The Squad
Youth Speaks is comprised of passionate
artists and educators.
Michelle Lee
Mush is a poet, narrative strategist, and pioneer of spoken word pedagogy. A Harvard University Project Zero Fellow, Mush is frequently a featured speaker on the intersection of emergent cultures, racial justice, and solidarity movements, and women of color in leadership. Her talks and writings have been featured on Vogue, HBO, PBS, AfroPop, Summit Series, Social Venture Network, National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE), and the Berkeley Communications Conference.
Mush has shared the stage with powerhouses like Natalie Baszile, Jeff Chang, David Banner, Hope Solo and Harrison Ford. Her writings have been commissioned by the University of California, Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, Stop AAPI Hate, and See Us Unite campaigns. Mush has also been published in All the Women in My Family Sing, an anthology of essays by women of color at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
In 2019, Mush was invited to serve the City of Oakland’s Cultural Affairs Division as a Cultural Strategist-in-Government (CSIG), where she worked in City departments to infuse policymaking and practices with radically creative and culturally-competent thinking and problem-solving to promote civic belonging. Mush is the Vice-Chair of the City of Oakland’s Cultural Affairs Commission and a member of the City’s Funding Advisory Committee. In her spare time, Mush enjoys running, organizing her bookshelf, and laughing at mom jokes with her son.
Producing Director
Joan Osato
Joan has played a pivotal role in local and national theater for over two decades and is a committed local and national community organizer. A core member of Youth Speaks since 2001 where she produces live performance events including Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival annually in rotating cities around the country, she is also Producer for The Living Word Project and the critically acclaimed theater group Campo Santo. As cultural organizer - she works on behalf of national networks, and sits on the boards of the National Performance Network, and the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists.
She is an awardee of prestigious grants from the MAP Fund, the Wattis Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, and the Creative Work Fund. She was the inaugural recipient of SFAC’s Artist and Communities Partnership Grant, Theater Bay Area Award for Excellence in Video Design (Tribes by Nina Raine, at Berkeley Rep) and the Surdna Foundation’s Artists Engaged in Social Change Award. She has been recognized for her work as a photographer from Artslant, Prix de Photographie, Laguna Arte Prize and has exhibited throughout the San Francisco Bay Area since 2009. In 2019 she received Cal Shakes Luminary Award for Community Engagement, and was named a recipient of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, YBCA 100.
Deputy Director
Stephanie Cajina
7Stephanie Cajina is a first-generation college graduate. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Urban and Regional Studies from Cornell University. She has over 10 years of experience working in economic development and advocating for economic justice and equity. Throughout her career, she has sought to address structural barriers to success. Prior to joining the Youth Speaks team, she worked with various municipalities to advance economic development initiatives. She has extensive nonprofit management experience having served as Executive Director for five years of the Excelsior Action Group and in governance leadership roles for various nonprofits, coalitions, and foundations. Most recently, Stephanie was appointed by Mayor London Breed and San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to serve as Board Director for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. She is the only Latinx representative on the Board. Throughout her academic and professional journey, Stephanie and her family benefited from many nonprofit programs and services and understand their transformational power first-hand. She is excited to join the Youth Speaks team and support our youth, team, and board in being agents of change!
Nick James
Nick James is an African-American artist who has worked in different capacities at Youth Speaks for the past 10 years. Nick utilizes his design talents as well as educator and activist background to help assist in the design and programmatic efforts for numerous nonprofits, small businesses, and initiatives. Past positions include fooounder and creative for I Create for a Living, UX Design for Center for Cultural Power, Curriculum Designer at Urban Arts Partnership, Designer for GirlTrek and Director of Special Projects for Youth Together. Nick is born and raised in Oakland and currently bicoastal between Oakland and Brooklyn.
Gabriel Cortez
Gabriel is a poet and teaching artist. His work has been featured on KQED, Upworthy and the Huffington Post as well as performed in front of thousands in venues such as the Oracle Arena, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. Gabriel is a member of Ghostlines and a co-founder of The Root Slam and Write Home. For more on Gabriel, visit GabrielMCortez.com
Bijou McDaniel
Born and raised in Oakland CA, Bijou came to Youth Speaks with a diverse background and skill set in the areas of non-profit development, event production and marketing. In 2016 Bijou, along with a group of friends, founded a community based startup called OAKHELLA which specializes in event production and marketing. Since launching, OAKHELLA has carved out a unique place on the cultural pulse of Oaklands creative scene with their signature micro-festival day parties and high quality events.
