Team
KARLA CORDERO
Executive Director
Karla Cordero is a Latinx poet, educator, and activist. She received her MFA in Poetry from SDSU. Karla’s chapbook, Grasshoppers Before Gods (2016) was published by Dancing Girl Press and her debut book How To Pull Apart The Earth was published by NOT A CULT. Publishing (Fall 2018). She is currently an adjunct professor at MiraCosta and San Diego City College. Learn more @ www.karlacordero.com.
Mario Dematteo
President / Board Member
Mario is a storyteller, a professional comic book creator, an educator, a wheelchair-bound urban farmer, and a motivational speaker. Mario DeMatteo received his BA & MA in Literature and Writing at CSU San Marcos. He’s an avid collector of comic books, vinyl, obscure garage sale trinkets, and edible plants.
Rolland Tizuela
Founder / Board Member
Since he was a young boy, Rolland has always known the power of community and the power of art. He is a graduate of Anthropology from UCSD.
Dr. Angélica m. yañez
Board Member
Dr. Angélica M. Yañez holds a PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC San Diego, a B.A. in Chicano Studies and minor in Women Studies from UC Santa Barbara. She is the editor of United States History from a Chicano Perspective. Her activism and research interests center community building, intersectional identities, race, racism, white supremacy, cultural revitalization, and plant medicine of Mexican Indigenous traditions in the United States. She is a traditional Aztec Dancer and mother that honors the legacies of her Indigenous ancestors. As a former rape crisis counselor, she practiced acute counseling and women’s healing. Currently, she is the advisor to a writing group that promotes activism through spoken word, founder of Queer Students of Color, and is the program advisor for the new Chicana/o/x Studies degree in the Ethnic Studies Department. She is a full-time professor of Ethnic and Chicano Studies at Palomar College.