Paul S. Flores profile picture

Paul S. Flores

You gotta have your tips on fire. You never know who has your memory in their drinks.

About Me


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BIOGRAPHYPaul S. Flores is a published poet, novelist, playwright, international spoken word performer and University of San Francisco Performing Arts and Social Justice instructor. Raised on the Tijuana/San Diego border, issues of immigration, border experience, and Latino identity are central to his work. He is primarily recognized as a trailblazer in new Latino performance arts as both an artist and producer. In 1996 Flores co-founded the poetry performance ensemble Los Delicados with whom he has recorded the CD Word Descarga on Calaca Press (2000). He is founding artistic director of Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word and author of the novel Along the Border Lies (awarded the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles National Literary Award in 2003). A theater artist specializing in hip-hop and bilingual performance, Flores co-wrote De/Cipher (2001) and No Man's Land (2002) with Marc Bamuthi Joseph, The Fruitvale Project (2003) with Elia Arce, and Fear of a Brown Planet (2005) directed by Tony Garcia. His most recent play is REPRESENTA!, a bilingual hip-hop theater project co-commissioned by the San Francisco International Arts Festival and La Peña Cultural Center, written and performed with Cuban rapper Julio Cardenas and directed by Danny Hoch. REPRESENTA! premiered at the Hip-Hop Theater Festival: Bay Area and the SF International Arts Festival in May 2007, and is currently on tour to the GALA Hispanic Theater in DC, Abrons Art Center NY, NJPAC and Lehigh University PA. Flores has also performed his solo work across the United States and internationally including the National Hip-Hop Festival in Havana and America Libre Hip-Hop in Mexico City. His television work includes being a featured artist on Season Four of Russell Simmons Presents: Def Poetry on HBO. In addition to creating and performing his own artistic work, Flores is a highly respected youth arts development specialist, whose expertise in urban youth programs is recognized nationwide. For the last twelve years he has mentored teen poets as the former Program Director of Youth Speaks. His services in this area have also been sought by organizations throughout the country including Tigertail Productions (Miami), Multicultural Education and Counseling in the Arts (Houston), El Centro Su Teatro (Denver), Miracle Theatre (Portland) and South Division High School (Milwaukee), among many others. Flores currently facilitates and develops curriculum for Oakland public schools on gang and violence prevention through the Spanish Speaking Unity Council and the City of Oakland’s Measure Y Anti-Violence Campaign. This latter assignment recently led Flores into working directly with incarcerated youth at San Francisco’s Youth Guidance Center and Alameda Juvenile Hall where he has adapted the program to emphasize alternatives to gang membership. As a result of his work as an artist and youth arts specialist Flores has been an invited lecturer/speaker to over one hundred high schools and universities including Stanford University, Brown University, University of Georgia, University of North Carolina, Colorado State, UC San Diego, Macalester College and University of Wisconsin. Paul Flores holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, has twice been awarded the National Performance Network Creation Fund and recently received a San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Commission and is one of the first ever recipients of the Center for Cultural Innovation Individual Artist Grant.He is father to Santos Enrique Flores-Garcia, married to Tamaya Garcia, who is the Development Director at Center for Young Women's Development in San Francisco.(Family photo at Casa Fruta Hollister, California by Francisco Cardona (..thx Panch)

