"A lot of my work and a lot of the inspiration that I get is from hip hop, from MCing. And really all elements of hip hop. But my passion is with the word, so obviously I get it from MCs and things like that." I'm not really here to be the people's poet. Really what I want to do is help minds think. Either to begin to love themselves, or to begin to challenge what they're thinking. I want to expose my people, being Pinoy, being the fact that growing up in San Francisco I didn't know very much about being Pinoy, so I want to expose a lot of our histories and a lot of our struggles, and to continue to do it because our struggle is continuing today."

"I think that the Bay Area spoken word scene is the best. I mean, I've traveled around the nation and I haven't seen more diversity, and even more passion for the word with so many people that I have here in the Bay Area. Folks here, we have a diverse amount of voices, diverse amount of venues, and various venues where people can share their word. Right now, I mean the Bay Area is where it's at. This is where it's exploding. And in 1996 when I got involved with spoken word with Youth Speaks, I began to recognize the movement in the adult world and it wasn't as strong in the youth world back then until we began Youth Speaks. It was obvious that adults were making it happen, and the youth were just getting introduced to it. And then when the youth got into it, it just, man, ever since 1996 it just blew up. It grew big nationally and internationally."

"There's venues and people and spirit that exist in this time that help make this movement strong, and La Peña has been one of them. I mean La Peña's been around for however long, as long as I've seen poetry and spoken word flourish, and even today it takes a step to activism, and takes a step to just expressing yourself, La Peña's been the spot. I mean from the under 21 open mic that we share here with Youth Speaks to the political events that happen here, to days like this, you know Valentine's Day, where itıs not even necessarily about lovey dovey lovey dove dove, itıs about the love of poetry, the love of self, you know, and the love of family. And you know that's a whole new look at things. La Peña's been around for a while and they definitely show their support in many ways, especially with spoken word."