Victor Hugo Mancilla is a native of Mexico City with extensive experience as a journalist, publisher, screenwriter, director, and associate producer. He is the founder and director/producer of Eravision Films, a production and film-research organization. For over 12 years, Eravision has worked in the field on special assignments in Mexico, the U.S., France, Italy, Spain, Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and The Philippines. Eravision has provided services to cultural and historical projects by HBO, Green Moon Productions, International Films, Latino Smithsonian, Transcended, Mosaico, Basic E. Inc, Travel and Space Museum and Project Uplift. In addition to numerous commercial industrial films, Mancilla has served as director and/or producer of: The Forgotten Eagles (201 Productions); Noche de muertos (Eravision); Children’s Court (Lavine Productions); Our Neighborhood (A/P, Kidworks, Transcendental Media); Living with Autism and Deafness (The Willie Rose Foundation); The Catch; Buena Vista Social Rock (Eravision); and the award-winning documentary Art and Revolutions. The Forgotten Eagles, narrated by award-winning actor Edward James Olmos, tells the story of Mexico’s famed WWII 201 Squadron and was selected by the Smithsonian Institute for Best Historical Documentary in 2009. Mancilla’s works in progress include: the feature film The Lost Bullet (Ensuenos Entertainment); The Legend of the Volcanos, An Eagle Tribute Productions; An American Spy, the story of WWII spy Claire Phillips; the children’s video “Let’s Play” (Eravision); and Growing Dreams: Successes in Mexican-American Wineries. Among the many other notable artists Mancilla has worked with are Anthony Hopkins and Kelly Ho. Mancilla has two books in progress, several screenplays, and newspaper and magazine articles on Latino issues.

Elyssa Salinas-Lazarski is a doctoral student in theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Her research focuses on theology of the body and sex, integrating her Lutheran faith, and her experience as a Mexican-American and as a woman. Salinas-Lazarski is a graduate of Valparaiso University, where she studied theatre, and holds a Master of Divinity from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Alongside her studies, she is a teaching assistant, poet, and hobby baker. She has been writing poetry since age seven and continues to dabble in the art form in the midst of reading, writing, and teaching. Salinas-Lazarski's poetry and blog posts can be found at Bold Café; The Mudroom; Naked and Unashamed; and We Talk, We Listen. She lives in Chicago with her husband, two children, and two cats.

Abel Alvarado is a playwright, book writer/lyricist, costume designer, community programs manager, and producing artistic director at Teatro Nuevos Horizontes/New Horizons Theatre Company (TNH Productions). He conceived and wrote ARENA: A House Music-al. An award-winning costume designer, he has worked on many productions, including In The Heights; It Happened in Roswell; A Force To Be Reckoned With; An L.A. Journey; Little Red, Drunk Girl; Remembering Boyle Heights; Bad for the Community; Teatro MOZ; Mariela In The Desert, They Shoot Mexicans, Don't They?; Vietgone; Enemy of the Pueblo; Evangeline, The Queen of the Make-Believe; and Disney's Aladdin: Dual Language Edition. Alvarado’s video work includes: Wardrobe Stylist for Grammy Award nominee Gerardo Ortiz’s music video “Para qué lastimarme?" and for the web series Café Con Chisme. In 2019, he was awarded "Best Costume Design" by the NAACP Theater Awards for his costumes in Disney's Beauty and the Beast - The Broadway Musical at CASA 0101. Producing the Brown and Out IV & V Theater Festival and designing for Josefina Lopez's Real Women Have Curves at the Pasadena Playhouse are personal highlights of Alvarado’s work. Alvarado’s community work includes being a Research Assistant for Spectrum Community Services at Charles Drew University, Voter Registration Manager with Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, and Health Education Specialist with The Los Angeles LGBT Center.

Sammie Seamon is a senior at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, double-majoring in English and Spanish, with a focus in creative writing. She hopes to pursue bilingual journalism after graduation and wants to be of service to Spanish-speaking communities. She is particularly interested in the histories of her own family, which originates in Tepoxtepec, Guerrero, México, and is currently embarking on a short-story collection about life within the pueblo. As a half-white Texan latina growing up on the U.S. side of the border, she strives to reflect on her own identity and reconcile her experiences with family across borders through writing.

Gabriel García Román is a multi-disciplinary artist and craftsman who examines and decodes the politics of identity through intricate and process-based work. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico and raised in Chicago’s northwest side, García Román received his BA from The City College of New York, where he studied Studio Art, and currently resides in New York City.

