what the Anglo-Americans were doing uh with the with the community with the Mexican with the Mexican community.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

And uh from what I understand, um I believe you mentioned to me that there were contracts written when the war was lost in the Mexican-American War.

SPEAKER_04 14:39

Yes, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

And these Mexicans, the Mexicans were promised to still have their ranches, and um, you know, it's a trend in U.S. history, and these contracts were not honored.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

The property, uh the American side said that they um they would follow the law as far as the property, they would not take the property away from Mexicans, and that Mexicans would eventually have citizenship, American citizenship. This was important for the Mexican negotiators that the Mexicans would be treated uh well, you know, because all of this land was passed on to the United States, uh, a lot of land, a little bit more than half of the existing Mexico at the time. But as far as the the way um the um Anglo-Americans saw the Mexican community, over time changed a little bit. And it's kind of um kind of funny the way it happened. Uh during the late uh eight uh eighteenth century. Um the the uh there was this movement to glorify and to um re reset their view on the Mexican community, Mexican communities across all of the land that was taken. And that is called um the the Romantic period. And the Mexicans were turned into grandees from Spain. I don't know if you understand this, grandees. That means the the very noble uh landowners, the very noble people uh from the from old Spain. And it's funny, but they had these um and and it's in the book, they had these um festivals of old Spain, festivals of um the um the old Spanish uh haciendas, and they had different names for it, and the Mexican people were brought out to to show in in these um parades that they had and these uh these they were not uh this festivals that they had, and the Anglo-American women would dress up as old uh old Spanish ladies, what they called old Spanish ladies. That was all Mexican. And then they had the food, oh they they uh they brought in the food, they had the Mexican people make the food and all that, but they didn't call it Mexican food, they called it Spanish food, you see, so everything just turned into a different type of past history of of California. And there's still some of that, there's still some of that uh nostalgia. This was the nostalgia of the times, and um it it helped the the the Mexican community a bit, but not too much, because uh it was it was not real, it was fake, it was not true.

unknown 18:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04 18:32

Even the food was taken from us, and it was called Spanish food. Anybody that knows Spanish food knows that it's different from Mexican food.

unknown 18:42

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

All right. Well, that's that's that's interesting stuff. I'm looking forward to uh to going more into detail, you know, and reading reading the book all the way through. Um do you have any?

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Yeah. Um yeah, the Spanish food, the Spanish cuisine, and the Mexican cuisine, obviously, you know, I believe it's the combination of all the indigenous recipes and the Spanish recipes.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

To some degree, yes. Um, but it it evolved into what we call Mexican food. And in Spain, they have their evolution uh with their cuisine, and um there's really not a lot of things that are the same. Now, it's true, for instance, you know that the tortillas were first corn tortillas, because wheat was unknown in the Americas. Of course, the Spaniards brought wheat, and so we started making tortillas out of wheat. So that's why you have flour tortillas and corn tortillas. So some some days you can eat one or the other, you know, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. But we don't have tortillas in Spain, you know. We the tortilla in Spain is made out of uh potatoes and um and uh tortilla potatoes and eggs. That's tortilla española, that's different.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Learn something. I'm I'm learning here. I don't you know that's that's new to me. I have no idea. Oh yeah. Um well, yeah, I mean it's it's it's exciting stuff. I'm I'm excited to go further into the book. Um you have this one, the historical novel of California. You also have, I see on the table there, uh El Corrido de California.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

Oh, El Corrido de California.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

And that is your uh that is your your play.

SPEAKER_04 20:44

Yes. Now this in this was my initial uh you might say initial uh effort to write a historical book. And um it turned out to be a play. And um uh the uh in the play um uh I I write up s uh something similar to what you might find in this in this book, but it's very very much reduced because it's um we just have certain characters in the play. And um there was something else I wanted to tell you about the play. Oh yes. Um this play was meant for the reader, it was not to be you know performed. Um uh the actors or the characters uh who are Anglo Americans speak English, and the characters who are Mexicans speak Spanish in this play. And but all the the notes and all the uh indications as to what should be prepared, uh as far as you know, the backgrounds and all that, that's all in uh English. So So you might say this is truly bilingual, except that uh all the Mexican characters speak Spanish and all the American characters speak English. That was my first um effort, and from there, of course, I did much more research and I came up with this book. Oh, now yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Um where has which locations have this has this play been performed at?

SPEAKER_04 22:30

Well, sure, sure. Uh as I mentioned uh at my presentation, I was surprised that they included it uh and they performed parts of it in this theatrical um festival that they had in New York City. So I was I was very very surprised about that, and it's it was great that they actually did that.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

That's that's really that's a for plays. New York is really a good place to to have Broadway.

SPEAKER_04 23:04

Yeah. And a lot a lot of the people that organized that uh were Puerto Ricans, by the way. Yeah, Puerto Ricans, yeah, because they're very prominent in New York. Right, yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

And uh you also have uh I don't have the book on me right now. Um my uh my father and sister took well I'm interested in it as well, uh, but they took more of an interest. We decided we'd each read one and and then swap. But the other book that you presented, um Ramoni Paula?

SPEAKER_04 23:33

Uh oh yeah. Uh let me see, where is it? Oh, here it is. Uh this one here, Paula and Raymond. The reason I I wrote Paula and Raymond was because I was in a uh literary group and we wrote a lot, and um they knew I had published books, and uh they knew I had published serious books, and they said, why don't you write something a little lighter? What's you know? And I thought, yeah, I would like to do that because I do have a strong love story in um, and you'll find that out when you read uh Santa Maria. There's a love story there, but um this is purely a love story. Uh but as I said in my presentation, it's different from your normal love stories that you or the romantic comedies that you consume at the at the movies, uh where everything turns out just peachy, very, very nice. They don't really deal with reality. Um some of them approach reality, but not not the way this this actually approaches reality. There's other things to consider. Um there's um um family, there's fidelity, there's um um oh gosh, I I I don't recall exactly what I what I said, but there's a lot of things, but family is important. Um when you marry, you just don't marry each other. Uh a family is coming together, you all your family and the other. And I also talk a lot about um uh keeping your your vows uh because the the protagonist here, this is a diff a difference, it's a male instead of a female. And the protagonist is afraid of one thing. He loves this woman, but he's afraid of divorce because his mother works at um at a um at a place where she um writes up a lot of divorce papers. She she works at at an office. Tells a lot of horror stories about it. And so she tells him, son, the you have to be careful with you know what you you know, what woman you choose, because you have to talk about everything, even how many babies you're gonna have, who's gonna cook, who's gonna do this, who's gonna do that. Uh so um she she tells him to be careful, and this shocks him, he says, because she says, divorce is like a disease, and he says, I don't want anything to do, and I read it, remember, I don't want anything to do with divorce. So he's uh a little afraid of that. So when he finally um decides to marry her, uh all of those items are solved, but this is not something you'll find in the romantic comedies. None of that. They never deal with that.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

I uh you you did read you know uh excerpts of it out to to us there that that attended on Sunday. I I personally thought it was uh and I I kind of uh mentioned it to you, that stream of consciousness sort of format where not you know you can see not only what he's thinking, but how it reflects in his actions, or you know, or maybe the opposite of you know, you know, uh, you know, maybe he's thinking this, so maybe he won't do that, or he will do this. It was is very interesting. I I can't um I really can't remember of any other kind of uh romantic comedy where you're kind of in the main character's head, uh especially not, you know, like you mentioned, it's uh the protagonist is a male, you know. Typically uh romantic comedies, uh in my experience are are um you know typically told from the perspective of a of a of a woman. Sure. Um and so it was uh I definitely thought it was an interesting, very fresh take on on you know on the material.

