I am an autistic and neurodivergent queer transsexual femme of color, of Latine & Arab descent, born in the U.S. in the early 1980s to Paraguayan parents but raised and educated at the American International School of Riyadh, KSA from roughly 1987 to 1994. The circumstances of my upbringing as a “Third Culture Kid” growing up in the late 1980s to the early 1990s consisted of experiencing both a sense of disconnect from my then-host society, followed by “reverse culture shock” upon returning to the U.S., and culminating in the onset of a painful and traumatic “Puberty 1.0” and the accompanying debilitating body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria—never at home abroad, never at home in the country of my birth.  Equally alienated from my Latine, Iberian, and Arab heritages, I responded in the only way I could. As a child, I crafted identity from pieces of U.S. and international pop culture I consumed growing up (U.S. cartoons and Japanese anime of the late 1980s and early 1990s; video games of the Nintendo-dominant 8-bit and 16-bit eras; Dungeons & Dragons), and as a dissociative, body dysmorphic and gender dysphoric adolescent, I sought a sense of belonging in the U.S. punk rock music and culture of the 1980s and 1990s. I mark all the cultural influences upon my body in the form of tattoos which hold meaning far beyond the skin-deep. And I live within the cognitive dissonance of holding both pride in the “culture” I created for myself, and sadness from a sense of cultural/ethnic alienation and anomie extant to this day.

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While I never thrived in any public or private educational system built upon allistic centrism, I was fortunate to have graduated high school in a U.S. state that used state lottery earnings to fund every state resident with four years of tuition at any state-based university or college. I lacked direction until finding a passion in History, which I honed for the next decade after receiving my B.A. (UNM, 2005). Earning my History M.A. (NMSU, 2009), I pursued a Ph.D. in Ottoman history at the University of Arizona from 2010 – 2016 until discovering burlesque performance art allowed me to find my authentic self as a queer trans femme. I returned to academia in 2021 and—drawing upon my innate love of history, historical narrative, critical theory, and the largely BIPOC queer and trans communities in Tucson, AZ—earned my MLIS (U of A, 2023) with the intent of securing work as an archivist and giving back to my community of QTBIPOC. I am still seeking work in that capacity with organizations that uphold my personal values, but I currently find meaningful work as a Digital Archives Intern with the People’s Media Record through my membership in the 2023 cohort of Drexel University’s LEADING Fellowship, and as a Lead Consultant with Sol Grant Partners.

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Having once lived a hectic and social media-heavy life as an ex-academic burlesque performer, I currently greatly enjoy a humble, solitary existence with my two beloved feline companions. I enjoy reading for pleasure (something graduate school almost extinguished); partaking in media analysis; playing video games; playing electric guitar; roller skating; and existing in a semi-perpetual goblin mode.