Amongst the Earth Day and Career Day chaos the; poets, filmmakers, authors, and writers of all types, from this campus all rallied together for the Writes of Spring festival that would reveal the works of this campus as the winners of Rivers Voice, voiced their works on both the 20 and 21 of  this April.

Guest speakers graced our campus with their presence and their works. All of the writers’ accomplishments echoed the aspirations of this campus. 

The first speaker, Victor Villasenor, gave a mantra to be yelled back to him, shouting “I am!” Reluctant as any Wednesday-morning college crowd can be, Villasenor had to instruct the crowd to say it proudly, as if they believed it, and again, he shouted, “I am… a Genius!”

To this challenge, the Wray Theater awoke as Villasenor added “Fantastic,” “Wonderful,”, “Kick-ass,” “A miracle-maker,” and even “Burro,” which translates to donkey. He explained that complacency was a childhood problem of his. When his teachers learned of this, one remarked, “You’re not a stupid Mexican, you’re a lazy Mexican!” To the teacher’s shock Villasenor thought of this as an upgrade.

He urged that this kind of thinking is to be avoided. By confidently holding  to the assurance that greatness is within us all.

Also shared by Villasenor was a childhood memory, it was a gruesome story of child abuse, it was not the violence that was hardest to swallow. Rather the fact that such a lie was and is being fed holding captive the minorities, intentionally barring them from their greatness.

From his first day of school, he faced adversity, accepting unfair biases and lies. As he grew older, he spoke of a rage that had grown in him, one that he used to fuel and perfect his craft.

To illustrate his point, Villasenor spoke with urgency as he explained that the Jews would have never lost Eden if only they had tequila, because God would have respected Adam’s boldness and maybe even had a drink with him.

Another poetic view on God that Villasenior shared was that the left eye of God is the moon and that God’s right eye is the sun, so that God is watching over us and empowering us at all times.               

The next poet to take the stage was Alex Espinoza, a Southern-Californian hometown hero. Espinoza was born in Tijuana and raised in La Puente. Espinoza ventured his college education in the Inland Empire, working his way through a community college in San Bernardino and transferred to UCR.

Before his college career had started Espinoza told a story of growing up and having to overcome adversity as he lost his father in an accident at  a young age. He had attended a continuation high school when he learned of his skill and love for writing. Testing his limits motivated him and progressed his work. His encouragement was that taking a long time to write was OK, because “There is always something to fix.”

Espinoza read excerpts of his works using his descriptive tones, he painted a scene that kept the imaginations of the Wray Theater captivated and engaged. His final advice was “Good writers read often.”   

Finally we all looked on proudly as our peers took the stage to share their hard works. The writers who shared their works were;  Nicole Barrios with her poem, Becoming Spring, Victoria Benavente with her short fiction, The legend of the Princess, Raven, and Shooting Star, Lynae Dobbins’ memoir, A different Kind of Education, Thomas Morales memoir, Loaded Dad, Drunk Dad Leisure Dad and Epifaria Soves’ short fiction, Humming Bird Part One. All of the works exemplified the hard work and dedication of both our peers and educators here at Rio Hondo.