Myriam Gurba Has No Regrets When It Comes To Speaking Out And Self Expression

Myriam Gurba pulling her hair

“It’s nice to finally be able to do all the slutty and genderqueer stuff I wanted to do when I was 14 in my 40s,” Myriam Gurba, writer and visual artist from Santa Maria, California, tweeted, perhaps wearing nothing more than her chonies, which she recently revealed on Instagram to be her current work-from-home uniform.




Westernized puritanical institutions, those who claim you cannot be intelligent and sexy simultaneously, have long invested in perpetuating the assumption that critique is a privilege. And by doing so, establishing untenable parameters for a small chorus of peers—losing touch completely with audiences, students, and readers.

Meanwhile, savvy intellectuals like Gurba congregate each day on Twitter to engage in witty banter, call out politicians, and develop new schools of woke thought in 280 characters or less. Gurba’s never minced words when it comes to taking on institutions and the egalitarian terrain of social media is her battleground.

She is a promotion-pro extraordinaire and while she is quick to call out her grandfather Ricardo Serrano Ríos for his machismo, she also credits him, a Mexican writer and publicist, for her skill at driving movements from the handheld screen of her smartphone. Shortly before the universal scourge of the pandemic leveled our society by exposing the truth behind our oppressive systems, Gurba personally took on one of the pillars of that machinery: Big Five publishers.

Rumors of a forthcoming social justice novel meant to humanize what the author Jeanine Cummins called the “faceless brown mass” at the US-Mexico border had begun to circulate the interwebs at the end of last year. The author, a middle-aged newborn whitetina (by way of a deceased Puerto Rican grandmother) claimed to have designed the moral compass for one of the most polarizing political issues in the country with the flick of her Steinbeckian prose. Gurba had been commissioned by Ms. Magazine to write a review of American Dirt and did not hold back her criticism of the structural issues with what she called a “Frankenstein” novel or of its tacky narratives and hostile lack of character development. And her explosive criticism caused Ms. Magazine to kill the story.

Gurba’s critique laid bare how Jeanine Cummins’ personal agenda and that of Flatiron Books, a division of Macmillan, the publisher behind her seven-figure deal, were in alignment: to relegate brown bodies, stories, and intellect to their role as “the help” both on the page and beyond. The silencing of her surgically academic takedown galvanized a collective outcry of BIPOC writers into a formidable movement as her critique, later published by Tropics of Meta, went viral.

Alongside authors David Bowles and Roberto Lovato, Gurba organized a coalition of prominent writers from diverse backgrounds to demand substantive change in the publishing industry. On February 2, #DignidadLiteraria met with Macmillan President Don Weisberg, Flatiron Books President Bob Miller, representatives from various Macmillan imprints, a publicist from an independent firm hired by Flatiron, and representatives for Oprah Winfrey.


At the Dignidad Literaria rally following the historic meeting, Gurba addressed the audience of supporters and press.

“I’m an iddy bitty queer lady who teaches high school. And I spoke out against the publishing industry at the risk of potentially never being published again. And I don’t give a shit, right? If I need to, I’ll put out zines. I’ll write my next novel on a tortilla,” Gurba said “I don’t care. I’ll do what it takes. And I’ve gotten death threats and death threats and more death threats and I just have to look at them and say, hmm, this is what it feels like to be a very tiny yet somehow very scary lady, right? I’m 5’4” now but it’s because I’m wearing three-inch heels. I’m small. And if a person this small and quote-unquote insignificant can cause these many waves, so can you.”

The iconic guerrera and author of Mean, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and one of O, The Oprah Magazine’s Best Queer Books of All Time—a prize Gurba jokes is the result of the famous mogul ‘trolling’ her after relentless requests to get Oprah to remove American Dirt from her book club— is now happily focused on her writing.

As Gurba wrote in Mean, “What matters is a woman making art out of everything she was born with.” Gurba’s essays and criticism have been recently published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Electric Literature, The Paris Review and elsewhere—a groundbreaking canon as fierce as her activism.

As a teacher at Long Beach Poly High School Gurba not only taught theory but modeled action and joined her student’s uprising against racist practices at the hands of teachers and a complicit administration. It cost her the job. “Apparently if I hurt kids, I’m fine on campus, but if I try to protect them I’m a criminal,” Gurba said in an Instagram video while being escorted off school property. She was put on administrative leave for what the district called “disruption.” The local protest foreshadowing times to come.

Gurba’s artistic expression is how she relates to the world—processing her reality through the written word. “I think of the act of sitting down to write as me engaging in a social equation. I’m trying to solve a literary and a social problem. And that’s my way of making sense of all this. It’s a sense-making endeavor.”

“I treat writing as an art form and I know that a lot of folks don’t. They think of storytelling, in terms of craft and in terms of narration, and they’re not so much concerned with language itself. And I’m not just concerned with language, I’m obsessed with language. I’ve always been obsessed with language,” Gurba explained via Zoom. “I come from a family that’s very language-driven. My father studied linguistics and worked in various language programs. And so I come to writing as an art form.”

As a public figure Gurba is well aware of the inherent risks that come with speaking out yet she remains undeterred. “I don’t care at this point in my life. I don’t care if someday I’ll regret it. I don’t care if I’m excluded from certain rewards, for example, or being published by the Big Five. I don’t care if that’s a consequence of my choices because my conscience matters more to me and having a clear conscience matters more than securing a book deal for the sake of ego, especially securing a book deal that’s going to require me to step on people of color. I’m not going to do that. Or securing a book deal that’s gonna require me to give a lap dance to white supremacy.”

