Thursday, September 28, 2000
Latina Writer Visits Abilene
Children’s author
recites tortilla-making stories
By Helena Rodriguez
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Becky Chavarria-Chairez’s most heartwarming
memories are of growing up in San Antonio and watching huelita
roll homemade flour tortillas in her kitchen.
Chavarria-Chairez has recaptured this nostalgic
feeling in her new bilingual children’s book Magda’s
Tortillas/Las Tortillas de Magda.
Chavarria-Chairez will read from her 32-page
book from 5:30 to 6:30 tonight at the Abilene Public Library.
At that time, winners of the “My Favorite Mexican Food and
Why” essay contest, which is being held in conjunction with
her visit, will be announced.
Afterward, she will sign books from 6:45
to 8:30 p.m. at Alley Cats Restaurant, 427 Pine St.
On Friday, she will read from 9-10 a.m.
for students in kindergarten through second-grade at Reagan Elementary
School. College Heights Elementary students also will attend.
The Hispanic Leadership Council and Hispanos
Unidos Club at Abilene Christian University will honor the author
at an 11:45 a.m. luncheon in the Faculty Dining Room at the ACU
Campus Center.
“I would like for my book to inspire
children to ask an abuela, tia or neighbor, someone who knows
how to make tortillas, to show them,” said Chavarria-Chairez,
a former broadcast journalist and owner of Catchphrases, a Dallas
public/media relations company.
“This is one of the best quality times
you can spend with a grandmother or aunt,” she added.
She said watching her grandmother, Josefa
Malacara, whom they simply called “huelita,” which is
Spanish for grandmother, was like watching a prima ballerina or
Olympic athlete at work because she did it with such ease and
grace.
“I want kids to appreciate what a lot
of us take for granted. I’ve found that as I grow older,
it was the little things about my youth, the simple things, that
are the most dearest,” she explained.
Although it’s her first book, it was
as easy as hot tortillas for Chavarria-Chairez to sell it to Piñata
Books, the children’s division of the Arte Publico Press
at the University of Texas in Houston. She attributes her success
to a career that has always involved some form of writing.
She has had articles in the Atlanta-Journal
Constitution, Dallas Business Journal, Dallas Morning News, San
Antonio Express-News, San Francisco Chronicle and Hispanic magazine.
“As a reporter I was always a storyteller.
The difference now is that I’ve shifted from writing about
reality to fiction,” she explained.
Her book describes homemade tortilla-making,
which is becoming a lost art. Another unique aspect of her book
is that it has a young female heroine.
“Little girls are not always featured
as the strong, assertive, problem-solving types. That’s important
for little girls to have that kind of character to look up to,”
she said.
The book is geared for ages 3-8, but is
also being purchased by English as a Second Language (ESL) and
literacy programs to teach adults to read. She said her book is
about to go into a second printing.
Copies of the book are available at Abilene
Educational Supply and online through Barnes and Noble.
Unsurprisingly, Chavarria-Chairez said,
“My last meal would be a tortilla with mashed avocado, salt
and a little bit of garlic. That’s it. It’s wonderful.
Even better than butter.”
Contact entertainment writer Helena Rodriguez
at 676-6761 or rodriguezh@abinews.com.
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