Long before I was a copywriter, I won an SUV off a bag of chips during the FIFA World Cup ‘98. It went great until eligibility came into play. Then the fine print won out. Tough break for my parents, who missed out on a hell of a gift from an 8-year-old.

I also ran a playground side gig trading video game cheat codes I’d find in Tips & Tricks. Turns out knowing how words work is a useful thing when you grow up to write ads for a living.

Today, I write campaigns for brands that market to bilingual communities across the Southwest. That's a credential on paper, but it's also just the logical conclusion of growing up between two cities, two languages, and two cultures that weren't quite sure what to make of each other.

I grew up on both sides of the border, and raised on English-language media I could only half understand. I figured it out anyway. Living in the space between languages rather than inside just one of them is what makes the work different. I know what sounds right to an audience that code-switches naturally, and I can tell when a brand is trying too hard. Usually, it comes down to something as small as whether you're addressing someone as "usted" or "tú."

I'm currently looking for my next agency home, and open to the right freelance projects in the meantime. If you're building campaigns for audiences that live between cultures, I'd like to talk.