Empower House Radio KXEP-LP

Nusaiba interviews Max Amey from Youth Code Jam, a nonprofit organization in San Antonio that teaches kids K-12 to code. Max shares his experience as being an educator, program manager, and his other responsibilities throughout being at Youth Code Jam. He also mentions the special impact the organization has with the neurodivergent community and teaching young girls how to code.

Nusaiba interviews Mary from the Center for Refugees in San Antonio. Mary shares her experience working for a platform that helps refugees start their new journey in San Antonio. She shares her experiences from helping people get access to healthcare, jobs, getting education, etc. She shares what it is like to help people that come into the country with having no knowledge on the American systems, with the clothes on their back, and only knowing their native language. Mary helps us get an insight on the behind the scenes aspect of what it looks like to work for the Center for Refugees.

Nusaiba interviews Kaitlyn from Students and Startups, a nonprofit organization that helps students cross the bridge from being in school to step into their careers by guiding them through the internship processes. Kaitlyn talks about how she was introduced into the program, what are some hardships they face as a nonprofit, how the behind the scenes looks like for their portion of the program, and the fulfilling moments of being part of an organization that helps the future generation start their careers.

In honor of Juneteenth, Nusaiba interviews a local Black Artist in San Antonio named Lanai. She gives us an insight on her experiences as a black artist from Chicago now navigating her artistry and life in San Antonio. This episode contains important conversations and awareness towards racism and the reality of Black and African Americans till this day. Black culture is extremely important for the music industry and we honor the artists that pioneered the music industry. Lanai talks about what inspires her music and expresses her opinions along with her experiences with the community.

The 2nd episode of Nusaiba's Neighbors introduced a local San Antonio artist, Yasmeena Yaani, as she gives us an insight on being a Syrian R&B artist. She hold on to her Syrian identity as she uses her culture to express herself in her music with a twist. Yasmeena gives us an insight in her life as she allows the audience to get to know the deep and vulnerable parts about her and how music has saved her life. We share our common traditions and sing a few songs. She debuts her song "Inte Feene," which means "You are within Me."

This is the first episode of Nusaiba's Neighbors where she starts off her show by having a vulnerable conversation with one of her closest friends, Daniel "Ali" Jimenez as he describes his new life as a Latino revert living in San Antonio. He tells us how his life has changed and the way he still holds on to his Mexican identity while embracing a new religion.  

Una plática with Jerry Robledo Season 4, Episode 10 Some conversations ask you to bring your whole self with a side of vulnerability to the table. This was one of them. Sitting across from Jerry I knew within the first few minutes that this platica would be closer to a revealing, confession. On the menu, two writers, two parents, peeling back the language we use to protect, explain, and translate ourselves. We connected speaking of our children, and about unconditional love that terrifies you with its size. We realized that we both spoke a language from the depths of el ‘alma’, the soul's dialect. Where pain, grief, fear, and unknown speak to another. Jerry's forthcoming poetry collection moves through fatherhood not as a role performed, but as an act of witnessing. He writes of his daughter's becoming, and his admission that he expressed himself to mothering, having never quite known what a father does. We spoke about how parenting was never meant to be divided by gender at all, that the real work is ushering, exposing our children to the full range of what it means to be human. He spoke with such honesty about trying to unlearn in his lineage and what he is trying to preserve. We spoke to the Mexicano and American identity and the contradiction of that space. In the end I felt like I was at a barecito in Monterrey, cigarillo in hand, cold tequila talking to a primo about life’s honest truths. In the end arriving at the last course on the menu was inheritance, what he hopes his daughter will know about the man who raised her. A present, imperfect, with a bleeding heart in hand. A translator of poesía, el camino, love, and survival. This episode was not an interview. It was two parents, two poets, speaking the language of truth.