SPEAKER_04 27:58

Yes, I I decided to make it first person because that way you can uh see or read uh exactly what he's thinking. Uh and and some of it is uh humorous. Uh there's a lot of humor in in the in the book, but there's satire. And um satire means that there's criticism. There's you poke fun, but that that poking fun is to bring out uh some of the inconsistencies and and some of the things that are ridiculous. Um there's there's um when he goes to college and when he returns because he he has gone to the army and ends up in uh Iraq, and then he f finally comes back, and he's happy to be alive, that nothing happened to him during the war. But um he goes back to college and then he sees a lot of inconsistencies in uh the way people think, the way people act. And uh he brings out some follies that uh are kind of humorous. For instance, there is this woman, and this is actually taken from the university, my university experience, there's this university girl who is very attractive, and she is going into the porn business. And she thinks she is going to have a wonderful career, and she talks about it in the local newspaper, I mean the the um the um the the university newspaper. And I thought that was so bizarre that she thought she was going into stardom, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

So that's the the true story that that's yeah, that yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

But there's more. There's more. There's more. Uh another another uh thing that I bring out at the university is that um the um the women are kind of happy that well it's brought out in um in um uh in a classroom where the teacher tells or the professor tells everybody that um there are less uh male students at the university and more female students. And it's true. There are more female students, it's about 60, 40, something like that. And um the women are yay, yay, yay. But then the professor tells the women, but you know, this means that when you marry, you'll have to marry somebody that doesn't have the same level of education as you do. And you may have a better salary than your husband, and so you will be footing the bill for and that they start groaning. That you they don't like that. They want a man who can make you know an adequate amount of money. They still want him to be the provider. So but things change if you know, if you you're happy that the women are up there, all right.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

For better or for worse, right?

SPEAKER_04 31:29

And and uh I can see it all around. I mean I I can see it um in the people that I know where where the the women sometimes have more education than the husband. But you gotta be happy about that. You have to accept that if you have more education.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Uh and so you you mentioned that uh you were prompted kind of to write this by your your writing group, uh Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol.

SPEAKER_04 32:01

No, that's I wasn't a different that was in another group where we actually just wrote short stories or novels. Okay, I apologize. So so um escritores los escritores too. Oh no, escritores the escritores del Nuevo Sol have been very good uh for me because I was just a prose writer and I loved uh uh poetry, but generally I just wrote prose. I wrote a couple of poems, but um that was all. But when I joined the Escritores, um I got into poetry and I realized that I could actually write poetry that rhymed, you know, and so I I did write a lot of rhyming poetry, I still do. I I think that uh poetry that doesn't rhyme is okay, especially nowadays, especially if uh there's a lot of um a lot of insight into the poem, etc. Uh insight in the poem, but um there's still something about rhyming a poem that makes it a special poem. You know. The reason in medieval um poetry, um the the some of the um people that uh would recite poetry, it was not their poetry, but they would r recite the poetry, and the poetry was very long. And they would go to the um plaza of the little town, and then they would uh begin to strum and to sing the poem or or uh narrate the poem and the poem was very long. The in order to remember every verse it had to be rhymed, otherwise you will not remember a verse if it's not rhymed. If it's rhymed, it's you'll remember it. Most um songs today uh new uh people that come into the to the group. I've been in the group a long time now, uh, but I remember when I came in there were different people in the in the group. Uh there have s there are some that have stayed, you know, throughout this time. Uh and of course um we had one very prominent poet that uh passed away, um Francisco Alarcon, who was one of the founders of the group. And he was he was uh specifically a poet. He didn't write anything else but poetry. And most of his poetry was not rhymed, but it uh had a lot of insight, and uh he uh uh he did uh use a lot of um uh elements in in the po in poetry. Like metaphors. There's there's that's there's some that's another element that you can use in poetry, the metaphor and the similes and the metaphors uh take the place of what you're talking about, for instance. Um uh you can say she is this is very simple. Um this is not the best metaphor, but you can say she is a rose, which which means that she is so delicate and pretty. Uh what you're actually saying, she's a woman that is very delicate and pretty. Uh and the simile would just be uh something that you would say he is like a lion with nasty people. He you know, like a lion that would be a simile. Yeah. Understood. Yeah. And of course, you can you can make um similes that are m much more um uh refined, you might say.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

And when did you start with uh with the escritores of the of the for those of us who are of us uh for any listeners that don't uh speak Spanish, uh Escritores de Nuevo Sol uh would be the writers of the New Sun. I'm not sure if you guys are uh would officially go by an English name, but yeah, it goes it it goes both ways.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

Okay, yeah, wonderful. Uh Los Escritores. We usually say Los Escritores de Nuevo Sol, uh, but sometimes it's translated. Um now most of the people write in English. I am one of the f um f three or four that writes not only in English but in Spanish, and once in a while I'll write in Portuguese and in French. I did read uh did I read a butterfly. The butterfly, yeah. I wrote in French. I I like the word borboleta. Borboleta. Uh borboleta, which means butterfly in Portuguese. Yeah. And papillon in French. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Okay. And when did you start writing with uh with the escritores?

SPEAKER_04 37:27

Oh, a long time ago. I was still teaching at the time. Um, and um I decided to go to go to one of the poetry readings, and uh I saw some of the people that I knew, and so I said, Hey, I would I would like to to join. And they said, Okay, sure, you can join. And uh by the way, we're very welcoming. Uh anybody that wants to try to be uh uh a poet, if they haven't ever written, they can always join. And they're inspired by the other people, yeah, the other people that are there. There are some people that come up with some really good poems, and of course we do publish uh there's a published uh book of poetry, and I have three or four, I think about four poems, and there's other people that have two or three poems also. So it's it's fairly thick. It's a fairly thick book. And um, at the poetry readings that we have, uh that's when we sell the book.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Okay. Um and so uh you mentioned that you're you're no longer well, you're retired um from from uh being a professor. Um how long were you uh teaching at Saks State?

