Goco/Goco

I wish to share my authentic self with you here, The ugly, the bad, the good, and the magnificent. An optimist at heart with a realistic lense, I am not afraid to speak truth to power while seeking a perspective that provides warmth in a cold, cold world. 

One afternoon, I was reading to my daughter Nabi. Her mother and I are both mixed race; She is Black and Korean, and I, Indigenous and Spanish. Notice how Black and Indigenous are both labeled homogeneously rather than ethnically, that is why this project is important to me.

As I continued to read the book to her, one of the pages had an illustration of a black baby, and I could see her smile brighten. Our daughter is the future, and she and every child of color deserve to see themselves in this world from a relatable perspective.

little Nabi and I enjoying nature in it’s glory!

She was only seven months old at the time, but I knew then, she was conscious of her personhood. She saw herself in the one black baby in a book filled with white babies.

This moment sparked a desire for me to write and illustrate a book for her and for all those children who don’t have stories led by and centered around protagonists that look like them. 

I want to share my process from start to finish, how to self-publish a book, because I want more people from communities like my own to share their perspective as a gift to the world. I can only tell so much myself, and even then that perspective is limited by the constraints passed down to me thanks to our dark colonial past. But still I am, therefore, I grow with love in my heart.