About Leticia Hernandez

Leticia Hernández-Linares is a bilingual, interdisciplinary, award winning, writer, artist, and racial justice educator. The first-generation U.S. born daughter of Salvadoran immigrants, she is the author of Mucha Muchacha, Too Much Girl & Alejandria Fights Back!  ¡La lucha de Alejandria!  Widely published, she is the co-editor of The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States and her work appears in Maestrapeace, San Francisco’s Monumental Feminist Mural and Other Musics: New Latina Poetry.  She has performed her poemsongs, delivered keynotes, and presented on panels throughout the United States and in El Salvador. A five-time San Francisco Arts Commission grantee, she has lived, created, and protested in the Mission District of San Francisco for over two decades.Currently she is an Artist in Residence at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

A special focus in her career has incuded convening and collaborating with other Salvadoran and Central American artists and writers.  While working in journalism, she worked with the Izote Vos book project, and authored the Central American section of an Ethnic Studies textbook.  In 2001, she was part of Foro 2000, an artivist delegation to El Salvador;  performed in Epicentrico: Rico Epicentro (A Night of Central American Performance) at Highways (L.A). Her poetic, interactive installation, Papeleo, was featured in the group exhibition, Mourning and Scars (S.F.).  She performed at the Encuentro Poético: Salvadoran-American Poets at the Smithsonian in D.C., and Variedades sponsored by Grand Performances in L.A.. She has worked on numerous projects in Washington D.C.: an online bilingual poetry class at the Oyster Adams Bilingual school; poet in residence with Sol & Soul; together with Split this Rock organized the Wandering Song book launch at Busboys and Poets; guest of honor at Hechizo, Arte y Poesía at La Casa de la Cultura.  Her bilingual poetry appears in  Theatre Under My Skin: Contemporary Salvadoran Poetry published by Kalina Press and in Poeta Soy and her work was included in the first convening of Central American women writers in El Salvador in 2019: Otro Modo de Ser

A five-time San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist grantee, she was a fellow with the national Latinx poetry workshop, CantoMundo, and served on the Organizing Committee for for three years. Since 1991, she has worked in various capacities in arts education, community engagement, and school reform, and has extensive experience in SFUSD. She taught as part of the Poets in the Gallery team at the de Young Museum, and currently works as an Equity Facilitator and Coach with  SFCESS. 

Her university teaching includes courses in Gender Studies, Creative Writing, Ethnic Studies, Oral History, Central American Studies, Latinx Literature, and English Composition.  Hernández-Linares has done extensive research in Central American Studies and Literature and Mesoamerican History and Culture. She has been living, working, and writing in the Mission District since 1995.