Cultura Without Borders / Cultura sin Fronteras

Cultura Without Borders vice chair Frances J. Vásquez was born in San Bernardino, raised in Highgrove, and resides in Riverside’s Arlington area. A proud Chicana whose parents migrated from México, Frances is bilingual and biliterate. She is a former board president for Inlandia Institute and currently serves on Inlandia’s programs committee, Advisory Council, and facilitates Tesoros de Cuentos Writing Workshops. She has participated in Inlandia writing workshops since 2014, and her essays and memoirs have been published annually in the Inlandia workshops anthology. She writes about Latina/o issues in the Inlandia Literary Journeys column for Southern California News Group. Other affiliations include: Museum of Riverside Multicultural Council, Riverside Library Board of Trustees, San Bernardino County Hispanic Employees Alliance, Riverside County Mexican American Historical Society, and LULAC. As International Director of Other Cultures, Inc., a student exchange program, she implemented its mission of fostering greater intercultural understanding among students from México, Canada, Central America, and USA.

Adrianna Chacon is a fourth-generation Mexican-American whose family comes from New Mexico. She was born and raised in Riverside. She received her associate degree in communications from Mt. San Antonio College and bachelors’ degree in English from the University of California, Riverside. She has had poems published throughout Southern California. She serves on the steering committee for Cultura Without Borders and its anthology committee. She is currently working on creative nonfiction and fiction pieces about her time in Riverside and the Inland Empire. She lives in Riverside with her husband and their three cats. When she isn’t reading or writing, she is convincing her husband to go on a random adventure.     

José Chávez is an author, consultant, and educator who identifies as Chicano and Native. He is a retired bilingual teacher and dedicates his life to writing. He teaches poetry writing to elementary students, provides parent workshops, and gives readings at cultural events. His goal is to inspire and promote literacy, writing, and education using language, culture, and family traditions. His two award-winning bilingual poetry books for children, Estrellitas y Nopales-Little Stars and Cactus and Dancing Fruit, Singing Rivers, Baila la Fruta, Cantan los Rios, won awards from the International Latino Book Awards. He serves as a workshop leader and program committee member for Inlandia, and contributes newspaper columns about writing for Inlandia’s Literary Journeys series. His poetry for adults has been published in the Acentos Review and the California Association of Bilingual Educators.

Dr. Carlos E. Cortés is the Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside, and co-directs the UCR School of Medicine’s Health Equity, Social Justice, and Anti-Racism curriculum. His books include his memoir, Rose Hill: An Intermarriage before Its Time, the four-volume Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia, and a book of poetry, Fourth Quarter: Reflections of a Cranky Old Man, which received Honorable Mention in the 2017 International Latino Book Awards. His most recent book is his first novel, Scouts’ Honor.  As the Creative/Cultural Advisor for Nickelodeon’s Peabody-award-winning children’s television series, Dora the Explorer, and its sequels, Go, Diego, Go! and Dora and Friends: Into the City, Cortés received the 2009 NAACP Image Award.  He also served as Cultural Consultant for the Dreamworks film, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.  He has performed his one-person autobiographical play, A Conversation with Alana: One Boy’s Multicultural Rite of Passage, more than 150 times.

liz gonzález is a steering committee member of Cultura Without Borders and is a former Inlandia board member who has also served on the publications committee. A poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction writer, liz is the author of the creative nonfiction chapbook San Bernardino’s First Our Lady of Guadalupe Church: The First Eleven Years (Bamboo Dart Press, forthcoming); the multigenre book Dancing in the Santa Ana Winds: Poems y Cuentos, New and Selected (Los Nietos Press, 2018); and the poetry collection Beneath Bone (Manifest Press, 2000). Her honors include a 2023 California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. A San Bernardino Valley native, liz’s roots in the I.E. reach back to 1910, when her great-great grandparents moved to San Bernardino. She teaches creative writing at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

Rose Y. Monge is a proud immigrant from Sonora, Mexico. Her professional life includes 41 years as a teacher and guidance counselor for the Riverside USD.  Upon retiring in 2009, she volunteered to facilitate memoir workshops at the Goeske Senior Center. She self-publishes an annual memoir anthology for the Goeske, Writing Warriors. Her mantra is that everyone has unique stories of the human condition that connects us all to our shared humanity. Why not write these stories down? Celebrating and sharing stories of our rich multicultural heritage enriches us all with a new perspective of the world. In addition to Inlandia, Rose is an advocate of peace, social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion as a means of community building. The Inland Communities Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Museum of Riverside, Community Settlement Association, and the Harada House are a few of her outreach groups.

Lupe Mora de Marchante (she/her) is an international business strategist turned independent bookstore founder. She operates Pen & Honey Bookstore in the Inland Empire, curating works by historically underrepresented voices and literature that encourages global dialogue. She is a Mexican-American first-generation college graduate with a degree in English and minor in political science from Texas State University. Her lived experiences as part of a multiracial and multilingual family shape her perspective on culture, identity, and storytelling. Integrating literary advocacy with community impact, Lupe’s initiatives include book donation programs, partnerships with local organizations, and her personally funded Books & Sueños Scholarship, which provides financial support and signed books for students at UCR. Lupe serves on Inlandia Institute’s Board of Directors, as well as its branding and Cultura Without Borders steering committees. 

Luz Negrón has been a Puerto Rican artisan for over 25 years, dedicated to preserving and sharing cultural traditions through her craft. She has led red clay workshops at numerous elementary schools in the Riverside area, as well as with community organizations, promoting the creative arts among adult populations. Through the creation of handmade pots and figures, participants are given the opportunity to reconnect with and bring to life stories from their native countries, fostering cultural pride and storytelling through art. In January 2019, Luz was honored by the City of Riverside with the Dr. Carlos E. Cortez Award for Championing Inclusivity and Diversity, recognizing her commitment to uplifting diverse communities through the arts.

A Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera (she/her) writes so the desert landscape of her childhood can be heard as loudly as the urban chaos of her adulthood. A former high school teacher, she earned an MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles and a PhD at the University of Southern California. Her play Blind Thrust Faultwas featured in Center Theater Group Writers’ Workshop Festival and her one-act play “Temporary Arrangement” was featured in the Latinx group of Short+Sweet Festival Hollywood. She is the author of the YA novel, Breaking Pattern (Inlandia Books), which received Honorable Mention for First Book of Fiction in English from the International Latino Book Awards, and a prose chapbook, Stories All Our Own (Bottlecap Press). Other stories have been anthologized and nominated for awards. She is also a poet, a Macondista, and works for literary equity through Women Who Submit.

Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl is a multilingual and multidimensional poetiza, spoken word artist, and published poet. She is editor of Aquí Estamos: Latina/o/x Voices of the I.E. (Inland Empire), the upcoming anthology of Cultura Without Borders and also serves as a board member for Círculo de poetas and Writers, a poet-teacher for California Poets in the Schools, and a workshop facilitator for Palabras del Pueblo. Diosa X has been published not only in the Latino Book Review, the award-winning Somos Xicanas Anthology, and Inlandia’s online journal, but she is also the author of seven poetry collections and one chapbook. You can learn more about these publications, as well as her upcoming and coming projects, at www.diosax.net.