I am a native of Temuco, a city in the south of Chile. I see myself as a woman of two cultures: North and South American.

To compensate for the pain of being uprooted from my homeland, I have worked for several years recording my story and the story of other Chileans while building a new life in my new adopted country.

Since immigrating to the United States, I mentored fellow Hispanic / Latino writers and I collaborated with both English and Spanish-speaking poets on a variety of workshops, public presentations, articles, and books.

I believe poetry is a dialogue within ourselves and that this dialogue reveals both history and the fragility of identity. For me, poetry is also a conversation between life and myself. In this conversation simultaneously, I enter the inner world and the world of action.

As a poet, I feel the commitment to discover, explain and recover what is lost or in danger of getting lost.

Eugenia Toledo, Ph.D.