My family came to the United States when I was seven years old because there was little opportunity for us in Mexico. I was undocumented for part of my life. The term “economic refugee” came about in the 90’s to use in place of or in addition to “undocumented immigrant” or the more disparaging “illegal immigrant” or “illegal aliens” to identify peoples seeking refuge in a new country due to socio economic and injustice factors in their home country. Although I wasn’t politicized about my identity as an immigrant until I was in my twenties, I spent much of my youth defending my parent’s reasons to immigrate to the US. I remember having to refute sweeping generalizations about coming to the US such as coming here to take jobs or because we wanted free hand outs. It was exhausting. Today I cut through the issue by identifying as an economic refugee and refusing to defend my family’s reasons for building a life in the United States.

What are anti-oppression and self care workshops? Who are these workshops for?

I mentioned above that I wasn’t politicized about my identities until I was in my twenties and it was because I had attended an anti-oppression training for work. That time was a whirlwind, I was awakened to the ways that oppression works against me and in my favor. Prior to that experience I had an all or nothing mentality about oppression, either you are an oppressor or you are the oppressed. While trying to make sense of my many years of living in denial of systems of oppression (including but not limited to age, disability, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, socioeconomic background, indigeneity, nationality, gender, and size oppression) I developed a self care workshop to give activists who faced multiple forms of oppression time to explore skills that can prevent burn out. The first Self-Care workshop was facilitated with Max, a peer at my college at the 2012 Queer Students of Color Conference and since then it has grown into the hybrid self-care anti-oppression workshop that it is today. These workshops are for people who want to learn when to take care of themselves and when to care for others as acts of solidarity and healing. Anti-oppression work is framework for me to understand the world so that I can be more strategic about what time and energy, I want to offer participants the framework for themselves as well.

What do you want readers to know about the work you do? How can they be involved?

I believe that writing can be a tool for liberation if the writer is willing to fearlessly address topics of injustice, inequity and oppression. I try to address these topics in a manner that is hopeful of change and at times share my own process of liberation from internalized oppression. Readers can be involved in my writing by supporting my work in several ways, I sell posters and chapbooks at fabianromero.bigcartel.com at sliding scale prices. I also facilitate writing workshops, perform poetry and speeches. I like meeting and collaborating with people of color all over the country and find that my creativity thrives when I am in the company of other queer people of color.

What kind of work do you have planned this year?