SPEAKER_04 38:44

Oh, a long time. Thirty-seven years, can you imagine? And I loved I loved teaching, by the way. I loved it. But um uh when I stopped teaching, uh I had a lot more time to write. And that's when I wrote all kinds of uh works, novels and s and uh short stories, and I published a lot of um short stories in different journals. Um even even in the um the uh magazine from the UNAM, which is the uh autonomous university of Mexico, and they have a very prestigious um uh magazine that they published. And I I have a I have um an article, a very long article on uh Mexican American journalism during the 19th century. And I also have a short story. One of my first short stories that I wrote when I was in Arizona, which which I think is pretty elementary now when I see it. But but anyway, they they thought it was they thought it was interesting, so they published it. I also have this is interesting, the uh university, uh there's a university in Spain that has this uh let me see, I have it written down here, I think. Um it's called Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, the famous writer Miguel de Cervantes, and it's from a univ uh university in um in Spain, but it's in um Valencia. Valencia. That's uh that's a province in Spain. And um they published a lot of uh my short stories. I I think I have four short stories there, and they can be read. You just go to the you can go to the the uh biblioteca virtual Miguel de Cervantes, or you can look me up in um in the internet. I'm in the internet, all over the place in the internet, and you'll find this um Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. And I was very um very surprised that they asked me to um to send send my my works and they published them all. I sent four and they published them. There you go. Yeah, which was great. Wow. I didn't get any money for it, but but I got a little bit of fame, you might say. Yeah, a little exposure, you might say.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Definitely. And since retiring, you pretty much you uh you know you you write full-time?

SPEAKER_04 41:45

That's your you know, your uh That's one of my jobs, yeah. Because uh uh when I left teaching, I didn't really feel like I was retiring. I was just going on to something else. I I was just going into something else. Uh I know that I'm officially retired, but I was really just going into something else. Um because I do know people, they retire and then they just hang around the house and they don't know what the hell they're doing. And so some of them they just fix things around the house, and uh when they have everything fixed, they don't know what the heck they can do. But for me, it uh it was just it was just uh uh a question of doing more writing because I was writing when I was teaching. Right. And it was very difficult because I had a full load. I had to teach a lot of classes, I had a lot of students, and then during the summers, we took students to Spain, to Mexico, to Peru, to um um uh Central America, and we had the these uh uh summer school for them where the where they um got their masters. We had a lot of teachers that got their masters that way. I think they had to go three times uh during the uh three semesters, I mean three um summers in order in order to get their master's degree. But but they were already teaching, they were teaching in high school, right? Yeah. But we also had other students that that went, and so we would have maybe 40 students that we had to take care of. Uh and then we had tours all over Spain, and we also went into Portugal sometimes. So we um we were busy. I mean, we were when I was teaching, I was real busy, and that was part of my job too. Because sometimes I was the the director of the program. Sometimes Jorge Santana, my colleague and friend, he was in charge of the of the group, but I was always one of the professors that taught because I I was one of the professors that wanted to do this. Some of them didn't want to.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

They just wanted to stay. Too much. Too much.

SPEAKER_04 44:08

They didn't travel. They're not I I'm just a big traveler. You might know that my son didn't speak Spanish. And so I said, I can't have a son that doesn't speak Spanish because I have three daughters. They speak Spanish fluently.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

Thank you, Dad.

SPEAKER_04 44:28

Yeah. And so what I did, I decided I would immigrate with my family to Spain. For one year, I would I was planning on just one year. And so I put him in a regular Spanish um uh school. And so he was there without knowing a word in Spanish. And in a couple of months, he was he was speaking Spanish and he had all kinds of friends. So we had a good time in Spain for the whole year. And the the country thought I was gonna stay. That was just an immigrant that was gonna stay there. No, I had I had my work, I had to get back.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Um that would have been 2011, 2012.

SPEAKER_04 45:18

No, did I have my work? No, no, no, no. I was retired already. I was retired, so I didn't have to, but I had a lot of things that I had to do here. Uh, you know, you you have your your house here, you have your your roots, a lot of roots and so forth. But it almost seemed like I could have stayed. But I could have stayed more in France when I went to France as an exchange professor. People wanted me to stay there, and um the the um the country, France, was ready to give me permission to stay in France. But I had my job here, I had a good job, I can't just couldn't stay. But we had friends in France and they couldn't believe we were leaving. What? Why why are you leaving? Aren't you living here? Uh so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Business back in Sacramento, I have to take care of. Yeah. I have to come back, right?

SPEAKER_04 46:18

Oh, but I do want to tell you about uh a year later after the the um exchange in Toulouse, France, which is in southern France near the Pyrenees, I got a sabbatical and I went to live in Paris.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 46:36

And the thing about Paris is just incredible. I mean, you're there and you say, This is so different from anything. This is this is glorious. It's the buildings are old but beautiful, and they're still standing. And um just everything is special, and so even the restaurants are special. And so in the morning when I would wake up, I would say, Where am I? Where am I? I'm in Paris. I can't believe it. And so, and I still have eight more months to go. So I was I was happy. I had the happiest time. The only the only other time that I was as happy as as I was in Paris was in Arizona when I was doing my doctorate. I just had such a good time, and it was so um so encouraging. Um I had a lot of friends, uh the professors were um very welcoming and very good. They knew what they were talking about, most of them. Um, you know, there's always one or two that maybe know, but uh most of them were great professors, they knew what they were talking about, and they encouraged you to to perform, you know, to do well. And uh I did very well at the at the university, and um I quickly got my uh doctorate. Uh there were some people that I noticed that would take after they would finish their exams who which were very difficult, um, and there was uh an oral exam. There was some people that passed all of that, but then they had to write a book. Oh the dissertation. Oh, yeah. And before they can get their doctorate, they had to do that. And for some reason, some people would uh they just can't couldn't do it, couldn't write, uh just couldn't get themselves um going on on their dissertation, and then they had a limit, uh uh a year when they had to finish. It was five years. You had five years, and when that five-year um limit was coming due, they would panic and they would try to finish as quickly as possible. Some made it and some didn't, poor guys. Some did not make it. And the some of them the folly that they uh fell into was to accept a job at a at a school or accept a job at a junior college in in um in Arizona. So they were busy teaching and they couldn't get they couldn't get going on on on the dissertation. They offered me jobs at junior colleges, you know, when I had finished my my um all the the the uh exams that I had to take, etc. Um So I had the doctorate, but I had to write the dissertation, and I said no, I'm not gonna do that. But I I did a well did well because uh I got a grant from the f the um Ford Foundation. They gave me a grant, um and uh the grant was so I could finish my dissertation. So it took just took took me one year to write the dissertation and uh then I got my doctorate. Wow, fan and fantastic. And then then I came here because um there was a job opening here to be a professor of Spanish, but also a professor of Portuguese. And so I spoke Portuguese. I had had already studied at the University of Lisbon, so I said, yeah, I'll I'll go. And there was another offer at um the university in um what was the name of that? Um gosh, I can't I can't remember right now, but it was in New York, and it was right on the border with um Quebec in New York. But I found out that that was a terrible. Well, no, I found out that the city was awful, that the city was just run down, and uh it was it was very cold during the winters, you know. You you you had to leave because it was very cold, there was a lot of snow. Um gosh, I wish I could remember, but it was upstate New York, right on the border with um with Quebec. Oh man. Yeah. And so I said, no, no, I don't want to go over there.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

Yeah, no, no, thank you. Sunny California for me.

