The day Queen Letizia met the 'Queen of the South'

It was said this Tuesday morning that Los Angeles is a crossroads city.

Here the stories of the United States, Latin America and Spain are linked.

And in a small private movie theater located halfway between Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, just that has happened.

There were less than fifty seats, occupied by the Queen of Spain, Letizia Ortiz, diplomatic personnel from that territory called Ibero-America, a poet of the caliber of Luis García Montero, the conductor Gustavo Dudamel and a select sample of the soft power that Latinos have in this city.

They were gathered to celebrate the arrival of the Instituto Cervantes in the city, a promise made a long time ago that finally came to fruition.

The Queen, who a year ago opened a center in Senegal, started the story of Cervantes in the city of happy endings.

Doña Letizia unveiled a commemorative plaque in the parking lot and signed with her own hand and her handwriting something that might seem anachronistic: a guest book.

On the first page, the monarch highlighted "the cultural values" contained by the Spaniard and thanked those who started the cultural center, which today occupies an office building of a company that was dedicated to promoting films.

The written gesture marks the beginning of something.

García Montero, who has presided over the institution since 2018, made reference to this when paraphrasing the legendary novelist from Alcalá de Henares.

"We are in front of a blank page, convinced that we have a lot to tell and a lot to say," said the author from Granada in his speech.

Luisgé Martín, an author with a consolidated career, will be the director of the Los Angeles center.

He has decided to put a special focus on the audiovisual industry in Spanish.

In a closed-door event held on Monday, the Queen suggested that the Cervantes in Los Angeles could become a bridge connecting the Hollywood Film Academy and the different Latin American academies, especially the one in Spain.

In addition to meeting with the heads of five centers in the United States, the monarch listened to Ignacio Darnaude, a Spanish producer who is part of the association that votes for the Oscars.

He told him about the explosive growth of Spanish and Latino in the world of entertainment.

Actors Kate del Castillo and Eugenio Derbez, two Mexican screen stars, also attended the opening of the center.

Del Castillo has played the drug trafficker Teresa Mendoza since 2011 in the popular Telemundo series,

.

This morning, Del Castillo joked that the day finally gave the opportunity for a meeting of queens.

Derbez, who has reappeared in public after suffering an accident, stressed the importance of the arrival of Cervantes in Los Angeles.

"You don't know how many castings I go to where there are Latino actors who don't speak Spanish or who speak it with a very strange accent," said the actor, who was accompanied to the event by his wife, also an interpreter Alessandra Rosaldo. .

The actress María Valverde and the playwright Bárbara Fuchs also attended.

James Costos, former US ambassador to Spain, spoke for a few minutes with Doña Letizia.

Before being sent to Madrid by President Barak Obama, Costos, a film studio executive, was key in bringing multimillion-dollar shootings of American series to Spain.

This Tuesday, he has invited the Queen to learn about the work he does from her studio, Secuoya, to unite both countries.

Created in 1991, the Cervantes landed in the United States four years later.

New York was chosen as the site for the first pike in the United States.

It took 27 years for the institution to reach the most important city on the West Coast, called this Tuesday "the unofficial capital of the Hispanic world" by Juan Fernández Trigo, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Due to its geopolitical and cultural power, as well as its demographic development, the United States has become a necessary bet.

In the country there are eight million language students at all levels.

"Looking at Spanish also means looking to the future," said García Montero, who recalled that Spaniards only represent 8% of a Spanish-speaking community of 500 million.

As cherry on the cake, the Cervantes Institute presented the video of a talk between García Montero and Pedro Almodóvar, who will give his name to the library that will house the center.

“This is beyond what I could have dreamed of.

It is a beautiful thing to think that someone there can read for the first time

, by Almudena Grandes”, said the Manchego filmmaker to the poet.

In the conversation, the director recalls a meeting with Billy Wilder, who recommended that he not leave his land for Hollywood.

“I have been very clear that my homeland is this language in which I was born.

I had decided when some offers began to rain down on me.

I wanted to continue filming in Spanish and not be tempted to make American films”, he confessed.

Today Spanish knocks on the doors of Hollywood.