 Buenas tardes. Thanks so much to Chiz and to all of you for this amazing event and the stories that need to be told and the words that need to be heard. This is a short excerpt from my essay called Dia de los Muertos. Every late October I set up my altar, pulling out the pictures of my dearly departed and adding new ones from each year. I lay out the cross stitched mantel with years of stains. I tape papel picado above the altar remembering this ritual is not a dirge. It is an opening of the veil to celebrate the lives that have touched my familia, my comunidades, and me. I think about why I miss each person and how to keep them alive in the present moment. I imagine my dad's disappointed spirit hovering over the dojeras who he grew up cheering for as they lost in the World Series. I invoke my mom's stovetop magic as I figure out what to do with the bag of zucchini that my neighbor gave me. I think of the mothers who grieve their sons' vibrant spirits every day and feel grateful for my own two children. In years past I hosted gatherings to decorate sugar skulls. This tradition of blending death with creativity gave my beloved guates and our friends the chance to be playful and imaginative with what so many people fear. As a writer, I live in that crevice of light and shadow writing drafts only to end their existence for another version and then another and then about 20 more. I love the transparency of life and death, the calaveras that dance and meditate and watch TV on my altar. Each skeleton could be any one of us and one day we will know what our antepasados experienced after their last outbreath. One day we will see there is no separation between any of us alive or dead. As I set up my altar year after year, I breathe in the musty smell of the newspapers I have carried from home to home. Some secrets still remain unspoken, wisps of energy that over the years strangled our voices or encircled us with cariño or tripped us as we ran towards our dreams. These crinkled papelitos unwrap memories and give space for those I love and lost in this world to whisper consejos to me from the next realm. I unbind my heart wounds and apply the sov they offer, that bit of perspective and wisdom then nestles in my corazón, ropting around me like a soft, colorful, rebel soul. Thank you.