Growing up, I’d always been on the alcohol = bad train. I’d seen the way alcohol affected mine and other people’s families. Then all of the sudden as I was leaving my teens, alcohol became such a part of my “lifestyle” and I just switched train stations. I’d say to myself: what’s a little drink on the weekends? I figured as long as I didn’t let alcohol run my life, as long as I didn’t “need it,” I was safe.  Fast-forward to late November 2020. I’d just come back to my ex-boyfriend’s apartment from a trip to DC. A couple of my pieces were showcased at the freaking Smithsonian Museum of Ame ..read more

Jotas, the last couple of months have been rough. In January of this year, my sister began her dialysis journey. No matter how much I tried to make the appropriate arrangements to be ready to support my sister and family (moving us in together, staying sober), there is never enough preparation to get you ready you for the love and heartache that comes from taking care of a loved one living with a chronic illness. I’m a fucking Virgo and I need lists. And there was no check off list on the internet to tell me and our family what exactly to expect. You see, my sister has had chronic renal diseas ..read more

“Maybe she’s putting the microphone too close to her mouth?” my mom wondered as my cousin was trying to figure out the screen mirroring volume from her phone to our TV. But my mom knew what her sister was saying. She wrote that letter that was being read by my aunt during my grandma’s first death anniversary in her grave. In Ensenada. Across the border. Where my mother cannot go. For the past year, my mother has been mourning her mother’s death. But I wonder if she’s been mourning her before she actually died. My grandma’s health had begun to wane for the last couple of years. In blurry video ..read more

I never really came out to tio Chicho. I always felt like it was an open family secret that I was pretty gay. Lo que se ve no se pregunta. The plan always was, in my mind at least, that as soon as I got my papers, I’d simply go back to Ensenada and have a heart-to-heart with him. Perhaps collaborate on an art project together where I sit him down and interview him. Ask him about the 90s L.A. gay scene. Pointers on dating men. Was going back to Mexico really the best choice for him. Just…talk. And is not like I didn’t have a chance to come out to him. I used to go to doctor’s appointments with ..read more

When I’m not spending weekends at my boyfriend’s house, my Saturday and Sunday morning ritual with mom and sister has involved lots of strong coffee with our breakfast while old I Love Jenni episodes are playing in the background. There’s something comforting about hearing Jenni’s family struggles in the reality show as we’re discussing our own, while eating papas con chorizo. The three of us resting from another whirlwind week of life things. Each of us with a very different approach to life but making the best out of our weekends together. In the I Love Jenni episode we watched today, the la ..read more

When I first started documenting the DREAM Act movement through badly scanned drawings of undocumented organizers in 2010, I started noticing a very queer pattern. A lot of the organizers I was hanging out with during the actions that happened throughout 2010, were openly queer. I remember reconnecting with Jorge Gutierrez during the hunger strikes outside of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office in Los Angeles, CA.–we’d actually met a couple of years prior when I was dating his then roommate, who he dated before me. But that’s another messy story for another time. I can’t remember the exact time I s ..read more

This piece was first published on March 31, 2022, for the Los Angeles Times’ Latinx Files. A few years ago, my best male friend Jesús — a heterosexual man — asked me why gay men love to listen to female singers. I rolled my eyes because his inquiry was based on a generalization. One that happens to be true. The closest answer I could offer was that a lot of gay men feel seen in songs about falling for a guy that you know isn’t good for you, or in songs about female empowerment in a straight white male-dominated world. I can’t speak for the other gays of the world, but me and my close group of ..read more

Juan Gabriel when asked if he was gay: “Lo que se ve no se pregunta”(Julio Salgado / For The Times) Three illustrations of Juan Gabriel by yours truly appeared in yesterday’s PRINT issue of Los Angeles Times. The images accompany this beautiful and personal story by Fidel Martinez about the iconic queer crooner’s impact on the Latinx community. They also put together this awesome playlist with some of the singer’s top bangers. I’ve been getting a lot of congratulatory online comments and direct messages about how they’re in their Juanga feels about the story and illustrations and to be honest ..read more

Why do I make art? What kind of art? For who? What purpose does this art serve? Arent’ those the kind of questions every respectful artist making art about any marginalized community should be asking themselves? Girl, I don’t know. But I’ve been reflecting on these questions thanks to “Latinx Art: Artists, Markets, And Politics” by Arlene Dávila. These are questions that have always been a constant in my life. But every so often, something I read or watch will inevitably make me look for immediate answers to these questions, then I panic, and start drawing something. Or in this instance, turn ..read more

If my blurry memory doesn’t fail me, I believe the first time I heard No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak” I was with my cousins at a family party, huddled around a radio. It was the late 90s and I’d only been in the U.S. for a couple of years, so my gay teenage brain was absorbing every single piece of pop culture it could. I was just coming off another obsession: The Spice Girls. During this time, unless you had the coins to buy CDs, you actually had to wait for the radio to play your favorite song. Friends would actually get together with the sole intention of playing each other’s CDs or listening to t ..read more