Naomi Quiñónez is one of an active group of multiculturally diverse artists from Los Angeles who created a grassroots cultural and literary movement. These artists have been motivated by the notion that their social commitment outweighs any individual honors. This group, equivalent to a minority Generation X, views poetry not only as a means of manufacturing innovative images but also as a direct means of engaging an audience or reader in order to instill social change. While crafting imagistic language interests them, their central objective is to achieve a cathartic response through oral performance. For this reason, Quiñónez participated in myriad poetry readings throughout the Southwest, Mexico, and Nicaragua beginning in the 1980s, before she ever became a published writer. From such touring performances she gained a confident poetic voice and provided a testimony of multiethnic Los Angeles, her generation, and her...