Artistic Statement

Artistic Statement

As an playwright and fiction writer, I aim to write provocative works about unreliable Latine narrators. I write volatile protagonists who struggle with their relationships with others, their memories, the space around them, all of which create their shifting realities. I write with an emphasis on rich dialogue that authentically conveys the conversations I grew hearing in my Latin American immigrant-majority neighborhood in the Houston suburbs. Despite whichever fantastical situations I may put my characters through – liminal spaces, dead sisters reincarnated as murderous angelic beings, parallel universes with parallel selves – I aim to always write full-fleshed and grounded characters.

My goal in my writing, whether they be plays, stories, or screenplays, is to depict the anguish of rejection and the joy of self-acceptance. My protagonists are nearly always Brown, Latine, queer, and non-binary. Although their struggles of religious guilt, trans-/homophobia, and racism would be easy to exploit, I always try to frame these larger issues as something that they can overcome through love and sheer stubbornness. By placing them in strange realities that aren't always what they seem, they come face to face with themselves, almost always choosing to love instead of reveling in anger.

Human identity is not only shaped by intra- and interpersonal relationships, societal influences, and individual upbringings, but by space. My work focuses on examining the way our environments influence us to become what society and family dictate we should be and how individuals resist (or give into) those demands. My characters' racial, gender, and sexual identities are influenced by their citizenship, confinement, isolation, violence, and the liberation that love brings.

The works that I write are heavily influenced by the pop culture I consume, ranging from Univision late-night comedies to anime to comics, with a specific emphasis on invoking the visual and aural rapid-fire edits of classic horror movies and 80’s punk music. Along with the stylization of my work, the stories and characters I write are always grounded in reality. Oftentimes in my work, you will find characters dealing with dual problems, both grounded and fantastic: trans characters dealing with vengeance and revenge, lovers stuck in a pocket of liminal space off of Route 59, families confronting deep resentments in the face of natural disasters. My work aims to carve out a space for queer and trans characters of color in niche genres dominated by white cisgender men.