Hispanic Heritage Month: Latina-owned publishing company providing bilingual books in Texas schools

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A South Texas-based publishing company with ties to Houston, San Antonio, and Austin is taking over the state one bilingual book at a time.

As part of ABC13's Hispanic Heritage Month coverage, morning anchor Rita Garcia sat down with the woman behind the Latina-owned-and-operated publishing company.

Anita Pérez flipped through the pages of "Abuela's Fideo" and read aloud, "but there was no way for her to have her beloved fideo."

Pérez was reading the newest heartwarming children's book served up by Del Alma Publications, an 8-year-old family-owned company that works to put children's books, bilingual ones, in schools.

Maricia Rodriguez, the CEO and oldest of three daughters, said it was a "need" her mom, Dr. María Alma González Pérez, recognized early on in the classroom.

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She's a retired educator and the author of their best seller, "¡Todos a Comer!" a Mexican food alphabet book.

"She noticed that a lot of her student-teachers - when she was doing observations - they were still using English textbooks, and they were translating them into Spanish, verbatim, for the bilingual classes," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez's mom wanted to see change and develop biliteracy while showcasing other talented local authors and illustrators.

That's how the Latina-owned company was born and how González Pérez's middle daughter, Anita Pérez, remembers it too. She is also the company's in-house counsel.

"We all have our own abilities. We are three sisters. Maricia obviously has always been a lot more creative and always been the writer... and our younger sisters, obviously creative, she does illustrations and computer graphics," Anita Pérez said.

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Fast-forward to today, Rodriguez says they've worked with several area school district librarians, including in Aldine ISD, to get their books on the shelves.

While there are more coming soon, she says there's still a lot more writing to be done, especially now that research shows students need the material.

Based on recent STAAR test results for the largest district in the state, HISD students continue to struggle in the subject.

The numbers show that students who passed the STAAR reading exam or earned "approaches grade level" or higher decreased among all grades, with the exception of sixth-grade test-takers.

And there's more. Rodriguez said a recent study shows there is a lack of Latino representation in this field.

"Every year there is a study done by the children's cooperative center in the University of Wisconsin, and they do a study of all the children's books produced every year, and so the percentage of books written by or illustrated by Latinos, or Latinas or Latinx is a much smaller percentage than our overall population," Rodriguez said.

With more books on the market put out by Del Alma Publications, Rodriguez adds how they're hopefully closer to writing a new chapter for students, one where bilingual books are readily available, and children can see themselves on the pages, too.

"That's what we call culturally relevant literature for Hispanic kids especially. I think it's very important for them to see other children that look like them in the literature because it gives them a greater sense of place, and you know it helps them and gives them encouragement," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez also mentioned how they really pride themselves on promoting more Hispanic authors and illustrators, so they are open to taking manuscripts and working with more local talent as they continue to try to get more "libros" in schools.

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