SPEAKER_04 51:52

Yeah, and then I came here and I saw the trees. I said, Well, beautiful. Made the right choice. Yeah, yeah. I mean the only the only thing that I didn't didn't like was the amount of classes that you had to teach.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

Heavy workload.

SPEAKER_04 52:07

Four classes. Wow. That was a lot. That was a lot. I was used to maybe three classes, which is the normal for you know, UC Davis, uh sometimes just two classes, and sometimes just one class. Wow. And I had a colleague from the university, um UC Davis, where he told me some professors don't want to teach any class. They just want to write, they want to um uh publish, you know, things like that, which is fine, but he says they're professors they should teach. Right, yeah, yeah, lectures and so on. Yeah, well, he was critical, he was very critical. He was he was a very good uh academic, uh, and he um he wrote a lot, and um his name was Guyon. Gullion. Uh he was the son of another Gullion who was very famous, he was from Spain, and this Guyon with his son, uh I f I forget his last name. I think it's uh uh Roman Guyón, I'm I'm not sure. I am I I can't remember exactly, but I know his last name was Guyon. And he passed away uh just recently and he was kind of young. I I I couldn't believe he would pass away so young. But he was in in Europe. He was teaching at a university in um in Amsterdam. He was teaching in Amsterdam. Um well, yeah, so I can tell you uh something about uh my experience as a child as uh in Mexico and in in California. Please if you want. If you want. Um I did say that I came uh here when I was three years old, but when I was around five years old, my mother thought that perhaps on a visit to to Sinaloa, uh my grandmother said, Why don't you leave him here with me? You know, I can take care of him. He should uh me and my sister. My sister and I were were were were young at the time, I was just five years old. And um uh my mother said, Okay, yeah, I'll leave him here for a year and I'll come back and take him back to California. So I did go to school in um in I went to a private school, a Catholic school in uh Huamuchil, Sinaloa. Now Wamuchil is a big city, but at that time it was a mid-sized city, and um it was a wonderful experience. Wonderful experience. I I uh did well at the at the school and uh what I noticed was that I was basically in kindergarten, but they were teaching us how to divide mathematics, all of that. It was incredible, and I I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. But it was a good experience. And then when I came back, uh then I started in uh second grade here in uh I guess I guess I was in first grade over there in in Mexico, or it was considered first grade because I already had uh math and all of that. And so they put me in second grade, and I did well here too, and I learned I already knew English to some degree, but a lot of it was lost when I was over there because I spoke Spanish, right? You know, just left and right, everything was done in Spanish, no English at all, no English, but I I quickly, you know, became acquainted with English again. Uh and uh as I say, I never forgot English, but it was just a little rusty. But um I um I then went to grammar school uh there in San Diego, and then uh in law in National City, I went to another grammar school, and then um then I went to middle school in San Diego again, and then high school. Oh sorry. Uh Lincoln High School, which now is a huge uh visit it and we we visited it and it was pretty big. Yes, it it's it's something a special school now. It um what it prepares people for, I forget what like a vocational school or I don't know if it's a vocational or or a uh technical technical or something or preparation for college. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

So earlier on you were you were kind of bouncing back and forth between uh education down in Sinaloa and here and then grammar school or uh I'm sorry, I I lost the plot.

SPEAKER_04 57:19

Well, I was just there in Sinaloa one year. Oh, I was just there one year, and then I came back. I was I was about seven years old when I came back. Okay. You're in Sonora for a time too. Yeah, because I I think I um I had my birthday over there, six six years old, and then when I came here uh back to San Diego, I was um I was seven years old, I remember. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

And um at what point did you uh decide to go into the service?

SPEAKER_04 57:52

Okay, well, uh I uh was drafted into the the army. Drafted, okay. I was drafted. I I was not I was not thinking of joining the the army.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

For a second I was like, man, you know, highly educated gentleman. I'm sure he had things going on over here.

SPEAKER_04 58:06

Well what happened was uh I um I started college there in San Diego State University, and I went through two and a half years, and it I just didn't have any money anymore to uh to continue studying. So I said, I'm going to take a break one semester and work. And um my mother had moved uh to um a place near Wilmington uh in Arizona in um Los An the Los Angeles area. Um and there was a a place called uh San Pedro. Saint Pedro, they call it. San Pedro, but San Pedro. Anyway, uh they had canneries there, and uh I said, oh, I'm gonna make some money there. So I I went there and uh I was able to get a job uh working there, and um it was a good experience, a good experience because I learned a lot about some of the immigrants that worked there. The immigrants came from Mexico to work uh for uh about six months, and then they will would go back to the world, they would go back to the world, and the world was their town in Mexico, where they would go back to their family, their wife, their children, etc. And then uh after maybe six months over there in Mexico, they would come back to work. Yeah, and so uh talking to them, I learned uh more or less their life cycle, how they dealt with with work here in the United States United States. I was a little bit more but then the army called me. They said, uh, you're being drafted. Oh man. So I had to uh they said, we need soldiers, we need red-blooded American soldiers. They told me I was a red-blooded American soldier, and so uh I took my basic training in Louisiana. Uh and I was in um Fort Polk, they would call it Full Fort Polk, and uh for some reason the army guys called it Fort Puke.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:39

Yeah, they didn't like it.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

They didn't like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

How was the when you guys had time to uh roam around in Louisiana when they gave you guys um your days where you could do that? How was the how was the public? Liberty Liberty? Liberty Days or Yeah I'm not I don't know the passes, they call it pass, you get a pass.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:59

Yeah. Uh how was the public there? Like how were the people of the town? How what was your experience?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:04