His art has been acquired by the International Center of Photography and has been shown at the Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, CA), Galería de la Raza (San Francisco, CA), Cathedral of St. John the Divine (New York, NY), the Center for Photography at Woodstock (Woodstock, NY), BRIC (Brooklyn, NY), and numerous other institutions and galleries. García Román was a 2018 recipient of the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture’s artist grant. In 2019, he was commissioned by the Leslie-Lohman Museum to bring his Queer Icons series into the streets, where 100 Queer Icons flags were marched down the World Pride route, for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In 2020, Garcia Roman was one of 10 artists in residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for Workspace, their flagship residency program.

Cleyvis Natera was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York City. She holds a BA from Skidmore College and an MFA from New York University. Natera is the author of the novel Neruda on the Park (Ballantine Books, 2022), and her fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration, TIME, Gagosian Quarterly, The Washington Post, The Kenyon Review, Aster(ix), and Kweli Journal, among other publications. She has received honors from PEN America, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation (VONA). Natera teaches creative writing to undergraduate students at Fordham University and to graduate students at the Writer’s Foundry MFA Program at St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn, New York. She lives with her husband and two young children in Montclair, New Jersey.

The career of José Esquivel has spanned over 50 years in the graphic and fine arts in San Antonio, Texas. The Chicano socio-political movement of the 1960s and 1970s was a major influence on his early work and provided a direction that continues to this day. In 1968, Esquivel co-founded El Grupo in San Antonio, Texas. One of the earliest Chicano collectives in the country, El Grupo evolved into Con Safo in 1971. Esquivel’s work has been included in national and international exhibitions. 

Danny R. Peralta was born in The Bronx in 1978 and raised in the Inwood section of upper Manhattan. After earning a BSA in Social Studies Education from New York University, he began his work as a youth educator and community developer. While searching to expand upon his love for art and storytelling, he formally began attending black-and-white photography workshops at ICP @ THE POINT in the South Bronx and was awarded the first ever Jocelyn Benzakin Fellowship for documentary photography. He went on to earn an MFA from the International Center of Photography (ICP-Bard). With his camera focused on immediate family and community, he completed projects like Ma (winner of a 2007 BRIO Award), LOVE LIVES (a call for trauma relief in Hunts Point), and ‘Bout that Life (featured in BX200’s Bronx Now exhibit). In 2008, he returned to THE POINT CDC as Director of Arts and Education, and in 2015 became Executive Managing Director. He co-founded Peasant Podium Music in 2009, curating live musical showcases and visual art experiences for local and international artists, and was a 2019 En Foco Photography Fellow. Peralta currently lives in the Pelham Parkway section of The Bronx with his wife and two sons, who inspire his every endeavor.

John Olivares Espinoza is the author of the poetry collection The Date Fruit Elegies (Bilingual Press Review, 2008), a finalist for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry. His other honors include a grant from The Elizabeth George Foundation, a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, a residency at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and several Pushcart Prize nominations. His poetry has been translated into Spanish and published in Spain and Latin America. He lives in San Antonio, Texas with his wife and children.

Poet, storyteller, and essayist Roberto Carlos García is a self-described “sancocho […] of provisions from the Harlem Renaissance, the Spanish Poets of 1929, the Black Arts Movement, the Nuyorican School, and the Modernists.” Rigorously interrogative of himself and the world around him, he conveys “nakedness of emotion, intent, and experience, and writes extensively about the Afro-Latinx and Afro-diasporic experience. García is the author of three collections of poetry: Melancolía: Poems (Červená Barva Press, 2016), black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric (Willow Books, 2018), and [Elegies] (Flower Song Press, 2020). His poems and prose appear in various publications, including POETRY Magazine, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT, Bettering American Poetry Vol. 3, The Root, Those People, Rigorous, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Gawker, Barrelhouse, The Acentos Review, and Lunch Ticket. He is founder of the cooperative press Get Fresh Books Publishing, A NonProfit Corp. A native New Yorker, García holds an MFA in Poetry and Poetry in Translation from Drew University, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Reyes Ramírez is a Houstonian, writer, educator, curator, and organizer of Mexican and Salvadoran descent. Reyes won the 2019 YES Contemporary Art Writer’s Grant, 2017 Blue Mesa Review Nonfiction Contest, 2014 riverSedge Poetry Prize and has poems, stories, essays, and reviews in: Indiana Review, Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology, Cosmonauts Avenue, december magazine, Arteinformado, Texas Review, Houston Noir, Gulf Coast Journal, The Acentos Review, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. He is a 2020 CantoMundo Fellow, 2021 Interchange Artist Grant Fellow, 2022 Crosstown Arts Writer in Residence, and has been awarded grants from the Houston Arts Alliance, Poets & Writers, and Warhol Foundation’s Idea Fund. His short story collection The Book of Wanderers (2022) is part of the University of Arizona Press Camino del Sol series.

