I credit my mom for my love of science-fiction. I remember the complete awe I felt when she introduced me to Star Wars: A New Hope, sitting on the floor in front of the TV, completely transfixed by what I was watching. It was a bootleg VHS copy we recorded off TV. It was grainy. The sound quality was terrible. And I absolutely loved it.
After that, my mom and I were always the first ones in line to rent the newest Star Trek: The Next Generation movies from our local Blockbuster (yeah, I’m dating myself). We would spend Saturday afternoons watching reruns of TNG or Babylon 5 or Stargate: SG-1. It filled my head with an incessant need for starships, aliens, and strange new worlds. My pops would occasionally join in, mainly to point out the one or two minor cast members, saying, “He’s Hispanic,” or “She’s Hispanic.” I didn’t realise it at the time, but I believe it was his attempt to simultaneously instill some pride in our being Puerto Rican and also disappointment that we were not portrayed in any of the shows my mom and I loved watching.
Edward James Olmos. That was the actor my pops first pointed out. He sat down in front of the TV while my mom and I watched Battlestar Galactica, pointed at the man standing in a uniform ordering people around, and said, “He’s Hispanic. Edward James Olmos.” That was the word my pops used. Hispanic. A word that, for him, signaled some sort of unspoken kinship in the same sort of way I feel when I say Latine or, more specifically, Boricua. Regardless, I remembered the name. Years later when I saw a young Olmos in Blade Runner, I began to think, “Wait, is Edward James Olmos the only Latino in science-fiction?”
I examined all my favorites and none of them had Latine representation. It was shockingly absent from all the science-fiction I consumed. My nerdy Star Wars Expanded Universe novels were devoid of Latines, not to mention the prequel trilogy that had just premiered. It was the same Asimov and Adams books. The same with all the shows I watched. The older I got and the more I read, the more it became clear: I did not see myself represented in sci-fi. Whether it was Simmons, or Hamilton, or Herbert. I didn’t realize it then, but that realization laid the foundation to write my own stories, to have fantastic tales in space feature someone like me in the lead role.
It’s a pretty common saying that if you don’t see the book you want to read on the shelf, then write it. Johnny Gomez and Space Brooms! was created from my experiences as a Latino dreaming of something greater than what is laid out before me and the desire to see Latine representation in books. From its inception, I knew Space Brooms! would feature a Latine lead, even in the early days when I still had grand dreams of writing an epic sci-fi opera. In those auspicious beginnings, Johnny Gomez, my primary protagonist, was roguish and Puerto Rican (naturally). But as I wrote, I realized he was a caricature of a Latine individual. There was nothing about him that made him compelling or relatable to me or my experience. I didn’t love him. I didn’t hate him. He was just kind of there.
No racial or ethnic group is a monolith. A myriad of experiences can occur even within one group or segment of Latines. Take myself, for example. I’m Puerto Rican, but was born in Chicago. My experience in Chicago differs wildly from people of other ethnic backgrounds. It even differs with those experiences of other Puerto Ricans living in Chicago. I was raised in a strict religious background steeped in purity culture and the only link I had to my background and family history was through my family itself. When it came to writing Space Brooms!, I found it more authentic to be true to myself, find my own voice and use that. So, I pivoted. Johnny Gomez, in a sense, became me.
Guess who also worked as a janitor?
Guess who also felt lost and directionless in his mid-thirties?
I used my own life, my own experiences to create a character I could connect with. Johnny became a dreamer, like me. I gave him no self-confidence, like me. I gave him a complicated relationship with his culture, like me.
Ultimately, I created someone I could relate to. I created a representation of myself, a now forty-one-year-old Puerto Rican who almost gave up on his dream. In the process, I connected myself and my culture to the genre I love to read and write in.
So why does this matter? Why does Latine representation in sci-fi matter? The human experience is greater than one story. Our similarities may bring us together but it’s our differences that make life exciting, and fun, and interesting, and just worth living in general. Hearing different stories from different points of view provide avenues for learning about other cultures that we don’t hear about in our everyday lives. It fosters brother or sisterhood among your fellow humans. We need that connection to each other. We need to see ourselves in the things that shape who we are. These days, that’s seeing ourselves in books, movies, and television.
Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie, in her TED talk, explains this better than I ever could. The danger of a single story. In short, if we only witness one story about a person or place or country or an entire people group, we, “risk a critical misunderstanding.” People are more than just one story about them. People are a multitude of different experiences, attitudes, and ideas. People are shaped by their environment, their upbringing, their education, their culture. Science-fiction should be a genre that embodies the idea that everybody brings something different to the table. And it’s those differences that make us great. The speculative future provided by sci-fi should not be a one-sided look at what humanity could become or achieve. Space isn’t only for the white, wealthy elite. Alternate realities can’t be regulated and segregated. Whether the story is dark and dystopic, grand and operatic, or silly (like Space Brooms!), sci-fi should be a place open and welcoming for people of all nations, creeds, and genders. It should accept not one idea of what the future should look like, but all ideas. The easiest way to accomplish this is by making sure those different voices, those different stories, have a place in the conversation.
Years have passed since my first recognition of Edward James Olmos and his contributions to sci-fi. And thankfully things have changed. It’s slow and not without much effort, but the change is happening. Inclusion is happening. Representation is happening. Since my pre-teen years, I’ve got to witness Latine representation in sci-fi, and mostly in the realm of television and movies. We got Gina Torres in Firefly. Diego Luna gave us Andor. Oscar Isaac became Poe Dameron and later Leto Atreides. Zoe Saldana graced the screen as Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy. Rosario Dawson became the live action version of the fan favorite Ahsoka. Things are looking up, and there’s still a long way to go. We still have lots of work to do. I am hopeful though. Because even the sci-fi books with themes that are less than positive fill me with hope that we can still change the future. And I’m hoping my light-hearted love-letter to all things sci-fi can be a stepping stone on the path to greater Latine representation. If not for me, than for the next generation looking to sci-fi books to find direction or comfort; to find themselves.
Space Brooms! by A.G. Rodriguez is out now. Order your copy here.
