Rosa García-Lemus (she/they/ella/elle) is a queer Xicana artist, educator, advocate, writer, and poet of P’urhépecha descent. Los Ángeles raised her. She moved through Watts, Lynwood, South Gate, and Ramona Gardens as a young girl before East Los Ángeles became home for most of her formative years. Each place offered her a memory, so her relationship to Los Ángeles became inseparable from how she understands herself, her history, and the communities she comes from. She comes from a family of artists (graffiti artists, muralists, writers, poets, and musicians) and grew up understanding creativity as a way of life, not separate from herself but as herself. To speak, remember, survive, and make meaning from everything---rasquachismo was the word she attributed to her way of life. That lineage continues to shape her love for working across mediums and her belief that art belongs with the people.

Rosa holds a Bachelor of Arts in Chicanx Latinx Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied Chicanx and Latinx histories, social movements, cultural production, and the political conditions that shape the lives of our communities. Her academia gave language to her intimate experiences within broader histories of colonization, migration, racialization, gender, displacement, resistance, and survival. She believes that our bodies, families, histories, sexuality, grief, and material conditions can produce knowledge rather than merely serve as subjects for someone else’s scholarship.

You can read more of Rosa's poetry via Instagram @laxicapoeta and via Substack. You can also see her portfolio here.

Gabriel Andres Guzmán (they/them) is a queer, non-binary Mexican scholar-artist hailing from San Diego and Tijuana. They received their master’s degree in Performance Studies at Northwestern University in 2020 are currently a PhD candidate in Performance Studies with a concentration in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Guzmán has a B.A in English, Media & Cultural Studies, and Gender & Sexuality Studies from UC Riverside. Gabriel’s dissertation project looks at how the aesthetic embodiments of race, gender, and sexuality across the lived experiences of communities of color and contemporary artists informs the notion of home, borders, and belonging across the U.S-Mexico borderlands. As a visual artist, they utilize film photography to uplift and share the everyday stories of friendship, style narratives, migration, community-building across LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities beyond binaries and borders.

Giselle Resendiz (They/She) is a non-binary chicana poet from North County San Diego who is currently in their last year at UC Berkeley studying Chicanx/Latinx Studies. Her poems have been featured in Tidepools Journal, Brainscramble Magazine and she is currently an editor for Gag! Magazine. Her work explores healing of the self’s inner world touching on subjects of childhood, love and grief although sometimes she loves to veer into comedic and satirical work to lighten it up a lil bit. With a passion for educational access and student advocacy, love for her community drives her to continue writing, learning and teaching.

Ash Mojica (they/them/theirs) is a nonbinary, Mexican American writer from Santa Ana, California. They have a Bachelor of English and an Associate of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies. Their poetry, prose, and nonfiction writing have appeared in various digital literary magazines and blogs. They use their writing to explore intersectionality, including queerness, pop culture, and Latine identity. They are especially interested in community storytelling, family stories, and multimedia projects. When they are not working on a solo project, they work as an editor, helping writers polish their pieces.

Portfolio: https://sites.google.com/view/ashmojica/home 

Instagram: @therealamojica 

Leslie (she/they) is a genderqueer Latine from LA who grew up loving the visual arts and studying anything and everything. She has a passion for community archiving, decolonial justice, and the diverse history of social movements. She is a self-taught artist, a holistic educator, and a recent MA graduate from Cal State Long Beach.

You can check out her work here.

Liz is just a down ass bitch that goes where the wind takes them! An educator, mentor, and writer by trade, Liz focuses her life on empowering Indigenous/ Chicanx youth, and telling the stories of their lived experiences. Earning a Bachelors in Ethnic Studies (UC Berkeley c/o 2025) gave Liz terminology to identify solidarity struggles, systems, stories, and historical developments of Third World Liberation from Sactown (her hometown) to Falastin! Her stories are informed by those of her ancestors, Maya Yucateco (Maaya t’àan), Yaqui (Yoeme), and Spanish (although she rejects the white centricism of mestizaje) informing her Chicana upbringing. Everything Liz does is an ode to Eleanor Alvarez- her maternal grandmother, and highest protector. Themes of their work include self determination, cultural hybridity and synchronicity, agency, education as a tool for liberation, and self-respect.

She/they currently serve the Native/ Indigenous community as Youth Program Coordinator at Friendship House in San Pancho, Califas and resides in The Town (Oakland). Her main hobby is to convivir y platicar, cooking meals her grandmothers taught her and indulging in fruitful, nuanced conversation, always leading to a joyous celebration of life (staying hyphy and silly)!

Nayeli Morales (she/her) is an English student at UC Riverside. While currently in the process of discovering her own identity, she centers much of her school research on the exploration of identity and the tribulations faced in order for one to finally accept their own identity. The theme of identity is rather prominent in her research as she often finds herself dumbfounded by her own identity as she attempts to balance the two foreign homes that live only in her heart and her one physical home in California. Along with identity, Nayeli’s studies focus on the themes of feminism. Her fascination for the subject leans into the discovery of what it means to be a woman, as she believes that the woman's experience often tends to be having to prove that she is enough. Thus, her feminist studies focus on the ways in which women and other minorities often struggle to find success due to the systemic oppressions working against them.

Adrian Mendoza (they/he) is a queer and trans writer and editor of mixed Nordic and Puerto Rican heritage. Their writing is largely informed by their personal experiences with queerness, transness, disability, mixedness, and Latinidad, as well as their roots in rural Southern California. 

Adrian attended the University of Southern California, where they received their Bachelor's Degree in Political Science with a minor in News Media and Society. They are now pursuing a Copyediting and Publishing Certificate through UCLA as they prepare for a career in publishing. Adrian believes in the importance of representation in literature and wants to take part in expanding the scope of diverse representation in the publishing industry.

Adrian began writing as a student journalist, writing for the Daily Trojan, Annenberg Media, and Trojans360. In their last year of college, they served as managing editor for Trojans360, where they were dedicated to revamping the digital magazine's brand and encouraging writers to find their niche. Since graduation, Adrian has maintained a Substack called Read by A, where they post book reviews and discuss all things bookish. They are also currently a Culture writer for the Trill Mag.

Portfolio: https://amendoza9075.wixsite.com/writtenbya