Well, um I already knew some French. So when I when I went to um when I got a pass, we went to um um what's the name of that? Appalousas. Appaloosis, right in the heart of uh Cajun area. Cajun. So these were Cajuns, and uh I knew some some French, so I did meet some f people that spoke French. Uh and some of them, and some of them, some of them didn't speak French very well, but uh I wasn't fluent in French either, so we did okay. But um we went to uh a couple of um dances, you know, and um we met some girls, we met some girls, and um for some reason I remember we had a car. I don't know how we got the car. I don't know if it was the girls' car or but we were with the girls and we were uh we met them at the at the and they were Cajun girls. Okay. But then what shocked me was that when we stopped at a stop sign because there was an old uh African uh African American woman crossing the street, the girls said they said some bad things. She's just taking so much time to cross the street. And I had never and and I I there was nice looking girls, you know, and there were uh, you know, pretty pretty girls, and I could not I could not understand why they would be so harsh with this poor old lady. And then later we went to uh see a movie in another town. I forget what the name of the town was. Uh it may have been um St. Charles, I think it was St. Charles, beautiful city, small city, beautiful city, St. Charles, and we went to see a movie. And we saw that it said, no uh no Africans can see can come through this door. The Africans had to go up on top at the balcony to see the movie. And then they had they had two uh faucets to drink water, and the the faucet for the regular people was nice looking, and the faucet for the African Americans run down, just broken, everything terrible, yeah. But there's there was something else too. This was good. Uh there was this little town uh very close to Fort Polk, um, and we did have a couple of days in that town, and um uh we went to um there was just a couple of uh um I guess maybe about four or five of us uh soldiers. Um we went to this restaurant we were gonna go into this restaurant. They had some music there, you know, country and western music everywhere. You know, I learned country and western there. Uh anyway, we decided to go in. And um they said, yeah, come on in, blah, blah, blah, you know, and all that. But we had one African American soldier, and they said, Oh, but he can't come in. And then the good thing is, all of us said, Well, if he can't come in, we're not coming in. And so we decided to, you know, not go in because we felt that was so unfair. Right. So unfair. And and I was kind of shocked because I had heard about the South and how you know they treated the segregation, how they treated African Americans, but I had never really seen it, you know. Right. But this was America, but this was South. This was the South at the time. This was back in uh 1965, 64, 64, I think, 1964. They were still pretty racist. Uh oh, yeah, they they still had that. They still had that at the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:30

Right in the middle of, I imagine the the civil rights movement.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:34

No, the civil rights came later. Came later. There's no civil rights yet. Yeah. No, that's why you had uh Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:41

I I mean uh I would imagine that like in that maybe that worst part of the South, like they were feeling but please correct me, but like you know, you they see these things going on, these progressive ideologies coming in, and so more than ever they want to kind of buckle down on that kind of uh hate, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:01

Like they would want to well in in the South at that time there there was no movement yet. No, no movement movement yet. That came a little later. But uh that came with um uh the that Texan uh president uh who favored uh the the movement uh gosh I uh I can't remember his name do you can you remember when we look it up because it's uh was it Kennedy no no um oh the uh Kennedy's um uh vice president oh kennedy he became president because um Kennedy was assassinated yeah Lyndon Johnson yeah Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Johnson yeah he he passed laws that um that favored the the movement and that's when things got started yeah that's when things got started saw it for yourself though those are you can imagine those some crazy stories wow oh man and so it's it's been uh it's been a long road but I mean you you you got through all that and then and then you came to Sacramento came after this oh well um the thing is we were going to be sent to Vietnam oh and um Lyndon Johnson um was gonna send us because there were um the war is getting hot and they needed more men in Vietnam so I was in the infantry div the uh 25th infantry division and that was in Hawaii uh I was in Oahu and um they got us all together and we were had all our equipment and um we had our rifles we had our backpacks and uh we could see that they were loading up all the equipment and we were ready and they were gonna send us and we waited till about one o'clock in the morning and then um we found out it was announced that Lyndon Johnson was going to keep us as as reserves and he was going to send another division from uh I think it was from Tech from uh not from Texas from um um Washington State is gonna say send another division and keep us you know in reserve because we we could go there in no time because we were very close to Vietnam but um that saved saved me from going to Vietnam um and then after after a while the the my um tour of duty became became due I mean it was almost finished and so I asked for a a um special um a special grant um well I asked that I be uh discharged earlier one month earlier so I could go back to uh the university because the university would start at a certain date and I said if I'm if I don't get my discharge I I'll I'll miss the semester. And so they actually had a program for that and so they eventually gave it to me. So I was able to then finish my studies at the university in San Diego State and then I went on to the UNAM to study at the University of Mexico the autonomous university in Mexico City which was a wonderful experience. And uh I did a lot of work there and then I got my BA I went on to the University of Arizona and I got the the um now the the army tour was not to my liking I didn't want to I didn't want to be there although I was a perfect soldier but I psychologically I I wasn't happy to be there. But but it was good in the end because I got the what was that uh the the veterans um I forget what they call it but you got the GI Bill GI Bill yeah you remembered yeah I got the GI Bill and so I was in heaven when I was studying at the University of Arizona because I would get a salary there I would teach two classes elementary classes as a teaching assistant and I was a student also for the doctorate and uh I had money. I had money I didn't uh I didn't have any problems I bought a car I I um I um I would go to the to the um cafeteria and they would just load me up with all kinds of food and uh I had a ticket for all that because I had money to pay for all that and then and then I would dole things off to my friends this is too much for me here you can have this you can have so they were happy to be along with me you know they wanted to be with me. That's awesome. Yeah so it was awesome I I I loved uh the the the friends the good friends that I had there um and all of them most of them went on to universities and did what they did well. Okay wow well that is that's um that's an amazing story kind of a perfect storm how like it well it it it could have ended uh in Vietnam I mean uh the You mean they sent your um your uh unit shortly after maybe three you said three months after what um oh they sent my my uh unit my uh uh 25th inf infantry division went to Vietnam and they fought for many years in Vietnam yeah yeah yeah yeah and I I I would read about it I would see it in the in on TV how how many people were getting killed and the body bags coming back yeah it was a horrible and and then all of the I I knew about all the um terrible things some American soldiers did over there was was not very good it was it was terrible and the the um vietnamese have this they fought hard but they also forgave they're very forgiving uh people uh I know that some of the veterans went back to Vietnam and they did some good because they were guilty they felt so guilty of what they did in Vietnam uh they raped young young girls uh some not not all not all the um not all the uh soldiers but we I knew I was in the army there and and all of this stuff would filter back to to us over at uh at Oahu in Hawaii and so I I thought it was just terrible that this should happen but um a lot of them of course a lot of the veterans uh they are their heads are just not right I mean they they suffer a lot of uh trauma uh and some of it is because of what they saw and some of it is for what they did over there.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:12

Yeah I hope I didn't seem insensitive I mean saying it's the perfect story.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:16

