Today we’d like to introduce you to Ana Villalpando.
Hi Ana, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
As a Tijuana native, I grew up gazing at a horizon underlined by a border wall. Crossing the border and embodying geopolitical contrasts exacerbated a need to understand how spaces and people are defined. Because of this, I majored in philosophy at the Autonomous University of Baja California, Tijuana. After teaching social sciences and humanities at a middle school and high school in Rosarito, I decided to pursue a master’s in education with emphasis on critical pedagogy at California State University, Long Beach. This program and the people I met there showed me the capacity of education to counteract systemic oppressions. I had the opportunity to build on this knowledge during my time at the Long Beach Public Library where I worked for seven years, the last three of them as Literacy Coordinator.
In this position not only did I get to design programs for adult learners but for our Spanish-speaking communities as well. As part of this, I created an adult storytime in Spanish called Literamérica, which reflected the pull I felt towards contemporary Latin American literature written by women. At this point, it was undeniable I wanted to engage with these texts from an academic perspective and I applied to the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Literatures in Spanish PhD program.
The Literature Department at UCSD, with its equal push for critical depth and creative speculation, has forged me for the last three years. The program has motivated me to not make a qualitative distinction between art and academic writing as theoretical productions. Now in my third year, and having just received the Doctoral Candidate title, I continue to work with literature written by Latin American women, engaging with creative writing and visual art and teaching undergraduate courses.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has been challenging, yet equally interesting, to forge a path sown by such an amalgam of professional and personal experiences. Learning to navigate the US educational system after having studied in Mexico my whole life led me to create library workshops centered on breaching bureaucratic differences migrants may experience. Understanding institutional practices, along with language barriers was a turning point that made my experiences manageable. Acculturation, instead of assimilation, is a process that requires perpetual negotiation; it is necessary to build spaces where plurality is encouraged instead of subdued.
In the academic context, freedom of speech and research is under attack to serve economic powers. It is in our best interest to find a way to resist the weaponization of certain terminology and continue to be critical of who benefits from this. In my experience, neutrality is often a digestible form of compliance.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
More than multidisciplinary, I gravitate towards the word “indisciplinary” to describe my practice; my work as a visual artist, poet, scholar, researcher and community program developer is rooted in an incessant questioning of limits, borders, boundaries and static definitions. At the core of these multiple practices there is always a query that unfolds into processes—a queery, if I may, since this curiosity developed as I found myself challenging heteronormative expectations.
My poetry often emphasizes the visual composition of the text. I propose that my writing cannot be solely reduced to its orality; it needs to be observed as an image as well. This way, I invite readers to engage with the multiple meanings of what we call figurative, how far or close it can be from its reference according to either the textual or visual aspect of the poem. Something similar occurs with my drawings, paintings and cyanotypes; these pieces are often interjected by textual remarks that build a narrative within whatever is depicted. I cannot conceive any of my visual work without thinking of it as a short story.
This year has been eventful for me in terms of publications and art exhibitions. I was featured at La raza cómica, a Chilean magazine that dedicated an article to Latin American women writing about the desert and territoriality; three of my poems coexist with the works of amazing writers Zazil Collins, Violeta Vaal, Francisca Palma and Josefa Vecchiola. I was also honored to be featured in two peer-reviewed journals: Esferas from NYU and Rio Grande Review from UTEP. My painting Trasladro (2026) was part of The Front’s Día de la Mujer exhibition curated by Ariana Torres; and two of my map interventions were part of the Outer Limits and the Superseeding Limits exhibitions curated by Xelestial Moreno-Luz James Dailey and Christine Negus. Most recently, I’ve collaborated with artist and geologist Cassandra Cerón in an array of projects that fall under the umbrella of Geological Affects. Our purpose has been to ignite conversations regarding the relationship of geological conditions, human and non-human beings and aesthetic practices. We’ve come to find our collaborative approach emulates geological processes; our thinking is catalyzed by the dynamism of our environment and has led us to understand ourselves as geological forces.
Collaboration is the foundation of my practice as a community program developer. I design collaborative and creative explorations grounded on the potential of asking questions as collective voices. Along with Luisa Martínez and Circe Cota, I’ve founded the Queeratorial Committee/Comité de Cuiraduría, a fronterizx curatorial project focused on artistic productions by queer dissidents. Since we think queerness as continuous embodiment, we invite folx to imagine how the fluidity of our identities materializes through art; we will celebrate this imaginative journey with an exhibition opening on October 23rd in Ediciones Caradura in Tijuana. My collaboration efforts are often centered on DIY spaces such as Caradura or Burn All Books in San Diego. For the last year and a half, I’ve been the illustrator behind Burn All Book’s Mail Mag envelope art. Mail Mag is a monthly subscription where you receive an envelope filled with art, poetry, writing and of course, envelope art. Even though the term seems to be self-explanatory, envelope art requires the participation of the recipient; the art piece is not complete until you’ve ripped the envelope open. As you can imagine, I take this as an opportunity to be playful, punny and most importantly, to always think about my pieces as a conversation with the subscribers.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
I’ve been honored with the guidance of the most talented people I know. This support is built by vulnerable commitment, an eagerness to see our world views coincide and an openness to consider friction as an invitation to reflect. My writing, in particular, would have not sharpened if it had not been by the generous readings of Omar Pimienta, Amy Sara Carroll and Carol Arcos Herrera; their contributions go beyond the literary realm, they’re forging practices that bet on the potential of collective thinking.
The art sphere, I’ve also come to learn, grows in a constructive way when we vocalize our shared experiences. My advice would be to curiously engage, communicate, and most importantly, understand that we depend on taking care of each other.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://anniedetijuana.com
- Instagram: @anniedetijuana
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anagvillalpando/
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/anniedetijuana
