
Afroxander, aka Ivan Fernandez, told me: “I remember that I was writing for the school newspaper at Cal State University at San Bernardino and I was given an all-access pass to the first Coachella. That felt really good.”
There is a prosperity spectrum in this immigrant family story that he explained to me that ran from Teocaltiche in Los Altos de Jalisco to Pico-Union to USC to Rialto. It is a spectrum that he first began to measure in the two miles that it takes to get from Pico-Union to USC on Hoover Blvd. And, in my opinion, it marked such a special place of prosperity for him that he has continuously been on the intellectual adventure to get more and more educated throughout his life. It is a place where he has been inspired at Cal State San Bernardino (Bachelors) and San Diego State (Masters) in addition to a chance encounter at Pomona College (Doctorate) where he was able to picture his ideal future.
Over the years, I have admired Afroxander’s work and I see him as an integral part of our literary community.
This interview was conducted at a taqueria de costillas on Whittier Blvd in April.
There is a prosperity spectrum in this immigrant family story that he explained to me that ran from Teocaltiche in Los Altos de Jalisco to Pico-Union to USC to Rialto. It is a spectrum that he first began to measure in the two miles that it takes to get from Pico-Union to USC on Hoover Blvd. And, in my opinion, it marked such a special place of prosperity for him that he has continuously been on the intellectual adventure to get more and more educated throughout his life.
Sergio: How do you identify?
Mexican American.
Please describe your childhood home?
My childhood home was very tiny. It was part of a home where my mom and her family lived when they moved here from Teocaltiche in Los Altos de Jalisco. This was in Pico-Union. It was a weird old school early mid-20th century home that you would see in the OG suburban areas. No air conditioning until you put one in the window. The property also had my grandparent’s home and to get to ours you had to walk to the back. There was a two-story apartment building on the lot as well. I lived there with my mom and my dad. My mom’s grandparents and all of her siblings lived there as well. It was owned by a landlord so all of us were renting different units. Later on down the line, my parents had two more children and I was the eldest. I would say that economically we were low-income to low-middle income.

When did you begin to fantasize about prosperity?
About ten buildings away from my childhood home, we started renting another slightly larger home. I remember clearly that it was 3.1 miles away from USC. And it had what was then called the University Village with a grocery store, a Baskin-Robbins, a book shop, a movie theater, an arcade and other shops. The closer you got to USC, the nicer it got. We were at Hoover and 18th. I got accustomed to seeing tagging, graffiti, uncles getting jumped and shot. USC felt like a different world. I felt a part of this nicer world and I felt like it was normal but it was definitely a contrast between what you see on Hoover going towards Alvarado headed towards King Taco. Nobody in my immediate family had a degree from even a community college back then, so I began to get ideas about what it's like to be on a college campus and how it was normal for me.
What does your home look like present-day?
We are the first people to live in this house. It was the first home constructed in the Inland Empire boom of the 90s. It has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, the capitalist American dream home. Just missing the white picket fence. I live there with my parents, my sister and her daughter. My father bought it over thirty years ago and so now he owns it outright. It is in Rialto.
Oh my goodness, I have never even heard of Rialto. Where is this and how did you get there?
My mom’s sister moved to Rialto with her family because she got tired of renting. She was familiar with San Bernardino County and they were looking for homes that were affordable. They found a property that they liked and so when my parents and I began visiting them, we found these new developments being constructed. New tracts of dirt/land bought up by real estate companies and we thought that maybe my parents could do the same and afford, thanks to the urban sprawl.
But you work in Whittier as a writer and as an executive at a nonprofit where you find support and resources for underserved families in Southeast Los Angeles?
I live 75% of my life in Los Angeles and 25% in Rialto. I am accustomed to big city life and being able to walk to a corner store. In Rialto, I became fluent in the car and bus culture because it is very suburban. However, I used public transit a lot in both counties.

You are in your forties, unmarried and childless and living with your parents. Is this by choice or circumstance?
A combination of both. Ideally …. I am still trying to figure out my ideal living situation. I feel like when I read your interviews and you ask that question to people, they have a very succinct and direct answer. I don’t have that. I love certain things about Los Angeles, I love certain things about Rialto, and I love certain things about San Diego where I spend a lot of time. My problem is that I have many places to call home and a lot of emotional concepts of home. I recently got my master’s degree at San Diego State. They have a meditation fountain on campus that I really enjoy. I love spending time in Jalisco. My family is from Teocaltiche so I spend time down there and also in Guadalajara. When my paternal grandparents were alive, they spent a lot of time with us in Rialto and were impressed with my father’s house. For my father, when his parents came to stay with us for extended stays, [it] gave them something they couldn’t afford.
It seems to me that you are comfortable everywhere but you don’t want to commit to any of them.
I do want to commit but I don’t know which place I want to commit to.
What is holding you back from making that commitment to a geographic location?
Finances. Nothing is cheap. Eventually I would like to own. I have always been a renter and that sucks. Yes, I’d rather own than rent.
Where did you learn that owning is better than renting?
It comes from my experience. My dad and his family love to fix up their homes. One of my uncles put a storefront in the front entrance area to his house. Another uncle built a second story to his house just for kicks and it became a man-cave on his roof. My grandfather worked in construction all his life. There are buildings in Teocaltiche that he had a hand in building. He was actually building a home for us to live in in Teocaltiche, but we eventually had to sell it to afford our home in Rialto. My father has also been changing the house. When you own, it's easier to mold the home to your needs. I have a very interesting story that is specific to what you are asking. In between writing assignments, I began driving an Uber between semesters when I was getting my Masters. There was this one day when I picked up a professor from Pomona College. I drove onto the campus and it looked just like a little miniature Ivy League tucked away in [Claremont]. And this professor was granted faculty housing and it was a beautiful home that reminded me of the old, historic homes in Pico-Union and West Adams where I grew up. It was really nice.
What would you be teaching?
My Masters was in Liberal Arts, sometimes referred to as Cultural Studies. My area of research was on how sports explains the world, and soccer in particular has always been my focus. It's a sport that emphasizes kinship and community and it's beyond oneself and even though it exists in you when you are playing, it also exists without you.
Is there a connection between your former fantasy and your current reality?
I am better off now but I am still building. I have a photograph of myself at the age of three. My mother and father took me to the Olympics at the L.A. Coliseum. My mom and I posed with someone dressed like Sam the Eagle [the 1984 Olympics mascot]. When I look at that photograph, it tells me such an immigration story of two immigrants from Jalisco who didn't even speak English at the time at this global event. It is really poignant for me. And today, as a writer, as a photographer, as a lover of sports and soccer in particular, as a traveler in the world, I think that I am the bigger version of who I was at the age of three.
In following your career, especially your writing and your photography, I was always impressed with your work. It seemed like your craft had its own value, which could be seen as an element of prosperity, right?
I remember that I was writing for the school newspaper at Cal State University at San Bernardino and I was given an all-access pass to the first Coachella. It felt really good to have an All Access pass.
In hindsight, it’s wild the amount of things I’ve been able to do by being nothing more than a guy who is good with words and good with a camera. I was attending entertainment trade shows, concerts and music festivals with nothing but my credentials from the student newspaper at California State University, San Bernardino.
I’ve been able to do this for a little more than half of my life now and create something of a career out of it. My father had his own interests in similar creative things but it was mostly a hobby for him. I guess prosperity means being the pocho Juan Rulfo!
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.