Business owner. Social justice advocate. Housing expert. Realtor. These are just a few of the terms that one might associate with Sara Alvarado. Now, author can be added to that list of descriptors.
Alvarado recently published her debut memoir, “Dreaming in Spanish: An Unexpected Love Story in Puerta Vallarta.”
Many in the Madison community know Alvarado, 48, for her work in the real estate industry. For years, the co-owner of Alvarado Real Estate Group has been on a mission to address housing inequities and shine a light on topics such as redlining, housing discrimination and white privilege. In 2020, the Alvarado Group launched the OWN IT: Building Black Wealth program, which offers One City families and staff a financial course and a down payment fund of $15,000. So far, nine families have been able to purchase homes thanks to OWN IT.
After spending years shedding a light on societal issues, Alvarado is now shifting the lens to some deeply personal moments of her own life. She takes readers through her whirlwind of a journey that includes falling in love with her husband, Carlos, becoming pregnant and learning to embrace motherhood in a foreign country.
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While her book may be a departure from the work Alvarado has become known for, it’s a project that’s been years in the making. “I’ve always wanted to write a book,” she said. “It’s terrifying and also what I was meant to do.”
What inspired you to write this book?
I wanted it for my family’s sake. Carlos and I have a beautiful love story, and the time that I was in Mexico was full of me learning how to love myself. I struggled with sexual trauma and a healing process that I think a lot of women experience, but we don’t talk about it enough. You can go from victim to survivor and you can thrive and you can have a life past some of the hard stuff. So even though the book is a love story, it was important for me to share the messy stuff that happens.
What was it like taking a deep dive into some harder moments of your life?
A healing journey just changes. I’m healed, but in writing the book you have to go to those places. I jacked up my therapist appointments. I wanted to make sure that I was taking care of myself throughout the writing process.
The second piece to that question is more related to my experience as a white person because if I would have tried to tell this story 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have had the perspective that I do now. I think a lot of white writers who write about culture and other countries focus a lot on the other and how different the culture is. But because of the work I’ve done with my racial justice work, I was able to see where my whiteness was getting in the way.
A key part of the book is your experience of coming to terms with your white privilege, as you navigate your newfound multicultural marriage and family. How has your journey of examining your privilege evolved since then?
This is my origin story. To be a white person living in Mexico, I was faced with conversations and experiences that I wouldn’t have had access to. I was examining it but I didn’t have the vocabulary or understanding because that was a long time ago. We didn’t have conversations about or use the word whiteness or racial equity. I was uncomfortable and I knew I was uncomfortable, but I didn’t have that understanding. Then in 2013, the Race to Equity report came out and all the pieces came together. I was given frameworks. I was given spaces like at the YWCA Racial Justice Summit and their teachings. I was given an opportunity to learn what I needed to know but didn’t know how to know.
What would you like to write about next?
I feel like there’s a place for sharing some of the hard awakenings of seeing my whiteness and navigating the industry that I have been in. I would like to learn how to write more about what OWN IT is doing. I would also like to talk and write more about what we have learned in a way that will resonate with people who aren’t in the real estate industry.
A lot of people don’t understand how financing industries work and how the real estate industry works. People get overwhelmed. How do you connect to the people who are interested in buying or selling their own house and show them how they are a part of this system? We’re taught not to see, and it takes a lot of effort to see.