Bookstore Offers the Language of Home

This type of love scarcely differs from that other kind.

People under its spell spend large sums of money, travel to faraway places, act in extreme ways, all in the name of this consuming passion: books.

In Los Angeles, Spanish-speaking book lovers might even trek to Mexico in search of hard-to-find titles, or make plaintive requests of traveling friends: Bring back books.

But after hearing scores of callers requesting Spanish-language books on a local morning radio program, the owners of one bookstore hand-delivered a letter to the station to set the record straight.

“ ‘Leave the books to us,’ ” Teresa Ayala-Forsberg of Libreria Azteca said, quoting the letter. “[The deejay] got a kick out of it. He read it on the air.”

For 15 years, the book business has indeed been left to the staff of Libreria Azteca. The family-owned bookstore on Adams Boulevard near USC offers Spanish-speaking lovers of literature a way to feed their passion without leaving the country.

“You can tell the true lovers of literature,” said Ayala-Forsberg, whose father, Antonio Ayala, owns the store. “They come in and it’s like someone has given them the keys to the candy store. It’s so wonderful.”

With the exception of pornographic material and the literature of one religious group that the owner considers a cult, every author is welcome.

“I’m very liberal,” said 78-year-old Antonio Ayala.

So they are all here on the shelves of Azteca: the novelists, the philosophers, the mystics, the occultists, the politicos, the Christians, the poets, the playwrights.

And of course, the self-improvement gurus: Carlos Cuauhtemoc Sanchez, and translated works by Deepak Chopra, Laura Schlessinger, Dr. Benjamin Spock and John Gray.

“Right now what’s real hot is Deepak Chopra,” Ayala-Forsberg said. “He’s very popular. There’s tremendous interest in self-help.”

At Azteca, Chopra--and everybody else--speaks Spanish. “The one thing that we will always be able to offer that the big chains can’t is variety,” Ayala-Forsberg said, noting the increased Spanish-language offerings at chain bookstores.

But in this city, Azteca’s variety has implications beyond recreational reading.

The store offers crucial academic support to students taking advanced-placement Spanish courses in preparation for the national test. Its shelves are also rich resources for bilingual education teachers searching for storybooks, and for parents who want to ensure that their children maintain Spanish skills as they learn English.

Susan Mohr, who teaches at La Crescenta High School, traveled from La Crescenta to find books for her advanced-placement Spanish class. She first tried a large English-language bookstore in Pasadena. They referred her to Azteca.

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The large store could have found the titles, she said. “But it would have taken a long time and I need them now,” she said.

Libreria Azteca’s children’s section carries familiar titles translated into Spanish: “Jorge el Curioso” (“Curious George”), as well as Disney classics and original Spanish stories. And there are learning aids, workbooks and dictionaries.

“I send most of my parents there to get basic Spanish dictionaries and also to get into the habit of going to a bookstore, hopefully to buy books for pleasure,” said Martin Olvera, who teaches second grade at Leo Politi Elementary School.

“What makes that bookstore distinct is . . . they keep their prices low,” he said, an important factor in this working-class community.

Using his own money, Olvera has built a mini-library of Spanish-language books in his classroom.

The Ayalas’ philosophy on language is clear.

“Although we provide materials in Spanish, we want them to learn English,” Ayala-Forsberg said. “We encourage them to learn English”--the way her father did when he came to this country 50 years ago.

Still, the Ayalas recognize that even those who have mastered English may be more comfortable reading Spanish.

Juan Alberto Lopez has no trouble communicating in English, but on this day he is searching the aisles of Azteca, finally settling on a book, “El Egipto Secreto,” by Paul Brunton.

“I prefer Spanish because I read better,” he said. “What I like is they have a section on esoterica.”

And Adams Boulevard is a lot closer than Tijuana.

“It’s a hassle to go across the border just to buy books,” he said, recalling his treks.

For Ayala, opening a bookstore was a small idea that kept getting bigger.

The father of three adult children and a longtime Mason, Ayala is reluctant to talk about his life. Born in Mexico, he received only a grammar school education. By the time he was a teenager he was working, but somewhere, always, books were present.

“When I was young, about 15, I started reading,” he said. “I got into the habit.”

He opened the store to be able to provide books on Masonry to his friends--and to satisfy his own love of knowledge.

“What better way to read than when you don’t have to pay for the books?” he said.

After some gentle prodding from his daughter, Ayala lugged a huge book on Mexican murals from a shelf behind his desk.

He turned to a page covered with a Diego Rivera mural where two yellow post-it tags had been placed. The tags bear the words “Uncle Daniel” and “Daddy,” with arrows pointing to two boys in the mural.

Ayala and his brother posed for the mural back when they were young, when Frida Kahlo and Rivera were older friends that they looked up to, not the icons of today.

“It was something natural,” he said of his friendship with Rivera. “We belonged to the same labor union. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

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Inside the store, personal history such as this is a valuable addition to what the books offer. The store’s staff--including employees Maria Cedillos and Lourdes Garnica--are part reference librarians.

When a customer asked about “Noche de Tlatelolco” by Elena Poniatowska, Garnica explained--without cracking open the book--the 1968 event in which college students in Mexico City were killed by the Mexican army.

Part of the appeal of having a bookstore such as Azteca is “to provide a resource for [people] to be educated,” Ayala-Forsberg said. “It’s not money. I don’t know anybody who’s making it hand over fist.”

Nor is running a bookstore easy. Locating hard-to-find books is not as simple as it is in large English-language bookstores. The Ayalas order from publishing houses in Spain, Argentina and Mexico.

“It’s just like the olden days,” Ayala-Forsberg said. “You have to look for it and call around.”

And sometimes the staff has to concede defeat.

“We have to say, ‘We’re very sorry. You have to try Tijuana.’ ”