Q&A with René Peña-Govea, debut author of Estela, Undrowning
I spoke with René Peña-Govea about her debut young adult novel, Estela, Undrowning, published on March 3 of this year. Peña-Govea grew up in San Francisco, attended Lowell High School, and is a current SFUSD educator. These lived experiences inform her book.
The novel follows the story of Estela Morales, a senior in high school. On the first day of Estela’s senior year, her family receives a strange letter from their landlord – not an eviction exactly, not yet. As a senior, Estela enters a Latiné Heritage Poetry Contest and places second, behind a non-Latino student. This sparks vehement debate about merit and racism, first at Robert Frost High School where she’s a student, then throughout the rest of San Francisco. As stressors mount, like college applications and AP tests, Estela begins to lose balance. Weaving poetry and prose, Peña-Govea delivers Estela’s journey of unlearning harmful messaging and “growing through it” supported by her fellow hard-working, artistic family, friends, and romantic interest.
Q&A
I interviewed René Peña-Govea on speakerphone on the morning of April 27th, her voice emanating from my outdated Samsung brick balanced on a hardcover copy of Estela, Undrowning. It was as if her book was speaking directly to me.
Sonya Pendrey: In Estela, Undrowning, words hold the power to both harm and heal. What’s a way words have hurt you in your life? And then healed you?
René Peña-Govea: Something I want people to get out of the book is an awareness of internalized racism. Merit as a truism was very damaging to me because I tested into Lowell High School and was one of the only Latino students; I had to unlearn exceptionalism and structural racism. I did this by learning Spanish through song in my family band, and connecting with my culture and others. The link between art and cultural pride in music is illustrated in Estela, Undrowning.
SP: You started your teaching career simultaneously at San Quentin State Prison and UC Berkeley, now you’re a librarian for an SFUSD middle school. How does your past and current work as an educator inform your writing?
RP-G: Teaching Spanish to undergrads at UC Berkeley as a grad student while volunteering for the Prison University Project helped me unlearn these ideas I had around the myth of merit. It was a privilege to take classes at San Quentin so my students there were my most eager and best students in terms of motivation; they took it seriously. This informed my worldview. There are no innate differences between students. Opportunity is the determining factor of how someone’s life turns out.
Teaching at a public high school, I saw the power of the young adult fiction books. Reading Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe gave a student the confidence to come out to his family during a school presentation. Books offer kids tools for creating what their future could be.
SP: What’s something you’d like your readers, possibly high school students themselves, to ponder as they read Estela, Undrowning?
RP-G: I’d like them to think about their ideas of themselves, others, and their communities. How have those ideas formed? Where did those messages come from? And then consider how they can demand change and how they can bond with others wanting those changes, too.
There is a road map of the successes of young people’s activism. Students Kathya Correa-Almanza and Shavonne Hines-Foster successfully altered admissions at Lowell High School to be more equitable and less racist. (Lowell’s admissions are no longer solely based on grades and test scores. More Black and Latino students attend Lowell compared to before the resolution co-written by Correa-Almanza, Hines-Foster, and other board members in 2021.) Change is always a possibility for them if they’re building solidarity across differences, giving each other grace, and drawing on ancestral tools.
SP: Many writers influence our main character poet, Estela, from Neruda to Anzaldúa to Baldwin. What other art fed the creation of this book?
RP-G: I come from a family of musicians, so music, and murals. I even reference Maestrapeace, the mural by Mujeres Muralistas on the Women’s Building. This book is a love letter to the city and artists that raised me, the educating that happens outside of school, especially the legacy of art and activism in the Mission that is queer, accepting, and progressive.
SP: You’ve been journaling since you were 7 years old and published your first poem at 15. Who has encouraged you to keep writing since childhood and reach this point, the debut of your first novel?
RP-G: My family is supportive of creative expression! My first published poem won a bilingual contest in el Andar. My tía encouraged me to mail in a submission and I won second place! The first readers of Estela, Undrowning were my sister, Cecilia (La Doña), and husband, Sergio. They champion my writing.
Aida Salazar worked with me for six months on the synopsis for this book through the Las Musas mentorship program. Later, my agent, Sandra Proudman, helped with revisions. I feel like a baby writer passed through the hands of all these Latina mentors. I’m committed to honoring them and mentoring other women writers of color who may need it.
SP: What can we look forward to from you next?
RP-G: On May 30, I’ll be on a Chicana YA panel with Carolina Ixta, Angela Montoya, Sandra Proudman, and Aida Salazar at the Bay Area Book Festival. And, I’m working on my second book! It’s another San Francisco story, this time concerning the environmental racism in Hunters Point. The main character is having psychic dreams of a looming environmental disaster while her dad, a local district supervisor, is pushing for housing development in the area. There’s queer romance and fun San Francisco references.
SP: Anything else to add?
RP-G: A lot of authors write identity novels as their first book. Connecting with readers about the themes in Estela, Undrowning has been really gratifying. I look forward to meeting more readers face to face at events on my book tour.