For years, Kitty Felde was a familiar voice on public radio in Southern California. Reporting from Capitol Hill, it was her job, she felt, to explain government to the grown-ups living thousands of miles away.
It could be frustrating, given how little many listeners seemed to know or understand about even the basics of Washington and how the place works. (Or, at least, how it’s supposed to work.)
“They don’t remember this stuff from fifth grade,” Felde said.
Worse, a lot of people didn’t seem to care.
So Felde wondered: What if her insights and expertise were aimed at a younger audience?
With her career in radio winding down, Felde set off in a new direction, writing a novel for young adults that combined sleuthing with civics; a blend of “Nancy Drew” and “The West Wing,” as Felde’s website described the result.
Set in Washington, the book’s main character was Fina Mendoza, a 10-year-old girl modeled after someone whom Felde, a Southern California native, mentored years ago while living and reporting in Los Angeles.
“She was fierce, smart, quiet, driven, even persuading her non-English-speaking mother to help her transfer to a better high school where she graduated with honors,” Felde told an interviewer when the book was published in 2019. In creating Fina Mendoza, “I imagined what [Felde’s mentee] must have been like when she was younger.”
For Mendoza’s father, or “Papa,” Felde envisioned someone she had gotten to know over the years covering California’s congressional delegation. Someone genial and soft-spoken who, lately, has been in the news quite a bit.
“He’s a widower,” Felde said of the fictional Arturo Mendoza, a Democratic congressman representing Los Angeles, as Becerra did for nearly a quarter of a century. “Xavier, obviously, is not. But I met his daughters, I met his wife. And so that image … I could see him being the father.”
She did not, Felde confessed, see Becerra as a California governor-in-waiting.
When she conceived Arturo Mendoza, Felde said, “nobody knew who [Becerra] was” — which is only a slight exaggeration. Even now, many Californians are just becoming familiar with the Democrat, who is heavily favored to beat Republican Steve Hilton in November, given the state’s strong Democratic tilt.
A five-part series
That first novel about Fina and her exploits on Capitol Hill has expanded into a multi-volume series, published in English and Spanish, featuring the young detective and her roman à clef Papa. The fourth installment comes out next month. Felde is currently working on the fifth and, she expects, final volume.
Collectively, the works do not purport to offer “The Xavier Becerra Story.” Rather, each centers on a mystery — a bird that poops on the president during his State of the Union speech; a culprit placing snakes in the gym bags of lawmakers; a series of break-ins, fires and vandalism in the Montecito Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, where Fina is home for the summer. The protagonist unravels each knot and, along the way, delivers readers a goodly dose of Government 101.
Felde has written four books in the Fina Mendoza Mystery Series and is working on the fifth and, she believes, final volume.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Unlike Becerra, Papa continues serving in the House. His real-life model left Congress in January 2017 after Gov. Jerry Brown appointed him California attorney general, replacing Kamala Harris upon her departure for the U.S. Senate. Becerra was elected to the job the following year, served in the Biden administration as Health and Human Services secretary and finished atop the field in California’s crowded June 2 gubernatorial primary.
Speaking via Zoom from her home office in Baldwin Hills, Felde ventured a few thoughts on how Becerra would do as governor. (Which, of course, is also a mystery; at this point one can only guess.)
“We’re a big state with a lot of problems,” Felde said with a small shake of her head. “I think he’ll have a good time fighting the current administration. And I think, because he does have contacts both in Sacramento and in Washington … that can help because that’s where money’s coming from.”
The great divide
Returning to Fina Mendoza, Felde said part of her intent in writing the series was closing the yawning physical and psychic gaps that exists between California and Washington.
“We think we are the center of the universe because we are isolated in a lot of ways from the rest of the country,” Felde said of her fellow Californians. In Washington, “they think the same thing, but they’re the ones with the money and the power…. There is a dependency there.”
For that reason alone, she suggested, people should pay closer attention to what’s happening back East, notwithstanding the distance and the sometimes confounding, oftentimes arcane ways and means of the nation’s capital.
“It’s our government,” she said. “If you want to change the world, it’s not just City Hall. It’s not just whoever is making the HOA rules. It’s on Capitol Hill. It’s the White House. It’s the Supreme Court.”
Apart from the Fina Mendoza novels, Felde has written several other books and plays related to government and history, set in and around Washington. She also hosts several podcasts, including a book club for kids.
What does Becerra think of his artistic rendering?
Felde’s husband caught up with the gubernatorial hopeful a few months ago outside a candidates forum in Santa Monica. He presented Becerra with a copy of the first book in the series, “Welcome to Washington Fina Mendoza.” Becerra’s eyes brightened at the mention of Felde and he sent his warm regards.
Otherwise, she has yet to hear back.
What else you should be reading:
The must-read: Politician behind ‘top two’ primary has second thoughts
The deep dive: ‘I got crushed’: AI giants are funding ad wars in races across the country
The L.A. Times Special: Federal probe of Newsom creates lots of smoke. Is there any fire?
Until next time,
-mzb
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