I'm just I'm glad that you know things worked out for you no it worked out it worked out yeah with us today and I I I tell my son you know if if my story had ended there then all of what followed would just be this is what uh the the existentialist writers um what they write about that in life it depends on where you go you you have all these choices and if you go here this will right take place you know this evolution will take place right if you go over here this other evolution will take place and um I I came back to the United States after I I studied in um the un um the University of of Mexico but when I was there I was offered jobs because I spoke English right and they had businessmen uh that went to Mexico and they needed translators they needed somebody to be with them uh go to their to to meet all the um the um business people from Mexico and some of them needed translators and um I was offered jobs and I could have stayed but then another thing would have unraveled another evolution would have taken place but I came back and uh but I still thought about after I graduated from um the University of Arizona I mean um uh California State uh no not California State um San Diego State University I I still had uh lingering thoughts about going back to Mexico yeah but then I saw a uh uh something posted uh there at the university where I was at San Diego State that said looking for um candidates for the doctorate at the university of Arizona um TA ships are offered which means teaching assistant um positions and I said well I'm gonna go there instead of going to Mexico so that then had another evolution right yeah oh okay yeah that's the way that's the way life is whatever you choose that's gonna give you a certain evolution yeah man oh that's deep yeah that's that's philosophical that's philosophical sure absolutely sure sure sure but um you know after after um you know long uh great story you know eventually you found yourself you found yourself here you know lucky for everyone we found ourselves with Adrian you know so obviously um I mean I consider me biased but I I like the way that it turned out you know yeah and I went I went to the Philippines I visited the Philippines uh Aziam wouldn't be here if I hadn't gone to the Philippines um and so I mean I I suppose that that brings us to uh to today uh how else do you spend your time other than other than writing? Well uh we I travel a lot uh this this year we're not traveling but usually we travel a lot and I I like to stay in one place and maybe go off uh nearby but but not do the tours when you do a tour you see a lot but you don't get anything out of it really like the tour groups yeah tour groups okay you guys come follow the the white the white stick flag line well the thing is you get to see cities but you don't stay there you don't get to know anybody etc but um uh we we stay I I like to go somewhere and stay and get to know the place and uh sometimes I make friends and of course I've made friends in uh a couple of places in France which is one of my favorite uh uh countries um my other favorite country besides Spain I do like Spain is um Portugal before Portugal used to be my most favorite country but French after I did my my exchange in France it just became part of me France became part of me in fact one time when I went back to Paris I felt like I was coming home I couldn't believe it because I had lived there and four or three years no no oh I lived there a year oh in in in uh and I think when I go back to Toulouse I may feel that way although it's been a long time since I've been in Toulouse but in in in um Paris I did feel like yeah look I'm coming back I'm back home yeah that's that's a beautiful feeling um what about here in town oh I like Sacramento I like Sacramento a lot uh my wife likes to go to San Francisco she's she thinks it's so wonderful to go to San Francisco but I prefer Sacramento and we have a lot here absolutely you you want restaurants you have we have restaurants you if you want a theater we have theater uh we have festivals um we have the rivers um uh so uh I I sometimes I do want to go to Sonoma um the wine country um Lake Tahoe I've been there uh a couple of times uh maybe more than a couple of times but um now that we're here I guess we have to go to Lake Tahoe because we're not going to France or to Europe uh I do like to go to Europe and um the last time we went to Besançon which is a very small well not a small city but it's not a huge city and uh we really got to know the city uh we have we have gone to Cassis Cassis has been one of my favorite places and Adrian Adrian knows Cassis pretty well too it's um it's basically a hidden it's a hidden paradise next to uh Marseille so Marseille is a very big city um but you know we met we met people you know they just go there they have their summer houses there they have um you know that's where they like to go when they're off of work and you know they have their vacation time. Yeah and so we met we met Patrick which is uh one of our friends and you met you met his son Antonin yeah we be we became good friends for sure yeah and now he's in Toulouse I would love to go to Toulouse to to see him yes and and then we also met this this couple uh Francoise and uh Jean-Pierre yeah so yeah they're very very nice they live in Avignon Avignon which is a medieval city Avignon it still has the walls huge walls all around the city and it's not a small city it's a pretty big city but it's it's walled it's a walled city medieval walls that's awesome that's awesome yeah so it it's it's been it's been nice traveling um we we also traveled to lun London uh when we were living in um in Spain uh we traveled to Italy we traveled to southern Spain Andalusia Seville uh which was Seville is is pretty good uh it's pretty nice um I don't know if Adrian remembers you remember sevilled yeah I remember it was hot yeah it was hot but it was hot it was very pretty and the whole town has orange trees everywhere orange trees and I believe um you know in the south of Spain people are more friendly people are more um uh I want to say it in Spanish um I'm I'm a Bigad.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:13

Oh okay yeah sure they're more welcoming yeah yeah and then in the big city you know let's let's say Madrid where I studied for a year people can be pretty cold.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:24

Well they're reserved a lot more reserved but we did make friends there too yeah but no like they're you know you have a whole variety yeah yeah we did we did make friends the only thing about Spain uh that kind of uh disappointed me uh you know when you go to Mexico everybody living in Mexico even even us here love Mexico Mexico is everything to the people see they love Mexico they're patriotic they patriotic in the sense of we love Mexico not not that we're against anybody else yeah and that that feeling uh rubs off on all kinds of immigrants that go there people that go there from Europe then they they become Mexican they it's it's a very welcoming culture um the but in in Madrid uh they were more reserved but in uh southern spain they're a little bit more uh like Mexicans like like Mexicans yeah um and and of course there were there were a lot of um Andalusians uh los the Andalucía people from uh Andalusia that uh immigrated to Mexico uh back back then when it was um when it was a um a colony or almost uh an independent country really uh la Nueva España the new spain was uh almost an independent country they recognized the the the monarch but the it was pretty independent they had everything uh there in Mexico and then they had the viceroy of course that was like the president and eventually independence and would you say that your your travels uh influence in your writing do they inspire you or where do you find the inspiration uh to keep writing today you mentioned um uh galdos he was a he was a big inspiration to you like earlier on well gal galdos uh the he's the um the great writer that wrote very thick books because that was that was the way uh people wrote at the time uh these were uh real this was realism uh the the period of real is realism and um after realism comes naturalism and naturalism um instead of just being realistic they they um emphasize uh the bad part of realism that is what is wrong with with uh humanity you know um rancor um uh uh well some of the the uh the the the things that people do that are cruel cruelty and so forth uh but realism you um the reason they those books were very thick was because they went into every detail when when uh character walked into uh room everything would be described uh you know so um it gives you uh uh the whole picture of the times so by reading uh realism you know exactly what pip people did at the time how they spent their days uh what was important to them what was not important to them for instance today we have tv and a lot of uh a lot of us spend some time in front of the TV you know when we get home uh and even when we're among family oh let's watch this you know we'll watch a movie in those days there was no TV there was no radio there was none none of that you know what people did they got together and uh oftentimes if it was a a big family or very important family in the town you would get also the priest from town he would come in and people would have their dinner You know, and you'd have people coming in that you knew, people that um wanted to have a tertulia with you, you know, because that's the way they spent their evenings with friends that would come over, with family that would come over, and then you would cook up the these meals. Of course, you had help that would do the you know the cooking and so forth, and then uh then after they had games to play, they would then uh sit, uh then they would play the piano and somebody would sing, and then they would tell stories, and then uh when it became kind of late, and I said the the goodbyes would that take place, then people would go to bed. But that's the way they interacted during that time. And when you read these novels, you are in that era and you know how people actually lived, and you can compare it to how we live today. Right. We have less of that time, you know, the interaction between people.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:12

