Event Host Jen Cheng is a storyteller, poet, and filmmaker who helps amplify under-represented stories, to create intercultural and intergenerational connections. As a cultural creator and cross-pollinator, Jen leads and expands conversations across diverse communities, across disciplines, and across different media. Jen’s mission is to contribute to a world of better inclusion and opportunity. She is the current West Hollywood City Poet Laureate, a 2023 California Arts Council Fellow, and author of a poetry collection Braided Spaces. Learn more about Jen’s projects on her website www.JenCvoice.com or on her social media @JenCVoice. 

Andi Xoch is a Plant Specialist and the Owner of Latinx with Plants, a plant shop and resource based in Los Angeles, California. With over a decade of experience in the plant and garden industry, she specializes in plant maintenance, growth, and education. Andi has grown her business from a pop-up shop at home to two brick-and-mortar plant shops. She aims to share how to use plants as a healing tool. Andi created installations with Exploratorium inspired the design aesthetic known as rasquachismo, a movement started by Chicano artists in the 1960s. Learn more about Andi’s work @LatinxWithPlants.

Sonia Guiñansaca is an internationally acclaimed poet, culture strategist, and activist who was born in Ecuador (Kichwa-Kañari). Guiñansaca helped build some of the largest undocumented organizations in the U.S and co-founded some of the first artistic projects for and by undocumented writers. Sonia writes narrative poems and essays on migration, queerness, and nostalgia, often collaborating with filmmakers and visual artists. Sonia is the author of Nostalgia and Borders and is the co-editor of the recent migrant anthology Somewhere We Are Human. They launched House of Alegria, a multi-fold project supporting emerging (un)documented Queer, Trans, Non-Binary artists. More about Sonia: @thesoniag.

Jewelle Gomez (Cape Verdean/Ioway/Wampanoag) is a writer and activist and author of the double Lambda Award-winning novel, THE GILDA STORIES from Firebrand Books. Her adaptation of the book for the stage BONES & ASH: A GILDA STORY, was performed by the Urban Bush Women company in 13 U.S. cities. The script was published as a Triangle Classic by the Paperback Book Club. She is the recipient of a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; two California Arts Council fellowships and an Individual Artist Commission from the San Francisco Arts Commission. More at www.jewellegomez.com

Dr. Stephanie Anne Johnson (Lighting Designer, Educator, Artist and Writer) is a professor in the the Visual and Public Art Department at California State University – Monterey Bay. Her PhD is in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Public Policy. Her dissertation and research is on the Harlem Renaissance and the New Deal. Dr. Johnson served on the City of Berkeley Civic Arts Commission for eight years. More at www.lightessencedesign.com.

Madeleine Lim (Executive Director/Artistic Director of Queer Women of Color Media Project) is an award-winning filmmaker with over 25 years of experience as a producer, director, cinematographer and editor. Her films have screened at sold-out theaters at international film festivals around the world, including the Vancouver International Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, and Amsterdam Amnesty International Film Festival. Her work has been featured at universities and museums like the de Young, and Asian Art in San Francisco, and Crocker Art in Sacramento, and broadcast to millions on PBS. More at www.qwocmap.org/team.

Kim Shuck (San Francisco Poet Laureate Emerita and visual artist) is a Cherokee Nation poet, author, weaver, and bead work artist who draws from Southeastern Native American culture and tradition as well as contemporary urban Indian life. Shuck is widely published in journals, anthologies and a couple of solo books. She enjoys volunteering in SFUSD elementary school classrooms to share her loves of origami, poetry and basket making… in other words, math of various kinds. In 2019, Shuck was awarded an inaugural National Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets and a PEN Oakland Censorship Award. More at www.kimshuck.com.