As a half-Mexican woman from Texas, raised by a single mother and the youngest of four girls, I knew early on that I’d have to fight for the life I dreamed of. I was the only one in my family to go to college—putting myself through school at Stephen F. Austin State University, where I majored in theater and minored in dance. I spent a season performing at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater before packing up everything I had and moving to New York City on sheer grit.

Alone in Manhattan, I auditioned relentlessly, juggled side jobs to make rent, and kept going long after most people assumed I’d give up. But I didn’t. I stayed, built a life, fell in love, became a mom—and kept chasing that creative spark that first lit up in me as a little girl watching films like Thelma and Louise while doing community theater back in Texas.

Acting has always been my first love. It’s the place I feel most alive, most open, most connected. But even as I found success, the roles rarely reflected the depth or identity I carried. I was often told I was too brown to be white, too white to be brown. Cast as the “other woman” or the “sexpot”—never quite belonging anywhere.

So I started writing the roles I wanted to play. Stories that told the truth. Stories that held space for complexity, contradiction, and transformation. Stories that didn’t flatten women like me into stereotypes, but gave us breath, purpose, and power.

Now, whether I’m acting, producing, writing scripts, hosting a podcast, or building new worlds through film, I come back to the same question: Whose stories aren’t being told—and how can we make room for them?

Because for me, storytelling isn’t just a calling—it’s a way to change the world, one honest truth at a time.

I tell stories to spark change — the kind that make you think, feel, and question the systems holding women and minorities back. My work lives in films, scripts, Substack essays, social media, podcasts, and theater — all chasing that moment when someone says, “I’ve never thought about it that way before.”

I write a bi-monthly Substack for Among Other Things, a collective for moms and change-makers, where I unpack the inequities of motherhood. I also direct and co-host our podcast, Mommy Has Questions, a space for real talk and radical ideas.

My latest short film, DISPLACED, grew from my time accompanying undocumented immigrants to court. The cases I witnessed — and the people I met — changed me forever. The film was nominated for Best U.S. Short Film at the SOHO International Film Festival, premiered at the Burbank International Film Festival, and is now distributed to educational institutions worldwide through Collective Eye.

As a writer, my feature script TEXICAN placed in the top 10% for The Writers Lab (produced by Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman), my comedy pilot TICK TOCK drew interest from Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, and I’ve been commissioned for projects like Slipping Away, a short thriller on mental illness. My plays have been staged across NYC, and my soap opera parody for Days of Our Lives stars was performed by the cast in Montreal.

I co-founded FairSay Films to amplify marginalized voices and am a proud member of New York Women in Film & Television, SAG-AFTRA, and Actors’ Equity. Every project is another chance to use storytelling as advocacy — and, hopefully, to open someone’s eyes to a new way of seeing the world.