Sandy Vazquez
Sandy Vazquez is originally from Los Angeles, CA and currently resides in Oakland. She is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus in dance and spoken word. In 2016, she graduated from UCLA with a dual degree in Dance and Chicana/o Studies. Through her performance work, she has featured on stages such as The John Anson Ford Theater, The Broad Stage, as well as the Harare International Festival of the Arts. As the daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants, she has committed her life’s work– both in and out of the classroom– to uplifting and honoring the legacies we come from.
Eric Duran
Eric was born and raised in The Bay Area, with a special place in his heart for art and culture from around the world. He has an educational background in communication, psychology, accounting, and humanities. He has work experience in accounting, event organizing, youth arts education and counseling. He enjoys creative writing, studying, performing arts, songwriting, drawing, and nature.
Ann Pullido
Hailing from the Filipino American community of southeast San Diego, California, Ann Smooth brings a mix of program, administrative, and creative experience as the Youth Speaks Development Associate. She earned her BA in Communications at UC San Diego writing countless research papers about Hip Hop culture, and also went to work beyond the classroom to build her reputation as a bgirl and event organizer in the San Diego breakin’ and Hip Hop community. Executing events, dance workshops, and co-directing the “We Got Next” youth breakin education program led her to her current role as board member at Mighty4 Arts Foundation, and a member of Rock Force Crew.
Ann’s love and dedication to Hip Hop culture led her from San Diego to the Bay Area in 2014, making strides in her career in the non-profit sector for artists and young people. Prior to Youth Speaks, she worked primarily in direct service programs as a dance teaching artist with Mighty4, and a High School Program Coordinator at Girls Inc. of Alameda County. When she’s not dancing with her crew, you can find Ann at a park buried in a book or making very important ice cream flavor decisions.
EJ Walls
EJ Walls (Sin Q) is an artist & educator who recently returned home to the Bay Area. Before teaching middle school and high school humanities in San Diego, California, the Brave New Voices alum and Bay Area MC Olympics Champion studied Communication with a minor in Spanish at San Diego State University, where he had opportunities to share stages with several renowned poets and emcees. He also studied abroad and blazed stages in Puebla, Mexico and Ghana, West Africa, had the pleasure of opening for artists such as Travis Scott, Casey Veggies, and TDE rhymesayer Ab-Soul, and headlined a show in San Diego as half of the rap duo KYNG$. EJ is ecstatic to return to Youth Speaks as a staff member to support young artists and leaders in the development of their identities and voices. His work can be found on Soundcloud, or at Youtube
Paola Soyumi Ramírez Peña
Paola Soyumi Ramírez Peña (she/they) is a poet, screenwriter, and sociologist on multiple planets. They are the oldest of four, a novice skater, and a mediocre baker. They are the host and creator of Somos Poetas, a virtual poetry workshop for people of all experience levels and a performing member of In Full Color. They are one-half of Local Fruit Podcast, an audiovisual call for imagination, justice, and hope. Paola is a graduate of The University of Kansas.
Aleah Bradshaw
Aleah Bradshaw, known performatively as Nyfe, is a 25 year old performing artist, writer, and educator with a passion for poetry and hip hop as tools of liberation and creative expression. They were born and raised in Aurora, Colorado by two Trinidadian American immigrant parents and a community of poets and activists who inspired creativity in both their work and their conscious imagining of a world less overrun by racial discrimination, misogyny, queerphobia, and xenophobia. They now live in California, where they work as an artist and educator while managing their own small business and collective musical project closegood.
Hieu Minh Nguyen
Hieu Minh Nguyen is the author of two collections of poetry, Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018), and This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Press, 2014). His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Hobart, Boaat, Best American Poetry, The New York Times, and elsewhere. He is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, and a recipient of the Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. Originally from Saint Paul, Minnesota, Hieu now lives in Oakland.