My Interests



REPRESENTA! Bilingual Theatre for the Hip-Hop Generation, Co-commissioned by the San Francisco International Arts Festival, La Peña Cultural Center, GALA Hispanic Theatre, New Jersey Center for Perfroming Arts and NPN.New Jersey Performing Art Center "Sacred Circle Cafe" March 15, 2008 One Center Street Newark, New Jersey 07102 Box Office (Toll-Free): (888) 466-5722 www.njpac.org TIX AVAILABLE By phone or Online "This is where Hip-Hop generation storytelling is headed in the new Millennium." Danny Hoch, actor, writer, OBIE Award Winner “True cross-cultural theater, inventive and full of energy. A window into the fascinating contradictions and complexity of modern day Cuba.” Dan Hoyle, Fulbright Scholar, writer/performer of Tings Dey Happen "Funny, incisive, poignant, and informative." Howard Junker, ZYZZYVA Magazine “An amusing array of naive activists, street hustlers, obnoxious tourists, wannabe thug rappers, and self-styled revolutionaries… " Sam Hurwitt, East Bay Express "A deep and personal story of friendship [told] from the perspectives of immigrants, and the characters they parody. And funny!” Valerie Bustos, El Centro Su Teatro "REPRESENTA! is an honest, nuanced portrayal of the complexities of individual aspirations and ideal vantage points characteristic of the many who legitimately search for identity and validation in larger competing national ideological, political, economic and cultural projects." James Early, the Smithsonian Institution Washington DCREPRESENTA! brings together the vision of writer/performer Paul S. Flores and Cuban rapper Julio Cardenas developed and directed by Danny Hoch in a fiercely incisive commentary on terrorism, immigration, Cuba, U.S. foreign policy, Bay Area lefty culture, New York after 9/11 and pan-Latino identity. Setting itself apart from other spoken-word performance, REPRESENTA! is bilingual theatre which combines spoken-word poetry with character portrayals that are simultaneously hilariously entertaining and provocative. A diverse and funny show with excellent supertitle translation for non-Spanish speakers who also want to learn more about contemporary Cuban culture.San Francisco hip-hop spoken word poet, Flores, travels to Cuba in 1996 looking for revolutionary solidarity at the Cuban Hip-Hop Festival. He finds that Hip-Hop in communist Cuba is thriving while the economy is in a chokehold. When the SF poet meets one particular Cuban rapper, Cardenas, who is looking for the "come up", more access, more attention, more validation and accolades for his art, two revolutions collide: Cuba and Hip-Hop. While the main characters try to reconcile this paradoxical relationship over a ten year period, one's desire for a future in Hip-Hop is directly juxtaposed with the other’s desire for a future for the Revolution.

This is my new book LA MEZCLA: Poems, Traditions, Writings (Please read my blog to see how you can get it for free, and subscribe!).. .... .. ..

..ALONG THE BORDER LIES by Paul S. Flores 2003 PEN OAKLAND NATIONAL LITERARY AWARD WINNER about the San Diego/Tijuana border. TO ORDER, please send me a message with number of copies requested.

I'd like to meet:

I met the one who has brought me all that I need

Hip-Hop Latino en El Foro Alicia, Mexico DF: (L-R) Ariel Fernandez (Cuba), Paul Flores (California), Intifada (Puerto Rico) Bocafloja (Mexico)

Music:

Los Rakas, Michel Maza, Amy Winehouse, Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, Bad Brains, The Roots, Ice T (OG), Ise Lyfe, Rafael Casal, Charanga Habanera, Dj Sake-1 mixes FANIA!, Erica Badu, Tego Calde, Celia Cruz, ya tu sabes, and I have to admit I have a Freestyle hangover from 1987.

Movies:

All films by Leon Ichaso "El Super" "Crossover Dreams" "Piñero" "Sugar Hill" "Azucar Amarga" "El Cantante"--The video from Reset Collective "La Princesa Blanca" is HILARIOUS. Can-Can.

Television:

Whatever my 3 year old son is watching: Sesame Street, Teletubbies, Dora and pretty much all of PBS. Dang. Be real.

Books:

Republic of Poetry by Martin Espada, Lost in the City and The Known World by Edward P Jones, BOMB Magazine. Hot writers: Percival Everett, Ed Vega, Willie Perdomo, Zoe Valdes, Guillermo Cabrera Infante (RIP), Madison Smartt Bell, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Roberto Bolaño, Louise Erdrich, ,Juan Felipe Herrera 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border

Heroes:

