Recognizing the need for making material available for an increasingly bilingual U.S. demographic and with the addition of Mark Jaffe to the Advisory Board, Arte Público launched Piñata Books in 1992.

Pat Mora, author of The Desert is my Mother | El Desierto es Mi Madre, is one of many authors who published their first book with Arte Público early in their careers.

Houston-based author Gwendolyn Zepeda followed up the her first two publications with Arte Público Press by authoring her first picture book, Growing Up with Tamales | Los tamales de Ana. The title, published under the Piñata Books imprint, tells the story of Ana and her family's tradition of making tamales every Christmas season.