"There were times where it was really emotional and it felt like I was rewriting the past," the author says of writing her debut novel
Credit: Sergio Martínez; HarperCollins
NEED TO KNOW
- René Peña-Govea published her debut young adult novel, Estela, Undrowning, on March 3
- In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the author speaks about pulling inspiration from her high school experience, her musical background and writing a story of activism for today’s young people
- “There were times where it was really emotional and it felt like I was rewriting the past,” Peña-Govea says of the writing process
René Peña-Govea’s young adult novel, Estela, Undrowning, is a story close to the author’s heart.
The book centers on teenager Estela Morales, who navigates an eventful senior year at the exclusive Robert Frost High School. When Estela enters Frost’s poetry contest for Latiné Heritage Month, and a non-Latino student wins, she and her friends are thrust into a city-wide conversation about their school’s diversity and inclusion policies.
Like Estela, Peña-Govea, 41, was one of just a few Latina students in her class at Lowell High School, a magnet school in San Francisco. She entered Lowell as a freshman in 1999, after a court case settlement prohibited racial quotas across San Francisco public schools, resulting in a less diverse class that year than in years prior.
When she returned to the public school system as an educator, Peña-Govea witnessed firsthand how her students used their voices in the face of adversity.
“I had a student who was nominated to be the student delegate at the San Francisco School Board, and she and another student actually pushed to change that school's admission policies,” Peña-Govea tells PEOPLE. “I was really inspired by their activism.”
“I graduated in 2003, but these problems are still popping up,” she continues. “They're still really insidious for the students who have to experience them. That was kind of the moment where I thought, ‘Okay, this is what the story is about.’”
Credit: HarperCollins
Though Estela, Undrowning, out March 3 from Quill Tree Books, is Peña-Govea’s debut novel, she's always had a close connection to creativity. The author comes from a lineage of artists and activists, and grew up playing accordion in her family's multigenerational band, La Familia Peña-Govea. Writing wasn’t her first art form, the author says, but as a bookworm, it soon became a sacred space for her, particularly when she was a teenager.
“Music was very externalizing. That's special about it — I can share it with people, perform it and get feedback right away,” Peña-Govea explains. “Writing was where I turned when those emotions were too strong and too private and too dangerous to share.”
Writing is also source of power for Estela, as she deals with challenges like college applications, new relationships and the gentrification of her neighborhood. Peña-Govea was influenced by Spanish-language poets like Fredrico García Lorca and Pablo Neruda and parts of her own high school journals made their way into the novel, too.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
“The poetry did come from my own art form that I was very invested in in high school, as a way to cope and to, as the title says, undrown myself,” the author says. “I gave that as the framing of how Estela would be thrust into all these debates over merit, diversity.”
Those debates grows complicated for Estela and her fellow students, as growing tensions and instances of bigotry occur school-wide in the aftermath of the poetry contest controversy.
“I wanted to highlight the complexity of people and how their ideas can stem from ways that they're also feeling marginalized and how, actually, it can sit better with us if we try to find the humanity even in the villains,” she says. “That will ultimately make us more at peace, and make us more powerful when we try to work for change.”
Credit: Sergio Martínez
This mindset rings true in other parts of the book. While Estela, Undrowning pays tribute to Peña-Govea’s hometown, from local ice cream shop Mitchell’s to the community organization Acción Latina, it also explores citywide issues, like the threat of eviction that Estela’s family faces in their rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.
“It's a very emblematic struggle in San Francisco because we are, if not the most expensive city in the nation, one of them,” the author says. “There's a lot of housing insecurity and developers trying to get people out of the houses so they can rent them for more or rent them out.”
And now that she works as a middle school librarian, the power of young adult literature to discuss difficult topics is not lost on the author either. “For YA, there's a kind of an urge, at least within me, to offer something to young people as an empowering tool."
As attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion continue to make headlines around the U.S. along with legislation that seeks to ban diverse books in public schools nationwide, Peña-Govea understands the timeliness of her book too. It’s why she wanted to write a novel for today’s teens, though the process impacted her in unexpected ways.
The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!
“I learned that I still needed some healing from high school,” the author says. “I didn’t think that I needed to revisit high school so much in order to let it go. But writing this book, there were times where it was really emotional and it felt like I was rewriting the past, or I was writing a past that I wished I had had.”
But as much as Estela, Undrowning touches upon that past, it also looks toward the future — particularly, young people’s power to make a difference within it.
“There's real-world examples of teens making change all over the world. The best movements always draw from disparate communities, or communities that think they're disparate, but that really have a lot of shared interest in common,” Peña-Govea says.
“I would just keep that in mind as we're moving through this complicated world that feels, sometimes, disempowering. Joining together with others is what is going to get us over the finish line and get us where we need to be.”
Take PEOPLE with you! Subscribe to PEOPLE magazine to get the latest details on celebrity news, exclusive royal updates, how-it-happened true crime stories and more — right to your mailbox.
Estela, Undrowning is now available, wherever books are sold.
We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation.
Read the full article here
