The child of migrant workers, Juan Felipe Herrera was initiated into the Word by the fire-speakers of the early Chicano Movimiento and by heavy exposure to various poetry, jazz, and blues performance streams. Since 2005, he has been the Tomas Rivera Endowed Chair in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of California - Riverside. His published works include Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream, Mayan Drifter: Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of the Americas, and Thunderweavers / Tejedoras de Rayos. In 2011, he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He was the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017.