Miguel A. Escobar is Executive Director of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary (EDS at Union). There, he works with the Very Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, Dean of EDS at Union, to build a Master of Divinity in Anglican Studies program aimed at forming social-justice faith leaders for The Episcopal Church. Previously, Escobar served as managing program director for leadership, communications, and external affairs at the Episcopal Church Foundation. He earned a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in 2007 and served as the communications assistant to then-Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori from 2007 to 2010. Escobar is chair of the board of directors of Forward Movement and serves as secretary of the board of directors of Episcopal Relief & Development. He grew up in the Texas Hill Country and attended Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas, where he studied the Roman Catholic social-justice tradition, Latin American liberation theologies, and minored in Spanish. He joined the Episcopal Church in New York City through St. Mary’s in West Harlem, drawn by the congregation’s diversity and commitment to social justice. Escobar divides his time between two parishes–St. Mary’s and San Andres Episcopal Church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Cecilia Ballí is a cultural anthropologist and a journalist who has written about the US-Mexico border and Mexican Americans in Texas for more than twenty years. She holds a BA in American Studies and Spanish from Stanford University and a PhD in cultural anthropology from Rice University. Her work has appeared in Texas Monthly, Harper's Magazine, The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, and other state and national publications. She is presently a Visiting Scholar at the University of Houston's Center for Mexican American Studies.

Dr. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (PhD University of Virginia) is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author, translator, and editor of numerous works in the field of Buddhist Studies, on topics ranging from Buddhist philosophy to Buddhism and Science. He has also written extensively on the European encounter with Buddhism. Among anthologies, he is the editor of the Buddhism volume of the Norton Anthology of World Religions (WW Norton, 2017) and Buddhist Scriptures (Penguin Classics, 2004). His recent books include Dispelling the Darkness: A Jesuit’s Quest for the Soul of Tibet (with Thupten Jinpa) (Harvard University Press, 2017); Gendun Chopel: Tibet’s Modern Visionary (Shambhala, 2018); and Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sutra (with Jacqueline Stone) (Princeton University Press, 2019). In 2008, he was the first scholar of Buddhism to deliver the Terry Lectures at Yale University. In 2014, The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (edited with Robert Buswell) (Princeton University Press, 2013) was awarded the Dartmouth Medal for best reference work of the year. In 2000, Dr. Lopez was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Efraín Agosto is currently the Croghan Bicentennial Professor in Biblical and Early Christian Studies at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts; he joined the faculty as a visiting professor for two years (2021-23), appointed jointly to two departments – Latinx Studies and Religion. Dr. Agosto had been Professor of New Testament Studies at New York Theological Seminary (NYTS) in New York City since 2011, and he also served NYTS as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Academic Dean (2018-19). Previously, he was Professor of New Testament and Director of the Programa de Ministerios Hispanos at Hartford Seminary for a period of sixteen years (1995-2011), which included four years as Academic Dean (2007-11). In his early years in theological education, Dr. Agosto was on the staff of the Center for Urban Ministerial Education of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston (1983-95), serving in a variety of capacities, including the last five years as Director and Dean of CUME. Dr. Agosto, a Puerto Rican born and raised in New York City, received his BA from Columbia University (1977), his MDiv from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (1982), and his PhD in New Testament Studies from Boston University (1996). He has published three monographs: Servant Leadership: Jesus and Paul (Chalice Press, 2005) on the theology and practice of leadership in earliest Christianity; Corintios (Fortress Press, 2008), a Spanish-language lay commentary on Paul’s letters to the Corinthians; and Preaching in the Interim: Transitional Leadership in the Latino/a Church (Judson Press, 2018), a book of sermons preached at the historic Segunda Iglesia Bautista de Nueva York (East Harlem). He also co-edited (with Jacqueline Hidalgo) Latinxs, the Bible and Migration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). In addition to being a Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI) Post-doctoral Fellow, Dr. Agosto has served HTI as a Selection Committee member, mentor, Summer Workshop presenter, and Senior Editor of Perspectivas.

