Down-to-Earth Spiritual Guru for the Masses

He walks onto the Ontario Convention Center stage, clean-cut in a navy suit, with little fanfare and hardly an introduction. The people who have come to the Ontario Convention Center to listen to Carlos Cuauhtemoc Sanchez, mostly Mexicans and Mexican Americans, rise in an ovation for the man they’ve come to know intimately through his eight novels and self-help tapes. For them, Sanchez is a cross between a Spanish-speaking Tony Robbins and a beloved priest, a down-to-earth spiritual guru who motivates them through the toughest moments in their lives with his common-sense advice.

Since 1992, Sanchez has sold an estimated 15 million copies of his contemporary novels with messages of family unity, forgiveness, faith and character, and has become a pop-cultural moral guide for millions across Latin America who are so touched by his deeply conservative message that they also pay $20 to $40 to flock to his lectures. Among Latinos in Southern California he outsells such literary giants as Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel Garcia Marquez; his books and tapes are sold at stores, carwashes, even meat markets.

On this Sunday afternoon, he begins by imploring his audience of nearly 4,000 to focus on the voices of their own consciences while he speaks, not just on his words. Then he tells a dirty joke about a baby chick in a man’s pants, and the crowd erupts in laughter.

He goes on this way for a few minutes, reading off well-worn sayings from his notes, dropping in an aphorism here and there: “The thief who robs from a thief lives in Mexico City.”

Then the arena goes dark, and the spotlight is on Sanchez as he begins his talk about the price of success. For the next 90 minutes, he tells anecdotes, quotes the Bible and offers the kind of advice you might hear from a friend. He discusses the differences between material and spiritual wealth and the importance of placing God and family above all else.

“Success depends on the way you interpret your failures,” he says. “Maybe somebody rejected you, or betrayed you or manipulated you. Or maybe you lost money or a competition. It happens to all of us! And it happens frequently, and that’s how you distinguish who is triumphant!”

A Roman Catholic who grew up in a middle-class suburb of Mexico City, Sanchez studied industrial engineering before he became a high school teacher and founded three vocational schools with his wife, who is an English teacher. But Sanchez always wanted to follow his grandfather, Claudio Gutierrez Marin, who was a writer and had a doctorate in philosophy. Sanchez committed himself to his craft at a young age, carrying a heavy typewriter to school every day. As a child, instead of playing soccer, he locked himself in a classroom to write.

In high school, he developed an interest, and talent, for cycling and won a spot on Mexico’s Olympic team. He traveled abroad competing in international bicycle races and winning prizes for his short stories, essays and a novel. His first bestseller, “A Desperate Cry,” published in 1992, evolved from the suicide of one of the students at his school. The boy killed himself after running away from home and returning to a harsh beating by his father. “Cry” urged fathers to communicate better with their sons.

‘Sanchez Fever’

When every publisher in Mexico turned down the manuscript, an editor friend helped him print 1,000 copies. That caught the attention of a textbook publishing house, Ediciones Diamante, which has now published all of Sanchez’s books and of which he is now a part-owner. The book, and the two that followed, were immediate hits, creating “Sanchez fever” among the Mexican populous.

In Mexico City, where Sanchez lives with his wife, Ivonne Herrera, and three children, ages 7 to 13, he both is loved and loathed--revered as a poetic philosopher in some circles, ridiculed as a fraud and buffoon in others. The books resonate mostly with young, working-class Latinos--not known for being avid readers. His biggest followers are women.

Yolanda Arias, a parent facilitator at El Sereno Middle School, is so moved by Sanchez’s message that she organized a bus trip for 70 parents for his Ontario event. “His books have a really strong message about how to deal with our youth in these difficult times,” she said. “He teaches that it’s not money but your values and your principles, routines and traditions that matter. You just grab the concept and it stays with you.” Adolfo Oseguera, who attended the event with his wife, Norma, said he has found some answers for his personal difficulties in Sanchez’s books. Isabel Gomez-Bassols, a Miami-based Spanish radio talk show host whose advice program is broadcast on 1580 AM in Los Angeles, often recommends Sanchez’s books to her listeners.

“He helps people to understand that there is a process you must go through to understand yourself,” she said. “He shares that dream of helping other people that I have. He has a wonderful poetic way of dealing with psychological issues. People don’t read his books like a manual but as a story that has a message to give. That’s how they did it in the old days. Even Jesus used parables.”