That's yeah, that is um that's definitely true. Yeah, I can hopefully that's one of the things that we can uh we can work on here, and we're setting a good example for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:22

Now, the way the way I I I I don't write like Galdosa Corsa because that that was the because today we have what we call realism, but it's it's different type of realism where we just portray uh um realistically the the people we we are dealing with uh and then we do uh talk about the place that they're at, but not go into every little detail or everything, you know. Uh so we can we we have an idea where the person is, what he's doing, and so forth, but we don't go into all of the details, minutiae that might you know that these people did. Nevertheless, it's enjoyable to read Galdos. Yeah, it was enjoyable, and there's a lot of humor, of course. And I like to inject humor. There's humor in in uh both of these Paula and Raymond and also the La Santa Maria others' humor in that.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:29

I was just wondering to uh to compare and contrast, you know, you because you mentioned uh early on that Galdos was uh a big inspiration for you to start writing. Uh and now I mean it I was curious because you know, you do love to travel. Uh you know, I've learned uh more about that. Um is that like a big inspiration for you today?

SPEAKER_04 1:30:51

Well, uh um when I when I do travel for some reason, I don't write at all. I don't write at all. Um but I do have memories of once in a while I will um inject uh French in some of my writings. There's French in in the Paola and Raymond, but the French is is not gratuitous, it's in there for a reason. Um uh the protagonist does take a French class, so he does learn some French. And and his girlfriend is a French teacher, so you know he uh will speak a little French with her. But um normally I don't write when I'm when I'm there, but I'm taking in everything, everything that's that's uh that's going on. Um and that of course I speak a lot of French. I uh I just love to speak French when I'm in France, and of course in Portugal too, and in Spain, naturally English Spanish, you know, a lot of Spanish. Um but um uh what was what was I gonna what would what was the other part of the question?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:07

Oh, I was just curious to kind of compare how your um how your inspiration has changed, or you know, maybe not necessarily changed, but um I was curious because you mentioned Galos early on, and you mentioned that you love to travel and you duh you you love Sacramento, you do love Sacramento. Um so I was wondering how that kind of played into your career now as a as a writer, um, the places you've been, the places you go. Um here, I mean the subject of the you know the podcast is is the people here, you know, uh of Sacramento and how they interact. So I I was curious, you know, um if the if this if if Sacramento here um plays a part in in inspiring you in your works. I know that you mentioned in your uh in your book uh Paola and Raymond that you said they have a moment where they have a picnic date, I believe, in the foothills. Yeah, sure. In the foothills. Yeah, and so I'm wondering, is this whole story set here here in Sacramento?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:09

Or is it is it just like yeah, yeah, the whole story takes place in Sacramento. Although I don't although I don't mention it, I don't mean I don't mention the name, yeah, but it does take place here. Okay, yeah, and uh and the foothills are very nice for uh for a um a picnic date. And um and of course uh I I I emphasize that a picnic date out in the foothills is a very very romantic date, yeah, but a picnic date at um at a park is not. Yeah, right. It's just a cheap date. Right. Yeah. So anyway, I I I did want to use a little bit of humor. Now I did want to talk about uh just mentioned um where's this other book? Oh yes. Oh I I where is it? Oh well, I guess the one that I want to oh, this one here. This one here, this is the one that was published in um in uh the autonomous university of Juarez. And uh this is what um well I got a um I don't know, did did I already mention this? That I got a um a uh prize, a literary prize for this one. And it's entirely in Spanish, of course. Uh you can show the camera. There's short, yeah, there's there's short uh stories, short stories that um they published for me, which I was very grateful. And then this is the uh the book that I published in Portugal, it's in Portuguese. And what I did, this is uh an academic book actually, because uh I uh what I did is I I have a list of a group of authors who write in Portuguese. They're from the United States, but they write in Portuguese. And uh I made this anthology and with an introduction and characterizing each uh writer, their poetry, their short stories, and what have you. Some of them are immigrants, and the immigrant story is very interesting. Um and they they um they uh feature some of their um some of their sensitivity to their um to their um to their situation here in the in the United States. Um for instance there's one um I I don't remember her name right now, but there's one uh poet, she's a young lady, she's very young actually, and she writes a very interesting poem about how she feels when she gets off because she came uh uh she gets off at the airport and how she feels um in the United States because she comes from a little village in the Azores that's that's um archipelago in the Atlantic, it's a Portuguese possession, a Portuguese part of Portugal. She comes here from a very uh small village where she knows everyone and everybody speaks Portuguese and she has friends and she comes here and it seems like it's she's coming, she's arriving at the moon, she's arriving in in um in another planet because this is so different for her. The city, the noise, the people that look different, and they speak some kind of language she has never heard. So I was I was impressed by her her writing. And so I included it and I write about her, uh what she um what what the the immigrant experience for a young girl coming to the United States, what it is. Yeah. All of this is in Portuguese, okay. Every every um um characterization of the poets and writers uh is done in Portuguese, totally in Portuguese. And they did put my my um photo there. I couldn't believe it. And of course, I don't look like this anymore, but this is the way I used to look at the time. Oh I had a beard, I had a beard, yeah. And of course, I was a lot younger. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:03

Who went through the difference?

SPEAKER_04 1:38:05

Divino tesoro, ya te vas para no volver.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:10

Wow, well, it has been an awesome story. It's um full of full of its twists and turns. I mean, um we went, we both went to uh to Christian Brothers and uh we once a month, you know, just as a quick like aside, you know, the teachers there would tell their stories as well. Like a vocation Friday is what they call Vocation Friday. And I do remember uh a big thing about that is they say, you know what, you have this plan, and uh for some people it doesn't go, you know, the this it's not so straightforward with some people compared to others. Um, and I mean uh from everything I've learned so far today, I mean it's it's been full of its its twists and turns and you know, and and we ended up here. Um and I I appreciate you sharing your you know the story with us and sharing your literary works. Well, thank thank you very much.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:08

No, thank you very much for inviting me. It's uh it's been a pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:13

Uh pleasures is you know, it's it's all ours. Thank you, Papa. Um we uh you know uh thank you for for your patience while we set up and get going.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:24

And um well, I wish you guys a lot of uh uh success.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:30

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Um not to end it, you know, uh abruptly, we do have uh I want to try out this this kind of ending segment. Um two questions here. Uh the first, what is something that you really enjoy here in South? You mentioned like kind of a uh a few different things. You mentioned the festivals, you mentioned the theater. Is there something that you find yourself here in town doing, you know, something that you you really enjoy enjoy doing? Uh maybe like a Friday night or something?