A Conversation with Xelena González Creator of Lotería Remedios & Author  What began as a plática — the kind that feels less like an interview and more like a random conversation you didn't anticipate, unfolded into one of the most tender, genuine exchanges of this season. Sitting with Xelena González felt like sitting with easiness to wisdom. A grounded sensation. The kind that comes from a woman who has done inner work and is not afraid to pass on enlightenment through her ‘Remedios.’ We began at the core of her work — with the self. With remembering. Xelena's creative life has been shaped by a continuous returning, a reclamation of what the world has abandoned, awareness of natural word, and how listening to ancestral guides, is medicinal. Her artistic becoming, she shared, required to unlearn as much as it has required her to create — to strip away the goals, molds, the expectations, and find again what was whole before any of that arrived. As an artist, she’s tethered to herself not through perfection, but presence. Through small, sacred acts of returning. The theme of motherhood moved through our entire conversation like an undercurrent, not as a role, but our, fuerza, force. Xelena spoke about how becoming a mother transformed not just what she creates but why. She sees a deep correlation between mothering and storytelling, both acts of cariño. The stories she writes for children are not separate from the mother she is; they are of the same gesture, of care, and maternal instinct. And for those of us still becoming, or in need of guidance, turn inward, trust the season you are in, listen to the energy of the cosmos, pull a card or two from the Remedios deck and listen to its wisdom. Light a candle and open your corazón to the healing the universe offers through nature, ancestral wisdom, and presence. 

Season 4, Episode 9: Erika Prosper Some mujeres you meet become instant friends; others step naturally into a role of cariño y  cuidado — a comadre. As the mics went live, I was engulfed by La Erika’s powerful presence,  one that could be immediately recognized and held in reverence. Our culturally rooted plática felt like the kind that has unfolded at sobremesas across the world. Conversations about the  elevation of la mujer en su poder. In San Antonio’s former First Lady, Erika Prosper ‘la mera  jefa’ in embodied action y palabra, I encountered not simply a civic leader, but a mujer deeply  anchored in el campo, memoria, and community. I opened with the question, “Who is Erika  Prosper?” From that moment, the room shifted — a comida laid out before us, homemade  picadillo y tortillas on the table. What unfolded was not a formal interview, but mera plática. We  journeyed back to her beginnings in the fields of South Texas, where el campo first shaped her  hands, her ganas, and her understanding of dignity in labor. She spoke of migrant roots not as  hardship alone, but as a living archive of resilience carried in the body and spirit. El mero campo  ‘el mero maestro’ guiding her toward becoming a cultural steward of San Antonio de Béjar.  Our conversation moved through the layered soul of Yanaguana, San Antonio as sacred ground,  indigenous inheritance, migrant corridor, artistic sanctuary. We reflected on literacy as  liberation, not merely the reading of books, but the expansion of self, culture, and empowerment.  The ability to reclaim one’s story. To shape destiny. La Erika, una mujerona. Throughout our sitdown, she honored and elevated women, reminding us that resilience is not accidental; it is  cultivated through conviction y comunidad. Her tenure as First Lady was not mere duty, but  stewardship. For the people, by the people. I walked away from our conversation feeling  empowered in comunidad and reaffirmed in palabra. Our exchange was a reminder that cultural  conviction, when paired with literacy, cariño, and persistent labor, becomes un legado, living  legacy en acción y palabra viva.

The only items missing from our space were an incense slowly burning, and perhaps green tea.  What began as a carefully outlined interview was dissolved almost immediately. My physical  questions — printed, prepared, structured — disintegrated into space the moment Carmen Gray  began to speak. Instead of a formal exchange, what unfolded was something far more sacred: a  plática of intuition. An esoteric current entered the room. We spoke less about genre and more  about destination. Less about craft and more about what calls to us. When I asked, “Who is  Carmen Gray?” the answer did not arrive as biography, it arrived as presence. Tejana. Mexicana.  Teacher. Storyteller. Woman attuned to the mystical undercurrent of language. Her roots are not  decorative; they are ‘tierra’ soil. Culture and lineage do not simply influence her fiction and  poetry; they animate within characters and settings. In her worlds of horror, magical realism,  historical fiction, dark romance, and verse, the supernatural is not spectacle but inheritance. I  realized Carmen does not shift, she acutely listens to lineage, what whispers to a mystics’ ear. Our conversation deepened when we entered the terrain of language. As an educator Spanish for  over two decades, she lives in the liminal space where meaning shapes and reforms. We reflected  on how bilingualism reshapes rhythm, and how code-switching is not fragmentation but  expansion. My question about sound, scent, texture gifted a sweet pause and breath. My  Aquarius air gifted the body remembrance before the response. We spoke about how writing is  less about invention and more about excavation, the difficult unearthing of what has always lived  beneath the surface. This plática led to speaking about what we hope readers feel in their bodies  long after the final page. The lingering scent, tremor in the chest, recognition. Our space, the  plática became poetry

