Jason Magabo Perez is a writer, performer, scholar, teacher, principled rough draft enthusiast, and relentlessly anti-disciplinary Gemini thinker. Perez is the author of two books of poetry and prose—I ask about what falls away (Kaya Press, 2024) and This is for the mostless (WordTech Editions, 2017), and the chapbook, Phenomenology of Superhero (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2017). Perez has also written and performed three staged multimedia theatre-performance works—The Passion of El Hulk Hogancito (KULARTS, 2009), You Will Gonna Go Crazy (KULARTS, 2011), and Blue Bin Improvisations: Performing Yonie’s Archive (MexiCali Biennial & Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 2018). Blending poetry, prose, performance, film/video, and oral history, Perez’s body of work explores anti-colonial Filipino American historiographies, intimacies, and solidarities. Perez’s writing has appeared in publications such as Interim, Witness, The Feminist Wire, Marías at Sampaguitas, TLDTD Journal, Kalfou, The Operating System, San Diego Union-Tribune, Academy of American Poets, and NPR’s Here & Now. Recipient of a Challenge America Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Perez has been a Featured Artist at New Americans Museum, Community Scholar-in-Residence at the San Diego Public Library, and Artist-in-Residence at the Center for Art and Thought (CA+T). Perez has been a featured performer at notable venues such as the National Asian American Theater Festival, International Conference of the Philippines, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Asian Art Museum, and La Jolla Playhouse. A VONA Writing Workshops alumnus, Perez holds an M.F.A. in Writing and Consciousness from New College of California and a dual Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies and Communication from University of California, San Diego. From 2023-24, Perez was appointed the second San Diego Poet Laureate and was a Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets. During his laureateship, Perez developed and facilitated San Diego Poetry Futures 2024 (SDPF24), a public engagement initiative exploring poetry as a form of intergenerational community empowerment. The City of San Diego proclaimed December 14, 2024 as Jason Magabo Perez Day to commend Perez for his ongoing community work in poetry and social justice. Perez is an Associate Editor at Ethnic Studies Review and organizes with The Digital Sala. Currently, Perez works as Associate Professor and Director of Ethnic Studies at California State University San Marcos.
