Angelina Sáenz is an award-winning educator and staff developer, recognized for her outstanding contributions to education. She received the Exceptional Woman Award from La Opinión newspaper and was a finalist for the White House Commitment to Excellence Award, honored by President Obama's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.

Angelina Sáenz grew up in Silverlake, Los Angeles, during the 1970s and 1980s but considers the corridor from West Hollywood to downtown Los Angeles her childhood stomping grounds. She fondly recalls neighborhood kids walking or taking the bus up and down Sunset Boulevard. The daughter of a single mother and Mexican immigrant, Sáenz was surrounded by the challenges of violence, addiction, incarceration, the loss of loved ones, and the mental health needs of a deeply traumatized community. 

Feeling alienated by schools that neither addressed nor helped her make sense of the suffering in her community, Sáenz eventually dropped out of high school. However, with the encouragement of elders and mentors, she enrolled in community college and later earned a four-year scholarship to Occidental College as a James Irvine Scholar. She went on to complete two Master’s degrees and is currently pursuing a PhD in Value-Creating Education for Global Citizenship at DePaul University. 

The hardships of her early years continue to shape and inspire her work in education and writing, driving her commitment to creating opportunities for others.

An accomplished author, Sáenz has written the children’s book Waiting for Luna and two poetry collections, Edgecliff and Maestra. Her poetry has been featured in various respected venues, including Diálogo, Split This Rock, Out of Anonymity, Angels Flight Literary West, Every Other, Cockpit Revue Paris, and The Acentos Review.

Sáenz is a UCLA Writing Project fellow, an alumna of the VONA/Voices Workshop for Writers of Color, and a Macondo Writer’s Workshop fellow. Her latest collaboration, Escaramuza: The Poetics of Home, created with 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate ire’ne lara silva and award-winning Swiss photographer Constance Jaeggi, is currently on display at the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, TX.

In 2024, Sáenz was selected as a finalist for the City of Los Angeles Cultural Olympiad, where she presented her new work at a public live-streaming event at the Los Angeles Central Library on September 7, 2024. As a finalist, she will perform her new sports poem multiple times over the next three years and will receive additional poetry commissions and presentation opportunities leading up to the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles.

Currently, Sáenz is working on her third poetry collection and an academic paper focused on global citizenship curriculum for elementary schools.