While studying abroad in Guatemala and Colombia, I organized with local farmers disputing displacement and land titles, walking for days from the Sincelejo Mountains to Cartagena to address lawmakers, sleeping in hammocks and singing together by fire as we marched. The sadly familiar ache of urban violence pushed me to make a difference using the only weapon I can wield in good Mennonite consciousness: words.
I was born and raised in Philadelphia, largely by my grandmother and then again by the public libraries I called my second home. Growing up Puerto Rican, queer, and the first in my extended family to graduate from a university, I had no choice but to live intersectionally and intentionally in a world short on time and empathy, and these tenants show up in my digital campaigns, short stories, tweets, protests, and conversations with neighbors over freshly baked banana bread.
Hand me your poems, your babies, your troubles, to carry each other as we tear down bigoted systems and rebuild the world anew.