Season 4, Episode 7 : Eduardo “Eddie” Vega If we both had shown up with a bag of tacos in hand, our platica would have run for hours. Where we would have forgotten the whole interview and entered a taco platica, where we would  have talked in the language of taquito, and painted a culinary picture in the studio where like a  ‘Water for Chocolate’ aroma fumes would have peeked and emerged out of our mics. Eddie  being a taco connoisseur and myself a cocinera estilo revolución would have perfected the  perfect taco. One that exist in the sanctity of our mothers and abuelas kitchens. I counter that  with the perfect puesto on the side of a windy dirt road in México, señoras greeting, slapping  masa on comals, filling with el guiso del día. Eduardo “Eddie” Vega, San Antonio’s current Poet  Laureate, storyteller, spoken word artist, and educator, is rooted in laughter, chistes, memory,  tacos, and verdades. Eddie reflected on how poetry first entered his life not as an academic  exercise, but as a necessity born from lived experience, barrio rhythms, and familia wisdom. We  traced the cultural roots that shaped his voice, the poets who opened caminos to him open, and  the urgencies that compelled him to write ‘Somos Nopales,’ a collection grounded in survival,  nourishment, and collective memory. Our conversation weaved between the sacred and the  everyday, from the responsibility of being Poet Laureate to poetry as a tool for community  healing, resistance, and preservation. Along the way, we detoured into taco theology (yes, carne  guisada and chorizo con huevo get their moment). Eddie offered powerful readings that embody  the spirit of Somos Nopales: about our gente rooted in resilience, rooted in orgullo, and  unapologetically ours. Todo se puede, somos nopales. (P.S.: so hungry after the interview, we  forgot to take the photo. Ya ni modo.

Episode 6, Season 4: Dr. Octavio Quintanilla Grey cumulus clouds hung low like a soft, familiar plush blanket, as an heirloom passed down to  keep us warm through dark days. In this intimate plática, poetic creation stories were bestowed  as a gift by Texas Poet Laureate Dr. Octavio Quintanilla as he reflected on who he is as an artist,  tracing the ways poems emerge from image, ritual, and lived experience. A fluid space unfolded  between visual art and language as Quintanilla spoke of his interdisciplinary practice, where  FRONTEXTOS ‘arte fronteriza,’ art born from the in-between and the border, and wordplay  become entry points for poetry to exist through shape, color, and form. He shared how poems  often arrive through acts of looking, how journals hold the first raw gestures of language, and  how art and text converse and transform into a living manifestation on both canvas and page. Our conversation turned to his acclaimed book Las Horas Imposibles, a work that holds grief,  love, memory, and bilingual intimacy as artistic necessity, reflecting on “impossible hours”,  those unspeakable moments poetry is called into action, and on the lessons found in darkness,  vulnerability, and shedding. As both former San Antonio Poet Laureate and current Texas Poet  Laureate, he spoke of poetry as an essential lifeline for survival, community-building, and  cultural resistance. Our plática closed with a shared acknowledgment that all is in constant  evolution—thoughts, responses, beginnings, endings. We are the evolution, the internal  revolution. The future of poetics is a camino unknown, an uncharted lyrical and prose territory.  What remains constant is the irreplaceable power of human connection and observation.  Darkness, he reminds us, is one of our greatest teachers; the light exists and always will, but only  if we are willing to sit, listen, and observe what darkness has to say

The Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner was started 46 years ago with the intention to serve the elderly community of San Antonio. Today we talk to Patricia Jimenez, Rauls daughter, about the event, the history and the importance of community. 

