Jose Arredondo (right) dresses like “Hispanic Elvis” (left) as he talks to people about the street performer. Credit: Albert Gonzales

When San Antonio native and Spectrum News reporter Jose Arredondo first saw late street performer John Esquivel in Market Square dressed as Elvis Presley, he knew he had to capture the moment.

At the time, Arredondo was enrolled at San Antonio College and worked at the student newspaper. He’d heard stories about Esquivel, best known by his nickname, “Hispanic Elvis,” but had never seen him in public before.

“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is the guy everyone talks about,’” Arredondo, 29, told the Current during a recent interview. “It was almost like seeing Bigfoot because you’ve heard about him, but you’ve never seen him.”

As elusive as Esquivel may have been in the past for Arredondo, that changed after they met in 2016. Over the next six years, Arredondo took photos of Esquivel across the city’s West side — in front of the McDonald’s on Laredo Street and at the Pizza Patrón at the corner of Guadalupe and Zarzamora streets, for example.

Nearly three years after Esquivel’s death, Arredondo hasn’t forgotten about his friend. At 7:30 p.m. Dec. 20, Arredondo will premiere his untitled short film about Esquivel at Barrio Barista, 3735 Culebra Road. The day marks what would have been Esquivel’s 79th birthday.

Jose Arredondo strikes a pose with the late John Esquivel. Credit: Jose Arredondo

In the film, Arredondo dresses in the same kind of elaborate jumpsuits Esquivel used to wear as Hispanic Elvis. He also sports a pair of tinted aviator glasses and carries a cardboard guitar in emulation of the local celebrity. Arredondo, a 2013 Roosevelt High School grad, then took to the streets of San Antonio to interview locals about the cultural impact Esquivel had on the city.

“He was one of our own,” Arredondo said. “He would hang out at the same spots as us. He was someone we could go up and talk to. I feel [we] maybe took him for granted because when he passed away, we felt the void. The reason why he was so important was because he was a constant in our lives.”

Arredondo hopes his short film will remind people that there’s nothing wrong with living their lives as Esquivel did — “unapologetically himself.”

“He didn’t care what people thought,” Arredondo said. “It gave people the permission not to be ashamed of who they are. I think that’s ultimately why he meant so much to everyone.”

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This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2024.