"I think that the first thing that I started with was just writing the poetry and just being influenced by other things going on, especially by hip-hop and the freedom of spoken word because you can sing, you can just do so many things, it grows, and then moving into theater and everything. So I think it has just been a process of layers peeling from my artistic self.

"In San Jose the spoken word scene is very small. I think there are a few people that are doing stuff. On Tuesdays there is the slam, but it's just a small amount of people. As far as people who are just writing, there are a lot of closet writers but not too many that are really performing or reading [compared to Frisco and Oakland]. There are a lot of women that write in San Jose. But there are so many reasons why there are not as many women that go out to read and pursue it. What I like about [the scene] though is that I do it and I encourage them to do it and just go up there and so that is really cool to be nurturing to other women, or just any other writer.

"It's been really cool collaborating with other artists, especially the Latino/Chicano poets mostly, like out of San Francisco, so it has been really cool. There's not many of us spoken word, Latino artists. I think we're always pushing each other to do something else, to move to another level, and respecting each other. And, we all have different stories, the way that we were raised, and the way we look at the world even if we are Latino, Chicano, or whatever. So it's good to have all these varied, different perspectives.

"My relationship with La Peña has been good. I think it's really cool, something that I've been creating or developing I'm able to showcase it or show it there. With the group, Small Axe, when we developed new stuff, we had that opportunity to show as a group the work that together as women we created. There's a lot of freedom to show your work, if you have something new to present or your are working on stuff and other people are working on new stuff there has to be that place to show it and support it. So definitely when I think of La Peña, I think cutting-edge."

Photo by Paul Chin