My work tackles immigration and border issues and has appeared in Callaloo, ASIA: Magazine of Asian Literature, New York Times and elsewhere. A second edition of my novel, Black Wings (Veliz Books), was released in the US in 2019, and I also create site-specific installations. In 2000, while living in Houston, I founded Voices Breaking Boundaries (VBB), an alternative arts organization that tackled social justice issues at a local and global level, that I directed for 16 years before moving to Los Angeles. I’ve received awards through the City of Los Angeles’s Independent Master Artist Project grant (2023-24), the City of Pasadena’s Independent Artist grant (2019), Mid-America Arts Alliance’s Artistic Innovations grant (2015), and my papers are archived at the University of Houston.

I serve as Altadena’s Poet Laureate for Community Affairs (2024-26) and was awarded the 2025 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows.

VISIT BLACK WINGS | MY LA PERFORMANCE | ON BELONGING 

A member of Macondo Writers Workshop and American Leadership Forum, I also co-hosted a weekly show at Houston’s Pacifica Radio Station KPFT 90.1 FM, where I interviewed Houston-based artists as well as international celebrities including Patti Smith.

Klieman’s students interviewed me as well as Voices Breaking Boundaries’ board, participating artists, and community members. Based on research material that Klieman’s students gathered, the University of Houston’s Friends of Women’s Studies acknowledged the impact of my work by creating permanent ongoing archives of my writings and VBB’s history in its Special Collections. The archives feature my artistic career and VBB’s extensive, multi-sensory history, and were made available to the public in fall 2016.