Leticia Guzman
Leticia Guzman is a queer, Chicana, Poeta from Hayward, California. Leticia is a 2017 Bay Area Brave New Voices Team Member, SPOKES Youth Advisory Board alum, "Between My Body and the Air" poetry anthology contributor, and a Taco Bell connoisseur! Leticia uses spoken word to empower their inner child and hopes to help uplift others.
Tayleur Crenshaw
Tayleur is a poet, New Yorker, Howard University alumna and the founder of Gold Beams.
She began her career working on the corporate marketing and merchandising teams at AARP, Gap and Banana Republic. Tayleur has also taught spoken word at Oakland school for the Arts and worked on the event production team at the Oakland Museum of California. She currently volunteers for the Toasted Life brand and sits on the Howard Alumni Association, San Francisco/Bay Area chapter as well as the Oakland Art Murmur boards.
Tayleur dedicates herself to honing her skill of curating art-filled experiences for Black people through her organization, Gold Beams. Founded in 2018, Gold Beams curates events, experiences, programming, and productions for Black creatives and her Black community at large. The brand has curated concerts, cabarets, music series+, and is widely known for its signature open mic, Second Mondays. Gold Beams has partnered with organizations like the San Francisco Exploratorium, the Black Joy Parade, Lyft, Red Bull, Oakstop, The Life is Living Festival, and more to bring productions to life.
Tayleur’s goal is to be in inspiring spaces with inspiring people and to support Black creatives making careers from their art.
Troy Rockett
Troy Rockett (he/they) is a multidisciplinary artist and theatremaker based in Oakland, CA. Troy works across the mediums of poetry, performance and visual art. He has a Master’s in English Literature and Creative Writing, and is a VONA Voices Fellow, an Astraea Lesbian Writer's Fund recipient, and a 2021 Titan Award winner with Theatre Bay Area.
In 2012 Troy performed as part of an ensemble to present Chorus: A Literary Mixtape with Saul Williams at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. The performance incorporated live music and spoken word and sparked his interest in multimedia performance. He sought out community classes to learn more. Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP) provided extensive training and support in filmmaking and production. He has worked with independent artists, indie film projects, arts organizations and local black box theaters to attract audiences to radical storytelling.
His vision for production and collaboration continues to be shaped by leaders who hold the art of world building as a ritualistic and communal practice. He has most recently learned from directors Mina Morita and Karina Gutiérrez in a 2021 production at Crowded Fire Theater. Visit his website for more of his work. troyrockett.com
Tierra Lu
After watching Brave New Voices in 2010, Tierra finds herself at Youth Speaks as the Advancement Associate. She brings skills passed on to her from nonprofits she's worked at, ranging from providing outdoor adventures to youth and people with disabilities, to fundraising money for early literacy programs in Title I schools, to supporting the development team at an environmental foundation in Oakland. Tierra earned her BA in English and American Literatures and enjoys reading and writing in all forms, with her most recent fascination being dialogue in plays and shows.
Maximiliano Pierre Urruzmendi Mele
Born in Atlanta, Georgia to Uruguayan immigrants, Maximiliano is a community trained multidisciplinary actor, teacher, technical director, lighting designer and college dropout living in the Bay Area. They fell in love with theater at a young age as a way to find allies. Maximiliano feels incredibly fortunate to conspire within artistic communities that prioritize engagement work centering listening, learning, healing and reflecting creatively to offer transformative art. Maximiliano has had the privilege of working in varying artistic capacities with: Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s Peh/LO/tah(TD), Teada Production’s Masters of the Currents(TD/LD), Axis Dance Company (TD), Joanna Haigood’s Dying While Black & Brown (TD), Campo Santo/Ben Fisher’s Candlestick(LD), Paul Flores’ We Have Iré(LD), Be Steadwell’s A Letter to my Ex(LD), Noelle Viñas’ Abuelito(Father y Abuelito), Contra-Tiempo’s Joy(Us) Just(Us) (TD/SM), Campo Santo/Star Finch’s Side Effects (LD), Kristina Wong’s Sweatshop Overlord (Broadcasting/SM).
Maximiliano is honored and privileged to be a part of the team at Youth Speaks.
Jennifer Lou
Jen’s career spans the technology, advertising, finance and non profit sectors. She is also a humor writer and has created and produced several solo performance shows. Jen has published a short story in the anthology Breakfast from Mars as well as a children’s book. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Columbia University.