"I first performed a work publicly in 1994. That was at the Upper Room in San Francisco. I was going to be an artist-in-residence at Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic and I knew I was going to have to perform there and I thought; 'Oh my God, before I go perform in Santo Domingo, let me perform here in the United States, in English. So, yeah, so that was the first time that I performed, in 1994. After I came back from Chavon I was definitely taking myself more seriously as a writer, and was kind of on the open mic scene in the Bay Area. And my home spot, my home venue was La Peña Cultural Center, and that was kind of the place where I developed my voice, and developed my style, and you know, was in community with other artists."

"I have been thinking about the kind of aesthetics of the work that I'm doing. And I have this theory kind of towards a new radical poetry aesthetic. And for me as a political artist, you know ultimately art is really important to me and change is really important to me. And so to that end I have a vision of change. And there's the political change and the personal change. I think they go hand in hand, you know, because people feel really, really dis-empowered in this society. Now why not - our votes don't count - we didn't even elect the president, like that's the most basic form of civic participation, is voting, and that's not even working at all. My intention in my work is both to make people feel awake and connected politically. You know, whether I use parody so that people can laugh about some difficult things, or whether I use metaphors that really bring people in touch with the pain of colonialism, I want to connect with people emotionally both about political issues and about our own lives. So I say that it's a dual vision. Kind of healing, personal healing, and also political empowerment and change."

"It's been interesting watching the spoken word scene in the Bay Area kind of blow up, you know, in a lot of ways. And there are trends. I remember in the pre-slam days, in the mid to late nineties, one of the things that was really interesting was, there were scenes that were really, really mixed. And since then folks have sort of gone in different directions. There were folks who went the slam direction. Then there's kind of the Java House set, then there's like the Black Dot. But, I think in terms of spoken word and in terms of any artistic movement, spoken word will have a period of time where it's kind of like one way, and then the scene will shift, and it'll be another way, and then it'll shift and be another way. I think the thing about Slam that's interesting is that Slam is this big national movement, where you have all these people competing. And the competition brings an interesting energy and drama to it, and it also takes a lot. Young folks are just taking risks and being so beautiful. And so I think that that keeps the scene perpetually fresh and inspired."

"I have multiple different kinds of relationships with La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley. La Peña first, I guess the first thing that's been really important - in terms of my relationship with La Peña - the ceramics on the mural outside of La Peña were done by my mother, back in the 80's. And during the 70's and 80's I grew up in Berkeley, and La Peña is just kind of practically all things to all people as a cultural center. I was trying to explain to somebody from New York earlier today about La Peña Cultural Center and I was like well, it was founded by these Chilean folks, but it also became this collective, and you know you have all these different folks coming together, and it's like Hip Hop, you know lots of Latino folks, and you know queer folks, women, and any political organizations like 'we're having a report back from our blah blah blah,' you know it's at La Peña and the documentary, and the Panthers. You know, salsa, and Afro-Latin music, and Domingo de Rumba, and just like you know the Cuban community is very much like, 'this is our home,' and you know like Berkeley Hip Hop, 'this is our home.' So just, it's home to a lot of folks. And La Peña, I just, you know it feels like extended family for me."

Photo by Francisco Villaflor