Jen Yáñez-Alaniz

Jen Yáñez-Alaniz identifies as Chicana Mestiza (she/her). She advocates for human rights as a community organizer facilitating equity-driven cultural conversations focused on the preservation of language, language literacy, and food traditions. She is the co-creator of Loving, Grieving, & Surviving /Chicanas Read the Poetry of Healing and co-founder of Welcome: [A Poetry Declaration], a platform for those with a lived experience of displacement, newcomers, immigrants, and refugees in collaboration with local advocates. Her work, Matrilineal Poetics: Toward an Understanding of Corporeality and Identity is featured in Latinas in Hollywood Herstories. A Pushcart nominee, her latest and forthcoming publications are included in The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism, Cutthroat: Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century, South Dakota Review, West Trestle Review, Rogue Agent Journal, Mom Egg Review, and more.

Jen is a student in the Culture, Literacy, and Language PhD program at The University of Texas at San Antonio. She is a Research Assistant for Project SELFIES, “The goal is to prepare secondary in-service educators who work with multilingual students in the San Antonio and Northeast ISDs [to] obtain their ESL or bilingual education supplementary certification,” – co-principal investigator Kristen Lindahl, PhD.