The Acentos Review

Felipe H. Lopez (poet) is originally from the Zapotec town of San Lucas Quiaviní, Oaxaca. He currently serves as advisor to the Oaxacan State Commission on Human Rights. At the age of 16 he migrated to Los Angeles, California, speaking no English and little Spanish. By 2007 he had earned his Ph.D. from UCLA in urban planning. It was at UCLA that he began working with linguists to document his language, resulting in a trilingual Zapotec-Spanish-English dictionary (Munro & Lopez et al. 1999). His poetry can also be found in the Latin American Literary Review. His short story Liaza chaa ‘I am going home’ was awarded the 2017 Premios CaSa prize for the creation of literature in Zapotec and will be published in the Aug 2018 volume of Latin American Literature Today. This poem, Gyec Muly, has been set to music in an art song by composer Kathryn Goldberg. This music and more of his writing can be found at http://felipehlopez.weebly.com/. The Spanish translation is his own. 
https://twitter.com/DizhSa 

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Brook Danielle Lillehaugen (translator) is an assistant professor of linguistics at Haverford College, who specializes in Zapotec languages. Her research profile includes grammatical description as well as collaborative language documentation and revitalization projects. She publishes on the structure of Zapotec languages in both their modern and historical forms. Her English translations of Zapotec are created through close linguistic analysis of the Zapotec along with consultation with the author. She is currently working on English translations for Lopez’s forthcoming book of poetry. Her favorite Oaxacan breakfast is enfrijoladas. For more information on her research and teaching, visit her website at http://brooklillehaugen.weebly.com/.