Clarissa Mendiola is a mother and poet. She has lived in San Francisco for more than two decades. As a CHamoru woman born and raised off-island, poetry is the method by which she bridges the distance between the island of her ancestors and where she stands. Mendiola’s work can be found in various journals and publications including As Us, Storyboard, The Rumpus, the Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia Anthology, Unincorporated: Humanities Guåhan, The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood, and the Pacific Islander Literature and the Environment Anthology. Mendiola is also a passionate CHamoru language student who serves on the organizing committee for Prugråman Sinipok, an annual language immersion camp for adults. She is a member of the Pulan Collective, a community of CHamoru artists living and creating in the San Francisco Bay Area. She currently teaches literature at a San Francisco high school.