Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Author Luis Alberto Urrea
Luis Alberto Urrea, born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, who beforehand registered him as a US citizen born abroad, will come to the Palouse Nov. 12-15 in support of Everybody Reads. His book "The House of Broken Angels," is the choice for the 19th year of the program, which features one title for readers across the region.
"I've been almost everywhere, but not quite there," said Urrea, though he's been to Lewiston and gone to Wallowa Lake multiple times to participate in Fishtrap, a Writers of the American West conference.
Now, his 18th book has come together in a coincidence with the US-Mexico border arriving more in the news in the Trump era.
"When doesn't the border stuff explode in the news?" said Urrea. "I've been writing the same story since 1993, it becomes timely over and over. This book was never intended to be about the border, it was about my brother... My dream was for this to be a post-border book. Because I'm tired of it, I feel like I'm the ambassador of the border. But I'm interested in the soul's journey... There's a lot of borders."
"It will change your life".
The 1993 book, "Across the Wire" (non-fiction) was published after Urrea's agent pushed it for 10 years. Urrea turned and enrolled in graduate school at University of Colorado.
He grew up in San Diego, Calif., first in a barrio, then moving to the Clairemont section.
"I hadn't been around lawns," he said.
Urrea's mother was from New York, his father a captain in the Mexican army, working on staff for the Mexican president when the two met at an embassy party in San Francisco, Calif.
His father was from a small town in Mexico, El Rosario, in which Urrea's uncle published the newspaper and owned the movie theater and the radio station.
On Urrea's first trip there, in 1970, at age 15, he rode with his dad on a 12-wheeled bus, eight-wheel drive with stewardesses. His dad gave him the book, "The Godfather," by Mario Puzo.
"It will change your life," he said, also offering tips on how to pick up the stewardesses.
Urrea read it through on the rest of the 27-hour bus ride.
To that point, he'd been a science fiction writer/dabbler, a theater kid at the high school that inspired "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" – the school that, six years after Urrea graduated, Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe enrolled in undercover as a high school student to then write the story.
When Urrea was a senior in college, his father died in the custody of Mexican police. Urrea ultimately had to pay $750 to retrieve his body.
Custodial to Harvard
Today Urrea teaches creative writing at University of Illinois-Chicago, where he lives with his wife. They have three grown children.
Does he teach full-time?
"I teach full-time, if you count Mondays as full-time," he said. "My life is jets and hotels, much of it."
His first academic job took him to extremes. He was working as a custodian for Mission Bay Campland, (San Diego) at age 26, and heard that his college writing professor from UC-San Diego was now at Harvard. Urrea wrote him to ask if he could get a job there as a custodian. The man wrote back, saying Urrea needed to send three published stories.
To be a janitor, Urrea thought, what kind of arrogant, pretentious--?
But it was a different job the professor had in mind: Teaching expository writing at Harvard.
"Life happens, and you may forget what your dreams are," said Urrea. "But your teachers don't. To go to that world from my world was unbelievable."
He had done missionary work in Tijuana from 1977-82 with a Baptist pastor.
"He was a Zen Baptist," Urrea said with a laugh.
Writing the family
Leading up to his appearances here on the Palouse, Urrea will be in Fort Collins, Colo., and give a talk at University of Portland.
Does he talk politics at these events?
"If people ask, I will. I'd rather talk theology than politics any day," he said.
With Mexican heritage, he started out Catholic.
"I wanted to be a priest," he said. "My father said, if you be a priest, you can't be a playboy."
In writing his family story, it came indirectly from reading Mario Puzo on that bus trip through Mexico.
"All poor boys want money. So I first was gonna write what Stephen King did, Robert Ludlum.... I didn't ever think my family was a story," Urrea said.
Why not?
"Because they called us greasers, beaners and wetbacks... it didn't lend itself," he said.
Growing up in San Diego his first job was as a late-night doughnut cooker. Various jobs continued as he sought writing on the side.
"Digging foundations for housing tracts. Of course I was a gardener, a lawnmower boy," Urrea said.
Last items
What is he thinking now about his Palouse trip for "House of Broken Angels"?
"I'm just really looking forward to it, any chance I get to come back to the west, I'm happy," Urrea said.
What would he say is missing from news about the border now?
"The thing people don't know right now," said Urrea, who spent much time among border patrol agents for "The Devil's Highway" (2004, non-fiction) "What's happening now is taking a toll on them."
Luis Alberto Urrea "Everybody Reads" appearances are:
Tuesday, Nov. 12 at Artisans of Dahmen Barn in Uniontown, 12 p.m., and Nez Perce Community Library, 7 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 13 at Asotin County Library at Basalt Cellars, Clarkston, 12 p.m., and Lewiston City Library, 7 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 14 at Whitman County Library, Colfax (RSVP if you want lunch), 12 p.m., and Neill Public Library, Pullman, 7 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 15 at Washington State University, Holland Library, Pullman, 12 p.m., and Latah County Library at the 1912 Center, Moscow, 7 p.m.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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