In Episode 2 of Season 4 of Plática y Poetics, the only thing missing was a bucket of butter popcorn and a nostalgic 80’s movie playing in the background. My plática with Alex Salinas, author of Hispanic Sonnets, a striking collection that blends humor, vulnerability, and cultural critique. With its bold red cover, reminiscent of a retro Talking Heads album, it immediately draws the eye, much like Alex’s poetry draws readers into his categorically layered world of memory, critique, and transcendence. His work merges the mundane and the nostalgic—whether through malls, family lore, music, or movies—illuminating how the everyday can open into transcendence. Alex shared how his style oscillates between wit and gravity, humor and heartbreak, always seeking liminal space to reflect life’s contradictions. As we dug into the sonnet as both tradition and innovation: a vessel for wrestling with heritage, assimilation, and individuality, Alex spoke about coining the term “Hispanic sonnet” and the influence of poets who led him to reimagine the form through a Latinx lens. Reading the poems 10-part rumination and Translucent Whales, he revealed how pop culture, literature, and personal memory are woven together to unlock micro worlds for his readers. Themes of absolutes, truth, beauty, and authenticity surfaced. His found art poetics, especially his love of napkins and gum wrappers as a paper/canvas point to how mundane objects can be used to chronicle everyday occurrences. His poem Likes highlight his use of cataloguing as a way to hold both personal and universal experiences at once, gifting readers to live in the stream consciousness, reminding us that humor can be poetic, gifting us a laugh in between stanzas reminding of the ephemeral passing moment.

Candy ‘The Love Poet’ Nieves In opening this interview, I honored the voices of Indigenous poets by reading from Enriqueta Lunez—whose words in Tsotsil reflect the depth and dignity of oral traditions that long predate colonization, a perfect segway to enter our plática with Candy “The Love Poet” Nieves, whose work pulses with ancestral memory, sacred sensuality, and poetic resistance. As Candy read from The Invention, a poem that honors Mayan cosmology and the brilliance of her ancestors, who introduced the world to the number zero, an ancesntral reminder of the cosmic entered the room. Our discussion on how the Maya tradition of understanding time, love, and purpose, not as linear, but as cyclical, infinite, and rooted. Candy’s voice reclaims space for both Mayan and Mestiza identity, weaving in Spanish and pre-colombian references to confront erasure and speak back to colonizing narratives. She exhibited that translanguaging isn’t just a stylistic choice but of survival, sovereignty, and reclamation. In Las Atravesadas and I, Woman, she declared “I will preach, teach, break your master’s tools”, a direct homage to Audre Lorde’s revolutionary spirit and Gloria Anzaldúa, speaking about how the word atravesar means to cut through, and how “las atravesadas” has become those women who cross spiritual, cultural, and societal thresholds, and expectations. Women often shamed for their boldness, and evolution. Candy writes from the body, griefs, pleasures, and sacred thresholds. The spirit is a capsule of sacred ancestral knowledge, navigating decolonial terrain. It reminds, it prays, resists.

The smell of lingering PEMEX gas fumes, fresh masa on comals, along with echoes of traffic horns resonated in the studio as my interview began to take flight. I had the honor of interviewing La Golondrina, Rita Ortiz, a multidisciplinary artist whose work transcends genre and boarders. I opened with a poetic offering, by reading Coral Bracho’s Desde esta luz, a piece whose sensory lyricism, spiritual depth, and metaphysical textures echo and parallels Rita’s artistic voice. Bracho’s dreamlike language and delicate attention to presence helped set the tone for what would become a layered exploration of film, poetry, memory, and voice. After watching the short film and hearing about how the idea came about for Aldebaran, Rita’s haunting cinepoem, left me navigating a dreamlike liminal space, between the astral and the ancestral. She balances visual silence with poetic narration using symbolism of máscaras, or masks. It was moving how the film invites us to confront what lies behind and beyond identity and the subconscious. Rita described her process as one that honors rhythm, mystery, and visual invocation. It was a treat to hear her sing, Paloma, joining in spirit as her spirit took flight toward emotion. The folkloric depth in her voice carries memory like plumas de ganzo, down feathers, both soft and heavy. As she read from Boleador de Zapatos, and El Buen Morir we both took part in sharing how Mexico is so enriched with visual and olfactory visual language, and how poetry becomes an altar, word offering of smells, sounds, and ritual. La Golondrina, a name representative of transmigration, memory, and return is rooted in the crossing of demarcated boarders, spiritual, and linguistic. Every thread in her practice expands the possibilities of how art can heal, hold, and set free.

