Paul Ceballos Hlava is an Ecuadorian-American writer who grew up in a Latinx community in Riverside, California. He has an MFA from NYU and spent a decade as a teacher. He has organized teachers’ unions, political protests, and taught English to immigrants. He often feels caught between two worlds and wonders why a body in a given space may be considered political versus neutral. He has been awarded a 4Culture arts grant, Poets House fellowship, and Cave Canem Writing Across Cultures fellowship. His poems have appeared in the LA Times, Narrative Magazine, PEN Poetry Series, BOMB, Acentos Review, among others. They have been translated into Ukranian and have twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Now, for the first time in decades, he is bringing together his personal and poetic lives in projects focused on labor, history, family, and race.