Elbina Batala Rafizadeh
Elbina has been writing poetry since she was a teenager when she lived in Salinas, California, where her father retired after serving over 20 years in the American Army. Her family immigrated from Baguio City, Philippines, in the Cordillera Mountain Region in Northern Luzon, the largest island.
She is a retired public health nurse in Santa Cruz County, having served diverse families in Watsonville and Pajaro Valley. After public health field work, she transferred to academic teaching at California State East Bay, Santa Clara University, and West Valley Mission College, where she currently teaches part-time beginning public health and personal health strategies. She earned her PhD in nursing science and health care leadership at the age of 64 from UC Davis. This led to the completion of two research projects as primary investigator, both published, 2023 and 2024. Her work with vulnerable and marginalized populations, her indigenous Igorot ancestry, and her experiences in the natural world inform the direction of her writing and poetry, as she is busy creating and publishing poetry, but also short essays, and currently working on a non-academic ethnography about the Filipino Manongs through the perspective of the descendant children and grandchildren. Her first book of poetry, Keepers of the Malicgong Rice Terraces, is published through Jamii Publishing and available through Amazon (link below and on the publication page.) Her first anthology that she served as co-editor, Portable Poetry Protest: From Iraq to Palestine, will be available for global distribution in Spring 2025. You can obtain a copy by sending a request through the Contact Page.
Link to Amazon:
A list of her publications can be found by clicking on the link below:
elbina.batala.rafizadeh 