Diamond Braxton My plática with Braxton just lacked a cafecito and a sliver of pastelito as we divulged into queer legacy, creative intuition, and building literary home. I opened with a reading of ‘Sobre La Mesa’, my personal prose vignette ‘Like Water for Chocolate’ queer version, knowing the culinary connection would take us down a sensory lane. Diamond, from the Gulf Coast, has shaped her work by matrilineal memory and storytelling is both a personal ritual and collective act. Diving into her acclaimed works like “Sugar Rush” and “Dreams of the Fam Who Came Before Me,” she spoke to how her writing weaves together queerness, history, and hauntings into narratives that are both expansive and emotionally precise. In discussing “Sugar Rush,” Braxton revealed how a deceptively simple moment—a tasting of cake—transforms into a meditation on mother-daughter love, body image, cultural critique and inherited silence. Food became a metaphor for unspoken care and longing, as well as a tool to excavate desire and familial complexity within queer narratives. She invites listeners into her sensory world, where ritual and intuition guide as she reflects on the spiritual and emotional origins of “Dreams of the Fam,” and how her identity as a queer, mixed-race Southerner informs the themes she returns to—embodiment, memory, and resistance. Her time as a Tin House and Lambda Literary fellow, she notes, granted her permission to take creative risks, affirming the urgency of telling stories that live beyond binaries. Braxton shared her insights into her novel-in-progress: a collection of interwoven Texan queer stories, speaking to the desire to archive lives that are often overlooked or misrepresented, and to create a literary space, making room for storytellers from historically excluded communities. As founder and director of Abode Press, her role extends far beyond the page. Abode’s editorial vision is unapologetically expansive, welcoming voices that challenge dominant literary norms. Through both her fiction and her stewardship at Abode, she hopes to contribute to a future of Southern queer storytelling that is lush, layered, and liberatory.

Dr. Hector Garza In a wholesome and intimate conversation, Dr. Héctor Garza, a celebrated San Antonio artist and educator, opened up to us about his lifelong journey as a creator rooted in borderland identity, queer expression, and pedagogical purpose. Known for his vibrant fusion of Mexican iconography with American pop culture, Garza’s work transcends boundaries—most notably in his reinterpretation of la lotería, where sacred figures like la Virgen and political symbols like Uncle Sam co-exist, inviting viewers to reflect on cultural dualities. He traces his hybrid aesthetic to early visual memories from his childhood, living in el barrio El Pateon where lucha libre, calaveras, and vibrant neighborhood murals shaped his imagination. He described nepantla—the liminal in-between space—as central to both his life and work, reflecting the borderland condition of navigating queerness, cultural tension, and identity multiplicity. Through collage and mixed media, he shapes to shapeshift bodies and experiences, crafting pieces that feel as nostalgic as they are subversive. Influenced by both contemporary Latinx queer artists and iconic Mexican visual traditions, Garza draws inspiration from the likes of Keith Haring and María Félix to mask-wearing luchadores and street altars he has spent over 20 years teaching, recently honored as Educator of the Year at Incarnate Word High School sharing how his students, especially queer, bicultural youth, are at the heart of his creative drive. Hector emphasized that academic research enhanced his ability to contextualize his work, but that his visual voice has always been rooted in instinct, memory, and the hybrid body. We spoke of the evolution of queer Latinx art both unapologetic, and sacred. A direct reflection on the politics of duality, beauty of contradiction, and visual storytelling that reveals within every hue and stroke. Dr. Héctor Garza reminds us that art is survival, and hybridity is power.