Check Out Josué Emmanuel Muñoz’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Josué Emmanuel Muñoz.

Hi Josué Emmanuel, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My paternal grandparents met in San Bernardino and work moved most of my extended family to West Chicago, IL. I grew up a soccer playing theatre kid who got in F in Middle School literature class but thrived in language arts. I pursued a TV, Radio, and Film Bachelors at Syracuse University in Upstate NY and found home in the Xicanx Support Group made up of Undergrad, Grad, Alternative students and PhD candidates from all over the US and unknowingly started me off on the Red Road during our time on Onondaga Lands and in the greater Haudenosaunee territory. Spending my last semester in LA, I moved to the Jungle in Baldwin Hills and jumped from nonprofit to nonprofit doing digital media creative and larger communications strategy. Writing and copywriting for an attention economy that barely paid the bills, pushed me to reconsider my path. I moved my belongings into storage and took three trips that profoundly shaped my twenties #OnTheWayHome

1st Roadtripped from California to the Magical, energetic, and Intergalactic New Mexico, West Chicago, spent two weeks on the frontlines of the #StopLine3 Movement on unceded Anishinaabe lands (Minnesota), and all the way to my Alma Matter in Upstate New York.
2nd I used my savings from not paying LA rent to backpack from the Yucatan to my family’s home outside of Guadalajara and to the Central Valley for my brother’s wedding in Michoacán.
3rd Backpacked with my youngest sister for our Aquarian birthdays from Lima Peru in the midst of a people’s resistance (2023), Chile, Argentina, and the colorful and friendly mountains of Colombia.

I have accumulated many of my stories on the page and in verse to share as much love as I could bottle into a book of medicinal writings: Xicane Soup 4rom Le Soul. I now make media in San Bernardino and the Inland Empire at large, preparing to cultivate roots and God-willing a family in solidarity with all my family and the homies across Los Angeles and the larger SoCal/Mexica/Xicana/Anahuac/African/AAPI diaspora. Love to all indigenous peoples and those stewarding the land. Through Poetry I pray to continue building interfaith, multicultural community for the liberation of all people. Free Palestine. Immigrants and Trans people belong here.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Housing, making a living as an artist who prioritized my spiritual, creative, (and when I could afford a therapist) emotional growth over the immediate satisfaction of a 60K + salary. I’ve been flying and flowing at the seems of my pants. With the privilege of a trusted car and family and friends to receive me when my tank and stomach were running on low. Learning to trust my heart that I know who I am and can set boundaries long enough to see my seeds bud and flourish. Having health with some cases of Wage theft and late freelance payment I am where I am today due to the grace of creator and my family.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am most proud of performing poetry in San Juan Bautista on the back of a pick up truck con el Teatro Campesino. My mission and vision is to spread mindful media and media literacy messaging in the age of information and overload and AIs impact on misinformation and truth. I work as a storyteller along others in my communities to continue propagating love and inclusion in the face of fascism. To have my work take me there and to be displayed at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, while publishing a book of poetry and shooting my first short film on 16mm has been a leap of faith and something I am still learning to simultaneously (rest about and promote and a book tour in development).

Drawing from my ancestral storytelling heritage and the counterstorytelling traditions of past academics and teatristas (Augusto Boal and Luis Valdez), my interdisciplinary artistic practice is a testament to radical love. In a landscape dominated by narratives of fear and oppression, I carve out spaces of hope, joy, and grace using words, images, and movement. As a genderqueer and bilingual Xicane, I bridge generational and social divides, extending a decolonial paradigm to embrace the complexities of multicultural experiences.
Through my practice, I aim to ease immigrant and Othered communities in accepting, reflecting, and rewriting, the complexities of their multicultural and transnational experiences. My approach is gentle yet deliberate, aimed at fostering collective narratives that encourage self-acceptance and community cohesion.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
I wish I knew how helpful it is to develop a trade or vocation, a hard skill that I could leverage to pay the bills and continue the longterm journey of pursuing art. But I would always say listen to your depression or anxiety if it ruminates it is often because something still needs to change for your transformation to feel welcome. Know that you may need to spend time with certain family, co-workers, or neighbors to survive but you should always prioritize and protect the limited time you have with people that make you feel most you.

Pricing:

• $20 for the book
• https://www.worldstagepress.org/product/xicane-soup-4from-le-soul/

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.otway.media/about
• Instagram: @sway_otway
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josué-muñoz-otw/
• Youtube: @josueemmanuelmunoz5245

Image Credits
Photo Cred (heart hands) Maravilla Guiles;
Solstice Theatre IE Shadow Puppetry BTS
Josué Emmanuel y el Maestro Luis Valdez at el Teatro Campesino
Mxn of the House Film Set Selfie
Maravilla, Josué Emmanuel, and the trans butterflies
Josué MC-ing a community screening of Community-composed Corrido Music Films by Ann Kaneko
Josué Emmanuel and their Poetry Film exhibited at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture
The Capitol in Saint Paul, MN, Josué’s first time standing in support for Indigenous protectors