Star light, star bright. First star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight. Disney movies told me that if I did this then one night my biggest wish will come true, to be a real boy or be taken to Neverland by Peter Pan to become a lost boy, whichever the universe decided was the best. Here I am now, a magical trans boi more powerful than any disney magic out there. As a writer and poet, I use my words to connect to my indigenous ancestors and connect with my multiple communities. I have been acting since the age of 12 and acting has opened up parts of me that would be shut down otherwise. I was a masculine transitioned trans man in my first short film Whittier Boulevard. I was a femme sex worker in a play series called Brown and Out 5.
I have been doing social justice work since 2015 with the California Conference for Equality and Justice. Through this nonprofit I’ve gained leadership experience while learning the language needed to talk about the systems of oppression I was seeing play out in my everyday life. I learned about other nonprofit organizations that I wanted to work with as well. I’ve done work with Building Healthy Communities, Translatin@ Coalition, Gender Justice LA, and am hoping to do much more work with many other orgs that touch my multiple identities.
I do spiritual work as another way to connect to my ancestors and those who protect and guide me. I do it to heal those around me. I learned different forms of spiritual healing through family and friends so that I can pass these practices on to those who really need them. I am very impatient and at times when life is telling me to slow down I know I want to rush. Rush to my top surgery, to my revelations, to my purpose.
Through every challenge in my life there was always one constant, love. Having a crush on a nameless girl in the 4th grade and doing pull-ups in front of her at the monkey bars to impress her. She made me feel like one of the boys. The love for my first girlfriend in middle school, La Colombiana. She was new to the U.S. and so I re-learned how to speak spanish so I could have conversations with her. The love for my first forever in high school, La Peruana. She taught me how to cook, dance, and use online chat rooms. I like to think I can type 83 wpm because of the hours I ended up spending in those chat rooms. The love of my first trans girlfriend. She taught me vulnerability, self care, and release. Through all of these lovers and more I learned resiliency.
I am the sunset and the sunrise in between the night and day and in these hours when the sky is painted so vibrantly with blues, yellows, oranges, and pinks, I remind myself that my two-spirit self is not so simple and there is beauty in the complexity of my thick temple of a body.
Invisible Men 