Meet Cynthia Guardado | English Professor, Consultant, Poet.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cynthia Guardado and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cynthia, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I always want to say that writing chose me, and this is mostly true. I really never had any intention of pursuing a career as a writer or professor.

Growing up in the 90’s (pre-smart phones) I spent a lot of time grounded (for fighting in school, among other things), my parents wouldn’t allow me to watch TV or do anything that was “fun” but I was allowed to go to the Inglewood Public Library and check-out books.

One summer, all I did was read laying in our front porch. I suppose my love of books began then, when I was old enough to really want to escape in books.

I continued to read books on all the bus routes in Los Angeles county and eventually when I graduated high school I went to UC Santa Cruz and majored in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. The truth is that this was only my major because I didn’t know what else to do.

Along the way, I was inspired by a young visiting poetry professor, Erika Meitner, who taught me the power of contemporary poetry. After she left, I spent the majority of my college years trying to survive being an English major. The old dead white men canon club was torture but thanks to Louis Onuorah Chude-Sokei, an English professor at UCSC, I did not drop my major. His classes were the only ones that interested me and that I could relate to because we read many texts by BIPOC authors, and authors who wrote outside of the “norms”. After graduating from UCSC, I was a bit lost & really disconnected from my culture and my history. It is truly sad that being an English major is the most white-washing experience a student of color can have.

Not knowing what to do with myself, I moved to Washington D.C. and shortly after arriving my Aunts’, her husband died while we were sleeping in the house. He had been an alcoholic for the majority of his life, but in a matter of three weeks he drank himself to death. Nothing could stop him, not even the blood he was vomiting.

This was the catalyst for becoming who I am now. I tried to process this grief and trauma. I wrote a blog on MySpace and then I started to write a poem. As I drafted this poem, I realized that I was no longer writing about my aunt’s husband and instead I was writing about my alcoholic grandfather. Today, he is 90-years-old and still an alcoholic.

Experiencing this death was the moment when my relationship to writing changed. Once I allowed myself to connect with my own personal history, trauma, and grief through writing I finally understood why I had been gravitating towards writing my whole life. It was then that I decided to start writing poems about my family and who we are.

That passion to write about them, write about my grief (and our collective grief), is what led me to graduate school, to becoming an English professor, to writing two books.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I truly believing that writing poetry and doing community from a place of love is my secret. Following my love for poetry and social justice is what has led me to being a tenured professor with two poetry books.

I definitely don’t think of my focus as branding, but of course it has become one at this point in my career. I am known as a person who writes about El Salvador and does social justice work (in, and out of, the classroom) and am often offered work related to these topics.

I am very passionate about what I do and this level of passion is necessary to accomplish my goals because this work is very taxing. It is always challenging and there are barriers everywhere we turn.

Academia and publishing are still very racist and are founded in systemic racism. Existing with in it is exhausting as a queer women of color.

Post-pandemic I’ve thought a lot about burn out and reflected significantly about how to bring joy into all aspects of my work. I do this by connecting with my creative community and spending time in nature. I think the most important advice I can give any one is: set clear boundaries for yourself and take pride in saying NO to work that does not serve you.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I have a lot of favorite places in Inglewood and Los Angeles since I have spent most of my life here. I’ll drop a few gems here.

The beaches closest to LAX.

Coffee:
Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen in Inglewood
Sip & Sonder in Inglewood

Food:
Randy’s Donuts in Inglewood
Saigon Dish Vietnamese Restaurant in Lawndale
Las Cazuela’s Salvadoran Restaurant in Highland Park

Drinks:
Three Weavers
Cinco

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I am still processing how my life seems so academically linear even though I am second-generation Salvadoran (U.S. born) child of immigrant parents. My parents, Anselmo y Margoth Guardado., always supported me and encouraged me academically.

But I was in need of guidance and academic support. When I was in 7th grade a counselor called me into their office and told me about the Fulfillment Fund. To this day, I do not know who referred me but I do know that after being recruited to the Fulfillment Fund mentorship program, where I was paired with my mentor Tani Cohen, my life did take on a different path.

As an academic, I understand the importance of mentorship but since it was my life (unfolding) it was difficult to see the impact the Fulfillment Fund and Tani Cohen were having on my life. There is no way to really quantify all that the program and Tani offered to me.

I am still processing how it all impacted me today. I guess for a kid from the hood, from a family from a war-torn country, having Tani (and the Fulfillment Fund) made it possible for me to dream.

Instagram: theguardedpoet

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-guardado-734051bb/

Twitter: theguardedpoet

Facebook: Cynthia Guardado