But to liken Sanchez to Jesus Christ or respected philosophers and authors is an insult, say Mexican intellectuals who criticize him so vehemently that he’s been banned from Mexico’s largest book festival. Essayist Carlos Monsivais said he was stunned when he read three of Sanchez’s books and found no original insights or stylistic writing. “It was like watching ‘Nightmare on Elm Street,’ with Shirley Temple as the leading actor,” he said. “These books are for people who are seeking to find their spirituality without taking any risks. His work does not qualify as literature or philosophy. It’s marketing and catechism for functional illiterates who want to have a spiritual life. I cannot criticize his ideas because he has none.”

Sanchez admits he reads one or two self-help books a week and summarizes them for his own work. But he brushes off criticism citing “envy” and says his critics insult his readers more than they offend him.

“When you are successful, a lot of people become envious,” Sanchez said in Spanish after his event on Sunday. “They are envious that they have not had the same success. They say my readers are ignorant people. But how can you say 15 million people are ignorant? Whether they like it or not, my books are novels and they are literature. Just because they contain self-help lessons does not mean they don’t qualify as literature.”

In fact, Sanchez is so repudiated in Mexico’s literary and intellectual circles that he has become the brunt of a popular joke. It is not uncommon for people to insult each other by saying, “The only thing you’ve probably ever read is Cuauhtemoc Sanchez,” according to popular Mexico City writer and sociologist Guadalupe Loaeza.

“Everybody makes fun of him,” she said. “We are aware that he sells many books, but his books have no narrative quality or content. They are self-help books read by people who do not read. But if I were to see my daughter picking up one of those books, I would feel I was a failure as a mother. I would rather see her smoking pot than reading his books.”

Success in U.S.

Rueben Martinez, owner of Martinez Books and Art in Santa Ana, says that although Sanchez’s sales have dwindled in recent months, he still restocks those titles two or three times a month. Sanchez says each of his titles still sells 50,000 copies a year, a figure that cannot be verified because the publishing house does not keep track of book sales. Whatever the amount, Sanchez is doing well enough to own a farm and a home in Mexico City and to employ a full-time assistant who travels with him.

“He is one of the bestselling authors we have,” Martinez said. “What we appreciate in the bookstore is getting people who have never read a book before to read his books. If anything, his books are word of mouth. They have to do with the development of the family and his topics are good.”

Practically unknown in the English-language world, Sanchez says he is learning English because he would like to expand his lecture circuit to a wider American audience. Three of his books, “A Desperate Cry,” “Youth in Sexual Ecstasy” and “The Last Opportunity,” have been translated into English and are sold in the United States by small distributors that cater to the Latino community.

“The most receptive audiences I have are the Latino audiences in the United States,” Sanchez said. “These are people who are away from their roots; they feel a profound nostalgia, and they are lonely. So that makes them more sensitive, and the fact that they are moved is more obvious. I would like to be able to speak to the English public and see if they are as inclined to improve their lives spiritually.”

The speech on Sunday was sponsored by La Hora de los Triunfadores, a Latino self-improvement organization founded in 1999 in North Hollywood, which has held 50 such events throughout the United States. Patricia Gamino, who says she never misses an opportunity to listen to Sanchez, attended Sunday’s event with her sister and mother.

“What moves me the most about his talks is that he focuses on the spiritual,” said Gamino, 38, of Santa Ana. “He helps us to understand that material things are not important. First, we must focus on God, and the rest will come on its own. He always talks about the same types of topics: family issues, problems with raising kids, that sort of thing. But he uses different examples and different advice.”

After a 15-minute break, Sanchez retakes the stage to give his final thoughts on the afternoon’s topic, “The Price of Success.” He tells the story of how his 10-year-old daughter, Ivy, almost died of meningitis when she was 2. It was a life-altering moment for him, he said. Some of the women in the audience are crying, even though it’s a story they already know. He ends by telling them to stay away from premarital and extramarital sex, alcohol and drugs.

The advice is not original but his message certainly has impact. When the lecture is over, people clamor for his autograph and hope for a moment with the man they feel is lifting them into a higher ground. Some hope for a chance to tell him their problems as he allowed them to years ago before his connection to the people gave way to the marketing and promotion machine.

Sanchez does not stop to listen. He leaves the conference hall and heads upstairs for interviews. A prolific writer for the past 10 years, Sanchez says he is running out of ideas. He is working on his ninth novel but is having trouble meeting his personal goal of writing one book each year.

“I went through a big personal crisis when I first got famous because I wasn’t prepared to deal with what that means,” Sanchez said. “I didn’t sort it out until my daughter got sick. It does take a toll. I used to be very giving to people in the audience and take on their problems. But now, I just give my best to the lecture, and that’s all I can give.”

As he works to expand his reach, giving up that personal contact with fans is the price he’s willing to pay for success.