SPEAKER_04 1:40:04

Oh well, uh I I do like to go and see comedies, uh theater, you know, I like theater and I'm I'm happy that uh B Street Theater now exists at uh Sophia, uh Sophia, which is a nice venue for uh theater. And also I I I do like the fact that uh there's a good number of um restaurants here with real good food, and there's a great variety of food I like that. And of course, and of course, what I like is um going to some of these meetings that we have for the escritores. That's always encouraging. Definitely, it's always um a good a good experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:02

And my second question is a little bit more uh lighthearted, kind of a friendly little little little jab. Is there someone you want to uh throw kind of under the bus? Tell them, hey, well, I want to see you tell your story here.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:15

Well, I have a couple of people, sure. A couple of people. Um, I don't know if you know Jorge Santana. Yes, we met uh Dr. Jorge Santana. He was your colleague. He's my colleague and friend. He was actually a friend before he became a colleague. We we studied together, uh, teacher separate ways, if I'm correct, and then you guys just happen to be yeah, I went I went to Mexico to study, and then I went to uh the University of Arizona, and he went to Spain, to Madrid, and he studied at the Complutense, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:56

Okay, yeah. But I would I would recommend him. He I think he would be interesting. And also a younger man would be uh Waldo Diaz. Uh Waldo Diaz, I think, is an is interesting person. Uh he just finished um uh the um the master's degree in Spanish. So now he can be a teacher or he can continue um with the doctorate if he wants. And you know whatever whatever he wants he can do. And and be it would be interesting to ask him exactly what he what he plans to do now. And uh he he might uh talk to you about how he got started and um what maybe some of the problems that he may have faced uh at the university, and I don't know, but whatever, whatever he wants to bring up.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:56

That sounds good. I um I inadvertently kind of jumped the gun a little bit. Uh we did get most of the topic just as a quick quick intermission.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:07

Yeah, there's no no no hurry.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:10

Um we uh I did, you know, we we talked about kind of your career and your life now in the present day. Um I wanted to ask, uh in your perspective here as a resident of Sacramento, you know, someone who spends most of their time here, um, what in your eyes is kind of a challenge that we face or some sort of shortcoming that you might perceive here in in Sacramento? Or if you want to um you know focus on a smaller uh area, uh you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:43:44

Well, there's all kinds of challenges, of course. But in what realm? What realm are you talking about? There's political challenges.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:51

Uh is there well, it it could be any. I suppose just one that for you maybe affects you more than the rest. I I, for example, for me, uh in my my day job, uh I'm uh I'm a uh let's just call it just to simplify it. I'm a delivery driver for bimbo bakeries. Sure. I I see a lot of uh homelessness, and it's you know kind of unfortunate the the amount and the kind of scope of the issue. Um is there something that you see kind of it could be on a daily basis, maybe not so much, but is there one thing that sticks out to you above the rest that kind of uh well uh I you you talked about homeless homelessness.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:33

Um I um I also think about there's a lot of homeless people, and um I often feel very sorry for them because that's a horrible way of living. And sometimes I think they must have done something wrong when they were young and they didn't take advantage of their youth to, you know, to make sure that in their old age or in their you know maturity they would be well off or you know at least have a good job and have a good life. Um but I don't know if uh if there's something else uh involved. Um I know that also some of them I know that some um veterans are are homeless. And uh I can see why you know they're not quite quite well mentally. Um but you don't see this in other countries. You don't see this in other countries, and some countries are poor, yet they don't they don't have that. There's there's always some place to live. And even the immigrants here that just work hard and um don't have any real roots in the country, they have a place to live. They find a place to live. And but these people they're completely lost. And I understand there are some people that just lost their job and they were they didn't have any um savings. They they just weren't prepared for losing their job. So they lose their house, they lose everything, and uh then they're out in the street. So that's why I say you have to make sure you do something when you're young in order to um ensure that you're gonna be well off or okay when you're older. So it's a pity. It's a pity, and that is that is a challenge, and of course we we feel bad because especially those of us who apparently prepared for older age and um we we we feel bad for them. And so I guess some of us might even feel guilty that they're living like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:55

Right, yeah, it's it's definitely definitely difficult, you know, uh going out there, you know, seeing uh uh you know, not to get super super political, but you know, it's it's kind of unfortunate. It's kind of crazy to see that we have people raking in uh you know billions, trillions of dollars. And on the other hand, we still have these problems of larger society. You know, it's kind of uh it's kind of I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:22

Right, right, right. I understand. I understand I understand what you mean. Yes, yes. Well, um hopefully things will get better and maybe three years. Hopefully soon, I'm not gonna, you know, who knows? Oh, it could be sooner, yes. Yeah, who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Yeah, yeah, but in the meantime, we have to gird up, you know, and uh yeah, take it as it comes, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:47:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:52

Well, Adrian is there. I I mean I think we covered very interesting topics. I think this is why I wanted to um this is why I wanted to bring to uh connect us all together because you know this would be a great this would be a great um source of information for for people.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:16

Definitely. I I think um, you know, especially just here and you know, at the end, it's been obviously a lot of value, a lot of lessons that you've told throughout your story, but right there in the end, you mentioned, you know, uh it's kind of a little nugget of advice of you know, taking advantage of your youth and securing your future. And so I think Adrian's definitely right that uh you know connecting a lot of people, I think, you know, we'll be able to spread a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of advice, a little bit of positive, uh a positive message, right? So um again, I mean um I appreciate that you you know you came on here to talk to us. I appreciate your patience in the setup and uh anything you would like to add? Yeah, please.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:05

No, I'm just uh I I just would say that um I'm glad you guys are doing this. Uh this is uh a good thing. I I I wish you a lot of success, of course. Thank you so much again. Yeah, appreciate it. And uh I'm glad both of you are you know uh working together to get this done. That's nice. That's nice. Thank you so much. Very good. Very good. Thank you for inviting me. Of course, it's been a pleasure, senor Fausto Vendano.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:34

Again, published author, playwright, very well-educated gentleman, uh resident of Sacramento. Well, yes, sir. What else is there to say, but thank you very much. Thanks a lot, Mr. Papa. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye, everybody.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:50

Bye. Okay, are we off? We off? Uh yeah, no, okay. Let's make sure that it's a good thing. Do you want to present the books uh briefly? No, no, no, that's fine. No, are you sure? I already presented them, don't you think? Yeah, yeah. No, I wanted to ask, I wanted to ask um where are you guys going to