10/08/2026
EMMANUEL ORTIZ is a Chicano/Puerto Rican/Irish-American community organizer and poet, and the grandson of migrant farmworkers. He believes art must be an integral part of the struggle for liberation and social change. He has authored two chapbooks of poems, The Word Is a Machete: Post-Pocho/Puerto Rican Poems of the Personal and Political (self-published in 2003) and Brown unLike Me: Poems from the Second Layer of Our Skin (Calaca Press, 2008). He also co-edited Under What Bandera? Anti-War Ofrendas from Minnesota y Califas (Calaca Press, 2004). He has published two chapbooks of poetry, The Word Is a Machete and Brown unLike Me. He is a founding member of the Minnesota-based Latina/o writers/poets collective Palabristas: Latin@ Word Slingers, founded in 2002. In his spare time, he enjoys guacamole, soccer, and naps.
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