WELCOME
Thank you for taking an interest in me and my work. I am a historian and writer. My work is rooted in the places that have shaped me, the communities and movements I have been part of, and the questions I later explored through archives and historical research.
My books move between Tucson and Los Angeles, and my newest work extends that journey into Sonora, Mexico. Across these places, I examine contested landscapes, urban renewal and displacement, environmental justice, Brown and queer histories, LGBTQIA+ activism, and the ways communities resist being erased.
LIVED EXPERIENCE
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Lived experience is at the center of my memoirs. In writing about my own past, I incorporate documents, newspapers, oral histories, photographs, government records, and archival research. My memoirs are also footnoted.
I consider my lived experience the primary form of historical evidence in my memoirs. I believe they can reveal things the documentary record cannot or overlooks, which is why I consider my memoirs works of history.
EXPLORE
SELECTED RECOGNITION & COOL THINGS
Watch this 8 minute video, made by University of Arizona film students, as I take you on a personal journey through Barrio Viejo—one of Tucson’s oldest and most diverse neighborhoods. I share family stories and reflect on urban renewal in the 1960s, as well as the current gentrification taking hold in the barrio today.
The City of Tucson Considers a Reparative Approach
On September 22, 2026, the Tucson Mayor and Council discussed a proposed Community Preference Policy intended to address the lasting consequences of displacement caused by urban renewal and freeway construction.
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Those drafting the policy, along with city officials, are drawing on my research and publications. Mayor Regina Romero even publicly acknowledged my contributions at that meeting. My books, La Calle: Spatial Conflicts and Urban Renewal in a Southwest City (2010) and In the Shadows of the Freeway: Growing Up Brown & Queer (2019), document how government-sponsored redevelopment and freeway construction displaced families, destroyed neighborhoods, and disrupted community life in Tucson's barrios. I never imagined that my scholarship would help inform discussions about how the city might begin to repair some of the damage done in the past. But it is!
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What makes this approach significant is its reparative purpose. Rather than simply acknowledging past injustices, the proposed policy recognizes that local government actions caused lasting harm and considers ways to address their consequences. The proposed policy has not yet been adopted. City staff are expected to return with a final recommendation in spring 2027.​​
I was a queer activist in Los Angeles from 1979 through the early 1990s. I was most active in Gay and Lesbian Latinos Unidos (GLLU), serving as the group’s president from 1988 to 1990. More than three decades later, I joined six other former members to tell that story in the PBS documentary Unidad: Gay & Lesbian Latinos Unidos. Make sure to watch it on PBS while it is still available.
Photo of me carrying the Gay & Lesbian Latinos Unidos banner at 1986 L.A. PRIDE.
Proud to report!
Storied Property: María Cordova’s Casa
received the 2026 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal for West-Mountain Non-Fiction.
L.A. Interchanges: A Brown & Queer Memoir
was recently reviewed in Pacific Historical Review.
The review appears in the May 2026 issue.
It means a great deal to see my memoir, grounded in queer life and brown Los Angeles histories, discussed within a major academic history journal. Read it here.
