MADRE Champions

Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned poet, performer, and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. Harjo is the author of ten books of poetry, several plays, children’s books, and two memoirs; she has also produced seven award-winning music albums and edited several anthologies. Her many honors include Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Harjo has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Native American Hall of Fame, and the National Women’s Hall of Fame.  She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and serves as the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she lives.

Melinna Bobadilla is a Xicana actor, born and raised in Los Angeles, who is focused on moving beyond the currently limited paradigms of Latinx “representation” in media. She is a quintessentially hyphenated creative who, in addition to being an actor, is also an educator, activist, voice-over artist, special correspondent/guest host for Futuro Media’s Latino Rebels, cultural critic, and public speaker committed to engaging and growing an anti-racist praxis. Most recently, Melinna wrapped a recurring role as the fierce non-profit attorney “Melinna Barragan” on the second season of the hit Netflix series Gentefied. She is best known for her work as “Santos Chaj” in the final season of Netflix’s hit series Orange is The New Black and as Gloria on the critically acclaimed Apple TV+ original series Little America.

Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, The New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women, and The New York Times bestselling Hunger. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel. She has several forthcoming books and is also at work on television and film projects. She also has a newsletter, The Audacity.

Identical twin sisters, writers, artists, and models TK Wonder and Cipriana Quann, also known as the Quann Sisters, are often celebrated for their keen sense of style, admired for their advocacy for diversity/inclusivity in the fashion industry, and renowned for their stance on social issues. Through their advocacy work and personal essays, they’ve shared their experiences with discrimination and how they overcame bullying.

Recently, they co-founded the online platform arRested Voices Lifted (AVL), a community and safe space designed to amplify the voices of the unheard who are adversely affected by discrimination, abuse, and systemic racism while providing ways of support through education, healing, and storytelling.