Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, and she was raised in Fresno, California. She is both an indígena and undocumented poet of Zapoteco descent. While she’s pursuing her Creative Writing MFA for Poetry at CSU, Fresno, she’s also a graduate artist at Juan Felipe Herrera’s Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio and has received a fellowship from Community of Writers. Her poetry has appeared in Small Press Traffic, Acentos Review, Zone 3, Poets.org, Honey Literary, The Ana, Voicemail Poems, and elsewhere.