Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Luis
Hi Justin, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I spent the first 21 years of my life in the Philippines. My parents had me young, and life was quite tumultuous overall, so we never had very much. I did, however, have the privilege of being sent to very good schools by some very kind people.
Through education (and just being around people whose lives afforded them the pursuit of creative expression), I discovered and fell in love with the arts. It was storytelling, through poetry and elocution, that I fell in love with first.
I remember the precise moment it happened: at a preschool poetry interpretation contest when I was four years old. I was given a piece about a firefly, which for the life of me I cannot recall nor find on the internet, though I remember how I felt on that little stage. It was a profound feeling of joy for my brief moment of responsibility for this human experience.
I didn’t yet have the words for it at the time, but it felt clear to me that if I told a good story well, I could connect with the people around for it in a way that was unlike any other.
The next two decades of my life brought me to other mediums: theatre, film, and the pursuit of my own writing. I am now based in Nashville TN, a gem of a creative city, and am grateful to have built myself a life that revolves around the privilege of creative expression. I am a musician, writer, and instructional designer; and I’ve also founded and co-host ‘Freehand’, the city’s first and only monthly event and community dedicated to creative writing of ALL mediums.
My life as it currently sits has turned into far more than I thought to be possible with the cards I was dealt.
I am inexplicably grateful for all of this, and am reminded of it every time I step on a stage still feeling like that four-year-old boy telling a story about a little firefly.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think these last few years especially have made me understand (and deeply value) the symbiotic relationship between incorruptible resilience and the necessary pursuit of equitable justice.
I was born into a life of very few options. Young, eventually separated parents, and my mother’s illnesses made it so that I had to fend for myself and my younger sister much of the time from very early on. My love of performing and creativity, then, quickly had to become a means of income to help us get by. Immigrating to the United States in 2016 was a gamble of a choice made out of necessity, like so many others who uproot their lives for the mere possibility of meaningful change.
The immigrant experience is a broad spectrum of circumstance. Mine looked like food banks and air mattresses, deliberate delays of my paperwork by a government whose new administration decided they actually didn’t want people like me here in the first place, and watching my friends from back home get their degrees while I was stuck in limbo.
It took me a few years, but I eventually found my way out of all of that.
I now wake up to what once was the dream: a life of stability. I live reasonably comfortably and am now able to make decisions about building a future for myself instead of having to worry about taking things a day at a time.
I’m able to dream bigger now, too. I am actively pursuing things that excite me and that bring me and my community joy and purpose. Oftentimes, when I get too tired or frustrated, I remind myself of how far I’ve had to come to even get a shot at any of this:
Instability, poverty, parentified responsibility. And eventually, when I could finally afford therapy, making sense of my own childhood sexual abuse.
Looking back at all of it brings me both peace and renewed motivation; a feeling of gratitude for getting through it all, but so too an understanding that I am not who and where I am today BECAUSE of my turbulent past, but IN SPITE of it.
I am grateful to have been resilient, but I know I should not have had to be. Part of what keeps me going is in service to an idea of a world in which people no longer have to be.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
These days I’ve landed on having to describe myself as a generally creative person fortunate enough to be articulating himself through many different mediums.
I’m a writer, musician, and actor (who’ll even sometimes pose for pictures if I’m feeling particularly bold that day). I love connecting people (and connecting with people!) who like to do the same. More than anything, however, I am an appreciator of the arts and am just happy to get to participate in it all.
Freehand, the monthly creative writing event I run with my good friend Calen Pos, has been an extraordinary space to do all of this. It’s been such a joy to be building something so much bigger than me and the myopic lenses I see the world with, and I’ve been so deeply inspired by the artists I’ve met in this city (and beyond).
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
My most and least favorite thing about Nashville is that it is a city that’s still figuring itself out.
It’s new to change, and somewhat adverse to it. It’s having trouble growing into its own identity while also trying to honor its beautiful, colorful, but complicated past.
I find it wondrously exciting to be able to be a part of deciding what this city is going to define itself to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7rqjmluWIXvD3fP9KUaeKH?si=6dPHKlE5SGq4xO02aThsDg
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinluisfiltered
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justinluisfiltered/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinluisfiltered
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/freehandnashville/