Joel Andrés Ramírez is a philosopher, theologian, and communicator with a degree in law from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He was a seminarian in philosophy and theology with the Mennonite Church before serving as General Director of INDOMABLE CANAL 14 in Las Matas de Farfán, San Juan, Dominican Republic. Ramírez currently serves as a technical advisor and community administrator for various schools and organizations.

Beatriz Terrazas is a writer and photographer who believes in the transformative power of story. In 1994, she was part of a Dallas Morning News team that won the Pulitzer Prize for a global project about violence against women. Her writing credits include More, D, Skirt!, The Texas Observer, Texas Highways, and several anthologies, including Wise Latinas, Writers on Higher Education (Jennifer De Leon, University of Nebraska Press, 2014), and Literary El Paso (Marcia Hatfield Daudistel, Texas Christian University Press, 2009). She is a Nieman Fellow as well as a member of the American Society of Media Photographers and the Macondo Writers Workshop.

Educator, producer, and screenwriter Jim Nikas is founder and Director of the privately held Posada Art Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving and promoting the legacies of Mexican artists José Guadalupe Posada and Manuel Manilla, mainly in the United States but internationally as practicable. Since 2003, Nikas has loaned and curated works from the Foundation’s collection at dozens of venues, including: Stanford University, East Los Angeles College, Museum of Latin American Art, The Mexican Museum, the International Print Center, Mexican Consulates, and the San Francisco Art Institute, to name a few. Beginning in 2019, the Posada Art Foundation formed a joint venture between the Catalina Island Museum and Landau Traveling Exhibitions, establishing an ongoing touring exhibition of Posada’s works. Nikas has lectured in the US and in Mexico on various aspects of the art, from Day of the Dead to the influence of José Guadalupe Posada on today's social-movement imagery. Together with film director Victor Mancilla, Nikas co-produced the first major English-language documentary film about José Guadalupe Posada, Searching for Posada—ART and Revolutions (2014) and is co-screenwriter for the documentary The Needle and the Thread (in post-production by Eravision Films) about the life of Franciscan nun María de Jesús de Ágreda. Nikas is a former member of the Advisory Board of the Documentary Film Institute Board at San Francisco State University and served on the board of directors of the Coro Hispano de San Francisco. He divides his time between San Francisco, CA and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Jackie Cruz is a Licensed Real Estate Salesperson in New York and New Jersey, currently working with The Corcoran Group. Also a Licensed Hairdresser and Cosmetologist, Cruz ran her own beauty salon in New York City for over two decades. She traveled the world extensively as the personal family stylist of Canadian singer Paul Anka; as stylist to Charlene Nederlander, owner of the Nederlander Theater; and as stylist to Regina Resnik, known for The Threepenny Opera. A graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and of The Yoga Brooklyn Academy, Cruz is a Certified Health Coach and Certified Yoga Teacher who volunteers as a Cancer Coach for the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, NY. Cruz is a native of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she and her family have been lifelong members of the Transfiguration Roman Catholic Church. The proud mother of two sons, she lives in the neighborhood with her mother and her husband. Cruz’s dedication to helping change the lives of those around her includes sharing her experience and providing support for hysterectomy and breast-cancer survivors via her website Pink Ribbons Talk at pinkribbonstalk.com.

Dr. Robert (Roberto) David Ogden is Associate Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Texas State University in San Marcos, where he has lived since 1981. Originally from Dallas, Texas, he spent most of his professional life in the mathematical and computational sciences, working as a professor and programmer. In the 1970s, he took a year leave from DePaul University to teach physics at Rafael Cancel Miranda High School, a private school organized mainly by Puerto Ricans frustrated with the Chicago public school system. Dr. Ogden also spent years working in Mexico at la Unidad de Ciencias Marinas in Ensenada, Baja California. After rejoining the Episcopal Church of his teen years, he served in Hispanic ministry at St. Mark’s in San Marcos, TX. Dr. Ogden is licensed as a Lay Minister, Lector, and Catechist in the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, and he has online credentials to officiate at marriages. Since retirement, Dr. Ogden has played in a rock band, worked on his writing, and spent time with nieces and nephews—and now their children. In their old age, he and Rosie, his wife of 38 years, spend quality time caring for one another. They have two daughters, Miletus and Martha.