The women who built Proyecto Pastoral out of a Boyle Heights parish now have a book of poems in their honor. The poet is a Pasadena attorney.
Rey M. Rodríguez reads from that book, Todos Somos Sagrados/All Are Sacred, at 3:00 p.m. Sunday, August 9, at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 East Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena. He will be joined by Obed Silva, an English professor at East Los Angeles College, for a discussion and signing. Admission is free, and RSVPs are requested.
The collection is Rodríguez’s first. El Martillo Press published it on May 21, 2026, in Spanish and English, translated by Javier H. Morrone, with art by Jose Ramirez. It sells for $19.98 at Vroman’s.
The Pasadena and Altadena threads in the book run past the author’s address. Morrone, a California certified court interpreter, teaches medical and legal translation at Pasadena City College, according to El Martillo Press. Rodríguez’s poems have appeared in the Altadena Poetry Review, the anthology published under the Altadena Library District’s poets laureate program, along with Huizache and Anger is a Gift. His publisher credits him with an MFA in fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts, earned in May, and degrees from Cornell, Princeton and U.C. Berkeley Law School.
The subject matter sits in the City of Los Angeles, not in Pasadena. Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission was founded in Boyle Heights in 1986 by Father Greg Boyle, S.J., and parishioners of the church, in response to poverty, gang violence and limited opportunity, according to the organization. Its programs now include early childhood education centers, the IMPACTO youth program, the Guadalupe Homeless Project and a community organizing arm, Comunidad en Movimiento. Proyecto Pastoral says it reaches more than 8,000 children and families a year.
El Martillo Press describes the collection as a tribute to the women who started that work. Luis J. Rodríguez, a former Los Angeles poet laureate inducted into Vroman’s Walk of Fame in 2017, wrote in a publisher-supplied endorsement that the collection is a work of art and a work of action “in any language.” Novelist Reyna Grande, in another endorsement, called Rodríguez “an important voice that needs to be heard.”
Silva, who will lead Sunday’s Q&A, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, immigrated to the United States as a toddler, and has a second memoir, In the Hands of My Mother, slated for release in 2027, according to Vroman’s. His first, The Death of My Father the Pope, was published in 2021. Describing his work to Bold Journey magazine in 2023, Silva said his students at East Los Angeles College “are usually the first in their families to attend college.”
Sunday’s reading follows two Los Angeles dates: a July 11 launch at the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, and a free evening of readings and music downtown on July 17, co-presented by Grand Performances and Proyecto Pastoral.
Vroman’s Bookstore, founded in 1894, sits in Pasadena’s Playhouse Village district and can be reached at (626) 449-5320. Public parking there includes one hour of free street parking, a City-owned lot on South Madison Avenue and garages north and south of Colorado Boulevard, according to the Playhouse Village Association. Pasadena Transit Routes 10 and 20 and the Metro A Line’s Memorial Park and Lake Avenue stations also serve the district. RSVPs are taken at vromansbookstore.com/rsvp-rey-m-rodriguez.
Jake Fournier, endorsing the collection, quoted its roll of names: Lupe, Paula, Margarita, Yolanda, Esperanza, Rita, Rosa, Sofia.
NEED TO KNOW
Rey M. Rodríguez, in conversation with Obed Silva, discusses & signs Todos Somos Sagrados/All Are Sacred takes place on Sunday, August 9, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. Admission is free, and RSVPs are requested. The reading is at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 East Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91101, in the Playhouse Village district. Parking in the district includes one hour of free street parking, a City-owned lot on South Madison Avenue with about 100 spaces, a parking plaza at Union Street and El Molino Avenue, and garages and surface lots north and south of Colorado Boulevard; rates vary by facility. For more, call (626) 449-5320 or visit vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-08-09/rey-m-rodriguez.
