I can challenge most people to name three plays where the central character(s) are openly identified as mixed-race, or three plays that present a positive, nuanced presentation of a mixed-relationship, and most people cannot do it. In the rare cases where mixed-race relationships and the mixed-identity body are on stage, we continue to be seen as taboo, tropes such as “the tragic mulatto” still fully exist, and our presence is used as much as metaphor as it is a case to make a person a vendido (sell-out) by sheer nature of their hybridity.

The art that I create attempts to challenge this reality. My work is deeply rooted in mixed-identity politics, were complicated mash-ups of lives and cultures interact on a daily basis. As a part of the largest growing cultural/ethnic demographic in this country, I want to be a leading voice in my field that is a part of the next wave of theatre that is coming - one where the complexities of our world are more clearly celebrated.

I have devoted my life and career to this pursuit of the craft of dramatic writing. To date, I have written over 15 full length plays, the vast majority of them focus on some variation of the identity of the mixed body and the mixed-identity experience. Most of these center around my personal identity of being mixed-Latino, however since moving to New York, I have been struck by all the different blends and variations of the multi-ethnic experience that exists here and have been slowly shifting towards a more complex view of this subject. In addition, where most of my work previously lived strongly in the magic realism of Chicano Drama, the form that originally gave my artistic voice oxygen, I have begun to expand on my own aesthetic, becoming inspired by some of the more presentational forms of the downtown scene, and exploring the many international works that I get to see as a resident of our often beautiful, often frustrating country.