Love to: Tamaya, My mother Patricia, mis abuelos Enrique and Olga Flores-Garcia, my son Santos, My friends Albert Quintos, Bamuthi, Norman Zelaya, Darren de Leon, James Kass, Will Frank, Rafael Casal, Jerry Quickley, Willie Perdomo, Danny Hoch, Julio Cardenas, Marc Pinate, Amalia Ortiz, Tomas Riley, Isaias Ridriguez, Leticia Hernandez, Kamilah Forbes, Clyde Valentin, Culture Clash, John Santos, Marcus Shelby, Melissa Lozano; Mentors: Quincy Troupe, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Juan Felipe Herrera, Tony Garcia, Abel Lopez, Elia Arce, Sylvia Sherman, George Stoya, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Baraka Sele, Linda Lucero, Brent Beltran Calaca Press, and Benito Santiago.

My Blog

A Poem For the Folks who stay in Oakland, and for my boy Panama

Paranoia Is A River In East Oakland A young man and two schoolgirls board the 57 bus at MacArthur and 66th Ave. The girls giggle as one says something to the other in Spanish, the young man laughs and...
Posted by Paul S. Flores on Sat, 03 May 2008 05:17:00 PST

REPRESENTA! Reviewed New Jersey Star-Ledger 3/17/08

Please check out the great review we received from New Jersey Performing Arts Center show. We have made steady improvements to REPRESENTA! since we debuted in May 2007.NOTE: I changed a line to say t...
Posted by Paul S. Flores on Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:48:00 PST

Latino artists are ignored, maligned and consistently punished

This is from Alicia Valdes-Rodriguez blog. My wife alerted me to this, and with my play REPRESENTA! about immigration struggling through a national tour, my novel Along the Border Lies being considere...
Posted by Paul S. Flores on Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:23:00 PST

Fidel Castro is...UNTOUCHABLE

Un fucking Caballo, un hijo de Obattala, un chingon, un brujo y UNTOUCHABLE.Honestly, who wouldnt like to be the chosen one. The older Fidel gets, the more I believe it. A Santeria priest was elected ...
Posted by Paul S. Flores on Mon, 21 Jan 2008 01:33:00 PST

"Hilarious, Provocative and Entertaining..." REPRESENTA! January 11-12 @ Abrons Art Center NYC

HOLA FAMILIA!!! PLEASE PASS ON TO YOUR PEOPLE IN NEW YORK. MIL GRACIAS, PAUL FLORES"This is where Hip-Hop generation storytelling is headed in the new Millennium, embracing cross-language realities, p...
Posted by Paul S. Flores on Thu, 03 Jan 2008 10:45:00 PST

Paul Flores teaching Hip-Hop Theater and Spoken Word at University of San Francisco

Amigos: It is true. I have been given the fortunate opportunity to instruct college students on how to articulate their role in the Hip-Hop Generation through theater and spoken word. There has never ...
Posted by Paul S. Flores on Tue, 11 Dec 2007 01:22:00 PST

Press Release for REPRESENTA! November 2-3, 2007 @ GALA Theatre Washington DC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 3, 2007 Contact: Lina Morales (202) 234-7174 GALA Hispanic Theatre DC Hott...
Posted by Paul S. Flores on Tue, 09 Oct 2007 09:52:00 PST

THE BUSINESS OF WRITING

Did anyone see that PBS documentary last night about the Hispanic Market that George Lopez produced? It was confusing. I am not sure what it said other than Latinos spend a lot of money in the US, and...
Posted by Paul S. Flores on Thu, 13 Sep 2007 10:59:00 PST

Mr. and Mrs. Flores-Garcia

Hi friends and readers,I got married last week to Tamaya Garcia. I am so lucky to be her husband. She is an amazing young woman, and the mother of our son Santos. The ceremony was on August 18 in San ...
Posted by Paul S. Flores on Mon, 27 Aug 2007 06:38:00 PST

DESCONOCIDOS: Straight outta the Immigrant Power Marches

REVIEW Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria presentsDESCONOCIDOSStraight outta the Immigrant Power marches that shocked America a year ago, emerges a spoken word artist from Minneapolis/St. Paul who brings a gen...
Posted by Paul S. Flores on Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:08:00 PST