Freddy Jesse Izaguirre

Featured essays in LEVEL, GEN, THE HOUSTON REVIEW OF BOOKS, & PAPER.

Freddy Jesse Izaguirre is a multifaceted artist from El Salvador of Náhuat descent. His essays, journalism, photos, and poetry have been featured in the Houston Review of Books, GEN, PAPER, Sad Girls Club, LatinX.com, Basic Brown Nerds, LEVEL, and La Horchata Magazine. In 2021, his poem “Hero?” was printed on a quilt made by Colombian artist Paola de la Calle, carried to Washington D.C. with the Caravan for the Children campaign, and later displayed as part of "The Pedagogy of Hope: Uncage, Reunify, Heal" exhibit at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA. Throughout his 20s and early 30s, Freddy Jesse was a professional actor featured in campaigns for Sony, Apple, and others. He’s a graduate of Dell’Arte International and alumni of Kaiser Permanente’s Educational Theater program in Oakland, CA. His performances include the Bay Area’s historic Lunada Festival, Undocufest, El Comalito Collective, Teatro Visión, and the Bay Area Children’s Theater. In 2019, he was the keynote speaker at Columbia University/Barnard College as part of their programming for Latinx Heritage Month, and for Google in 2022. During the mid ‘80s, Freddy Jesse and his family left El Salvador for the Pacific Northwest. He grew up in Washington State, and navigated undocumented life in the U.S. until 2017—when he became a naturalized citizen. Since then, he’s traveled the world and is working on a memoir and acting again. Currently, he lives in NYC with his partner and their cat Fifi.