WRITER

Born in Querétaro, Mexico, I was brought to the United States when I was five years old and was raised in San Diego. Upon arriving, I soon discovered that leaving a piece of me in my birth country but adapting to an American lifestyle and speaking both languages fluently, afforded me a unique duality that bridged the cultural gap for me that many experienced. That same duality manifested in the content I consumed growing up in the 90's. Since I can remember, I have sought stories to help me relate to my world and my circumstances, be it via television, movies, or dance. As a young child, I would rewrite the fairytales I would see in movies, such as The Little Mermaid, to reflect more the world as I saw it. In my teens, I wrote my version of James Bond to reflect my desire to play a cool spy while unconsciously protesting in frustration that only men got to be that character. 

I was brought to this country when I was five years old and the only English I knew was from a kindergarten song that went something like, “Pollito, Chicken. Gallina, Hen. Gallo, Rooster, y Pluma, Pen.” However, as the old adage that children are sponges is true, I soon picked up the language. Before I knew it, my childhood was soon made up of a dual cultural identity. On the one hand, my childhood was marked by all the typical staples of a Latinx household; my abuela lived with us, you could always find black beans, queso fresco, and crema Mexicana in the fridge, the butter tub never contained butter, Vick’s “Vaporú” was always the cure-all to any ailment, we watched novelas as a family, and the commercials for Walter Mercado’s daily horoscope were soundtracks to our daily life. And on the other hand, I was a typical child growing up in the ’90s in sunny southern California; I was obsessed with Lisa Frank, I owned a million Polly Pocket sets, I ate Pop-Tarts and drank Capri-Suns like they were going out of style, I watched Full House religiously, and constantly restarted my Tamagotchi because I let it die; again. Often, this duality made me feel the classic “no soy de aquí, ni soy de allá” (I’m not from here, nor am I from there) identity crisis.

Having a dual cultural identity allowed me to navigate both worlds seamlessly and as I entered adulthood I sought out community through my friendships with Latinx artists from Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador, and El Salvador. It was through these friendships that I found the commonalities that bind us into a “gente,” a people, but also learned that we are not a monolith. We are rich with diversity; we have unique stories and experiences.

During grad school,  I continued to work on developing my voice as a writer with the help of ongoing mentorship from my professors. I found that my experiences navigating my dual cultural identities, my experience as an immigrant, the complexities of my family dynamic, the everyday joys and challenges that have shaped my motherhood, my love affair with academia, and so much more all inform my writing and ability to develop characters that audiences can latch onto. Furthermore, I have come to learn that with specificity comes universality, and that the characters I create, though rich with my own experiences, are also ubiquitous in the human experience. Ultimately that is my purpose as a filmmaker and storyteller; not only to elevate our Latinx stories but in doing so, to help us identify our common humanity.