We have always been searching for home. It's in our art... our religion... everything.

Entering into writing a poem is an emotional endeavor for me as well as a spiritual and creative one. Having to write those poems for the inauguration, I started asking deeper questions about my cultural identity, and my connection to America.

What was transformative was being at the inauguration, reading my poem, and realizing that the quest for home and identity had always been part of my work, but that I'd been home all along.

Good art and a good life answers questions. Great art and a great life asks questions.

Artists are the emotional historians of the world.

I like the labels because I think they tell my story in a very concise way: gay, Latino. I think the responsibility that comes with accepting labels is that now I get a chance to break stereotypes. It gives me the opportunity to tell the unique stories of what those labels mean.

We have always been searching for home. It's in our art... our religion... everything.