Community Work

Influenced by her parents' activism, Xochi has always been involved in community work. In college, she was involved in many different clubs. She has worked with many different organizations and people, such as the Zapatistas, East Side Cafe, Tia Chuchas, El Hormiguero, Proyecto Pastoral, and more. She is the former associate director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), which is an immigrants' rights organization that spans over 19 states and has over 60 member organizations. She left this job because she was very unhappy with the lack of alignment of the organization's written values and real-life practices. She has also worked with Peace Over Violence, Homeboy Industries, Dolores Mission, and many different artists. She has also done work as an events coordinator, an organizer, a connector, a musician and as a grant writer. 

Xochi is one of the only Chicana grant writers in Los Angeles. She has always had the ability to write passionately about what she believes in and is not afraid to ask for money. These two things combined with her writing abilities have made her an effective grant writer. She uses her skills as a grant writer to speak on behalf of organizations and artists she works with and helps them get funding. Xochi got into grant writer while in college at UCLA when she started working with a project at UCLA called the Family and Women Project. As a part of the project, there was a focus group with all Latina participants, however, no one in the main investigators was able to speak Spanish. Xochi was pulled in to run the focus group as she could communicate with the women. She found running the focus group to be fun and interesting, and she felt that she could understand and relate to a bunch of women. She wrote up what they said, and her passion shone through. The main investigators saw that her proposal was really great and so they recruited her to help write up the proposals and grants. This writing was on more of an academic level, as opposed to community focused. Xochi enjoyed the writing and research, however, when someone in the art community asked her to help write on behalf of some artists for a grant that was available, she realized she was good at writing these grants as well. She found that writing grants for the community were easier because her heart was in it and she felt invested as a person. As opposed to doing it to further someone else's career, she was doing it for a community-based artist and people who really needed her. She also appreciated how it has allowed her to work from home while raising her daughters. Xochi has been writing grants for 21 years. 

Through her grant writing, Xochi has seen how every experience has been an opportunity for growth and learning. Along with sharpening her writing skills and application of different techniques, she has found that she has grown as a person, mother, partner, and community worker in ways that have balanced her. Grant writing has pushed her into space where nothing is shocking but still nothing, irreparable. She has always had some kind of faith that it is going to be ok and that there will be moving forward, as long as people are alive and willing.