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.