John is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. He completed his PhD and MA at Cornell University with graduate concentrations in Latina/o Studies and Latin American Studies. His research focuses on migration from Central America.

He is the translator of Letters from Inside a U.S. Detention Center: Carla's Story (Routledge, 2023) and the director of an award-winning documentary about the militarization of the Mexico–Guatemala border. His writing can be found or is forthcoming in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Diacritics, Latin American Cultural Studies, Latin American Literary Review, Modern Fiction Studies, and other venues. His previous social impact work was featured in Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Los Angeles Times, and other venues.

He is currently working on two book projects—the first explores unaccompanied childhood migration narratives in Latinx literature alongside film, media, and legal and human rights documents and policy. He is also at work on a novel about his relationship and his family's relationship to Guatemala. During his graduate studies, he received the Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship and was inducted into the Bouchet Graduate Honor Society at Yale University for his engagement with underserved students and communities.

John is from the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, though grew up visiting family in Guatemala (Ixim Ulew) and El Salvador. He has lived or resided on Lenape, Aniyvwiya (Cherokee), Gayogohó:nǫˀ (Cayuga), Garínagu, Quechua, Lenca, Hinóno'éí (Arapaho), Tsistsistas (Cheyenne), Núuchiu (Ute), Nahuat, and Maya lands. He is a Guatemalan American whose grandfather moved to Guatemala from the U.S. during his military service. Both of his parents were born in Guatemala, but his father was a U.S. citizen at birth. His parents moved to Los Angeles in the early eighties. His mother is from Jalapa.