Janine Joseph

Janine Joseph is a Filipino-American poet and author.

Early life and influences

Janine Joseph was born in the Philippines. Her father, at the time, worked for President Corazon Aquino. He held a strong belief that if they stayed then their children would never learn the values of hard work and would inherit the social and economic status that their family had in the Philippines. In 1991, Joseph and her family immigrated to California on tourist visas, where the family had previously visited multiple times before. First settling in Riverside, California, then in Arizona.

She spent many years not knowing that she was undocumented, until colleges began to refuse her financial aid because of her status. Nonetheless, it was events like this that influenced her to write poetry. While she was attending a writer's retreat in 2003, while also being enrolled in Riverside Community College, she met laureate Natasha Trethewey, who would later become a future poet. After completing her education at Riverside Community College, she later transferred to UC Riverside, and followed up on graduate programs for writing, in New York and Houston. It was during this time, she began to write more poetry and essays, that were focused on her growing up undocumented in America.

She graduated from New York University, and the University of Houston. She taught at Weber State University, and Oklahoma State University.