On a sunlit street in South Tucson on a recent Saturday morning, Walter Trujillo and his mother-in-law, Anna Tarazon, organized crates under a canopy for a local book drive.

The event, hosted by the pair’s bookstore, La Syrena Barrio Books, honored namesake Syrena Arevalo-Trujillo, who dreamed of a space where Latinx and Chicanx readers could see themselves reflected in literature.

While Barrio Books has hosted many drives and pop-up sales, this one is special: It’s the first since Arevalo-Trujillo died from sustained lung complications last April. It was held four days after what would have been her 35th birthday.

Trujillo and Tarazon are carrying on Arevalo-Trujillo’s legacy through La Syrena Barrio Books, which remains dedicated to educating, community-organizing and cultivating culturally representative Latinx and Chicanx literature.

“Her love of reading started when she was really young, in elementary school. She loved literature, she loved reading, but she never connected with literature. She said … that she wanted to see characters that looked like her, that sounded like her and lived like her,”  said Aravelo-Trujillo’s mother, Tarazon. “When she found a book that spoke to her, it was the “Bless Me, Ultima” book. And that started everything. That started her love of literature and wanting to get the BIPOC community more involved in literature and reading.” 

As an avid reader and musician, Arevalo-Trujillo owned hundreds of books and handmade artistic creations. She kickstarted Barrio Books in 2018 as a pop-up shop in the parking lot of American Eat Co. It grew from vendor stalls to a permanent location at Hotel McCoy in 2021.

With support from Hotel McCoy, Barrio acquired a community gathering space in 2023 at 395 West 33rd Street.

Work was underway on the space and it was getting ready to open, when Aravelo-Trujillo suffered a setback in her health, which ultimately led to her passing.

A little over a year later, Barrio Books is back on track to open its doors in its new location by the end of next year. Trujillo and Tarazon have added new lumber to the space, redone electric working and rebuilt areas of the roof.

The space will be part bookstore, free library and community center, all part of Arevalo-Trujillo’s plan for the space.

“It's different without her because it's missing that big component,” Trujillo said of his late wife.  “There's never a way to fill her spot in it, so it's kind of like pivoting and putting it more towards, okay, what good can we do and what good can we put out towards, especially BIPOC and people of color in a time like now, when literature like this is being suppressed?”

Arevalo-Trujillo advocated for accessible BIPOC and bilingual literature in Mesa, South Tucson, and during her time at the University of Arizona, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in history and Mexican American studies.

“She'd be absolutely livid, I can imagine it, to see what's going on, the oppression and the discrimination,” Trujillo said. “So that's kind of like the other driving force is, we have literature…that’s being suppressed, being taken out of schools, being taken out of libraries.”

Aravelo-Trujillo also had a strong passion for music, playing violin in Mariachi bands since her early teens. Her music journey began with Mariachi Pumas in middle school, and continued with legendary Mariachi group Los Changitos Feos. A section of the new community center will be dedicated to music. 

Trujillo and Arevalo-Trujillo met in 2012 through their shared love for Mariachi music, and played together professionally as members of Mariachi Tapatio de Tucson.

Trujillo, originally from Española, New Mexico, said that they had crossed paths with each other at music conferences and festivals for years before being formally introduced.

Shortly after they met, Arevalo-Trujillo was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, a blood pressure condition which affects the heart and lungs. In 2019, she became a recipient of a double-lung transplant.

Though the transplant gave her more time, the disease never left her, and it ultimately claimed her life in 2024. Still, her vision lives on in the space she dreamed of creating.

Crates filled with hundreds of books lined the wall of the future La Syrena Barrio Books space, ranging from Spanish novels to academic journals, and covering topics including Chicano studies, language analysis and more.

Trujillo has already donated some collegiate-level books to the University of Arizona’s Guerrero Center, and hopes to partner with other community organizations to build little free libraries, sponsor book corners and host youth programs in their new space.

For Trujillo, the goal isn’t just access, it’s giving young readers a sense of ownership and pride in the books they choose, something his wife valued deeply.

“The library's good. They can take it and give it back,” he said. “But to have something that's theirs and they own it and it's something they can take home and it belongs to them? That's a different feeling.”

Ruby Wray is a journalism and creative writing major at the University of Arizona and Tucson Spotlight intern. Contact her at rubywray@arizona.edu.

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