Gurba’s defiance speaks to the cabrona within us all. Her rage rings true—we identify. One of the most potent effects of skillful storytelling, identification, has been sweetly described as that spark of truth that jumps from one person to the next. Gurba’s truths leap off the page or screen, recognized by so many nodding heads, only they’re not just sparks—they’re a lightning rod.

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Nathalie Molina Niño has never been one to shy away from breaking barriers, and now, she’s focusing her attention on a new mission: demystifying corporate boardrooms for women, especially Latinas. Molina Niño is the President of Known, an asset management and financial services firm, a veteran tech entrepreneur and builder capitalist, and a board member at the iconic lingerie Brand, Hanky Panky, and others.

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Coincidentally, the decision to finally be more vocal about this topic aligned with the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, which served as the perfect kick-off to the work.

"Something that rarely gets talked about and I think almost gets kept opaque by design is boards,” she explains in a recent Instagram announcement. “[This Latinx Heritage Month], that’s what I’ll be talking about.” Her goal? To equip more Latinas with the knowledge they need to navigate onto for-profit boards, where they can thrive and build multi-generational wealth.

For-profit corporate boards often feel like an exclusive club. And in many ways, they are, especially for Latinas, who hold the smallest percentage of board seats in Fortune 500 companies compared to other racial groups. According to the latest report from Latino Board Monitor, while Latinos hold 4.1% of these board seats (compared to 82.5% held by white people), only 1% go to Latinas. Molina Niño, a first-generation American of Ecuadorian and Colombian descent, is part of this boardroom minority.

When asked about her experience as a Latina board member during a recent Zoom interview, she said, “It’s been lonely. There’s not a lot of Latinas on boards.” She went on to explain that even serving on boards of Latina-founded businesses gets lonely because, “A lot of the times, people who serve on their boards represent their investors and, as a result, [...] you still don’t see a lot of Latinas on those boards.”

This lack of representation drives Molina Niño’s determination to increase Latina presence in corporate boardrooms. By sharing her insights, she hopes to give Latinas a roadmap to claim their seats at the table. “If you don’t know where to go, it’s impossible to figure out how to get there,” she says.

The Road to the Boardroom

Getting onto a for-profit corporate board isn’t an overnight achievement, but it’s not an unattainable dream either. People often think you need to be a CEO or have a certain type of background, but that’s one of the biggest myths about boards in Molina Niño’s experience. What they’re really looking for is expertise — whether that’s in finance, marketing, sustainability, or even technology. If you have that expertise, you’re already an asset. It’s simply a matter of which road you should take.

Understanding what boards are and how they operate is key to unlocking opportunities. For-profit boards serve as the governing body for companies, overseeing direction and financial stability, and guiding CEOs and executives in decision-making. But Molina Niño emphasizes that not all for-profit boards are created equal.

“There are two kinds [of for-profit boards] [...]. There’s the publicly traded business board and then, on the privately held side, there are, I would argue, two types of boards [...] the traditional business board and the venture-backed business board,” explains Molina Niño. Traditional businesses are often family-owned or long-established and may only form boards to meet requirements, like securing financing or transitioning through an ESOP. Venture-backed boards, on the other hand, are typically filled by investors who hold major stakes in the company.

According to Molina Niño, understanding the difference between them is how you can create a successful strategy. With publicly traded business boards, the whole world is privy to them, so, “The way that you get in there is a little bit more transparent. Sometimes those publicly traded companies will hire a recruiter to help them find new board members,” explains Molina Niño. For private companies, on the other hand, there’s no legal requirement to make announcements. As a result, most people don’t know anything about them or their inner workings.

“Usually what happens in traditional businesses that don’t have venture-capital investments is that the Founders, Executives, or the board members, if one existed already, they usually go to their friends,” and people they deem experienced to fill board seats. In other words, it’s the founder’s decision, and that’s an entirely different approach than hiring recruiters. When it comes to venture-backed business boards, the seats on the board are filled by whichever investor writes the biggest check.

This is why an understanding of the different types of boards and acknowledgment of their own strengths is what will help Latinas define a sound strategy. Whether that’s working with a recruiter, networking and connecting with founders to build trust, or making the biggest investment.

The Path for Latinas

For Molina Niño, the key to getting more Latinas into corporate boardrooms is education. Knowing what a board looks like and how it functions is how you can position yourself to get on it. In openly talking about this, without the mystique it’s usually shrouded in, Molina Niño is providing women, especially Latinas, with invaluable insights. “If we had Latinas understanding what are the three types of for-profit boards I think that, on their own, they would be able to figure out what their best chance is and adjust their careers to make themselves more competitive,” states Molina Niño.

When asked about the impact of increased Latina representation in boardrooms, Molina Niño flips the narrative. “Boards don’t help Latinas by offering them seats; Latinas help businesses thrive by being on their boards,” she says. “The whole point of sitting on a board is that you have experience and expertise, and as Latinas, you also have some cultural experience that everyone wants. [...] At the end of the day, we [Latinas] have to realize that we have a ton to offer and we have to be selective about where we put that expertise,” she explains.

As demand for access to the Latina consumer rises, Molina Niño predicts that more Latinas will find themselves recruited into boardrooms. But she’s not content to sit back and wait for that moment. By openly sharing her journey and insights, she’s making sure other Latinas know their worth and have the tools to claim their place at the table. “I realized that quietly being on boards that helped me personally is not helping other Latinas. [...] I was lucky enough to have friends who could advise me and share their experiences, so that’s why I’m doing this,” she stated.

With Hispanic Heritage Month as the backdrop, Nathalie Molina Niño’s mission is clear: “My goal is just to give Latinas enough information so they can make a plan for how to eventually get on a board that they’re paid to be on and that will eventually help them build generational wealth.”

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