Esai Alvarez was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona and is a proud member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. He grew up in an urban environment with strong ties to his family and cultural traditions on the reservation. He is very attached to the desert southwest but also enjoys traveling to experience other cultures and environments. Living and going to school in downtown Tucson exposed Esai to diverse cultures including Native, Mexican, Black, Asian, and white. He embraced the subcultures and popular pastimes of the 1990s and 2000s including hip-hop music, skate culture, low-rider culture, video games, basketball, and graffiti. Iconic 2D animated TV shows such as Beavis & Butthead, Sponge Bob Square Pants, The Simpsons, and South Park aligned with his appreciation for pop-art and droll humor. Esai was fortunate to be able to express his creativity freely, spray-painting with abandon on the walls of a family member’s compound. This artistic freedom and mastery of color and linework as a young graffiti artist proved to be a strong foundation for his future pursuits in education and the entertainment and media industry. A love of cinema from indie to mainstream movies was ignited by a Digital Media course in High School. The seed was planted, and his interests grew to include digital art and animation. Esai excelled at the Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (ASU HIDA) graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts – Animation in 2022. ASU HIDA exposed him to the technical aspects of animation as well as the history of the genre. He soon realized that he had a passion for traditional frame-by-frame animation. He conceives, hand-draws, and animates his own work. A scriptwriting course, along with a strong visual storytelling sense, sparked a desire to one day create an animated short feature and obtain the knowledge and skills necessary to be a showrunner on an animated series. Esai participates frequently in professional development opportunities. This summer he was a member of the first graduating class of the Yaqui Tech Innovation Lab – a joint program sponsored by The Pascua Yaqui Tribe and the University of Arizona Native FORGE entrepreneur program. With the skills he obtained in the Lab he was able to create and launch his website to host his professional portfolio and personal work. He also recently launched his You Tube channel to showcase his animation shorts. He is an enthusiastic film festival attendee and enjoys experiencing the wonderous visions of his fellow animators. He is currently pursuing opportunities in 2D animation as an animator, background and character artist, or prop designer. Esai’s ultimate career goal is to launch his own animation studio and provide opportunities for the many other talented Native artists, writers, and animators to share their creations with the world.