Odilia Romero, photographed on the Los Angeles Instances in El Segundo on Sept. 5.
Don’t name Odilia Romero Latina, or Mexican, or Hispanic. She is Zapotec, born within the city of San Bartolomé Zoogocho within the highlands of Oaxaca.
And within the Zapotec language there’s a phrase she seeks to embody: gozona, the honorable dedication of giving again to your group. Her mission has been ensuring Indigenous individuals are not stifled or stereotyped.
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“The labels are nonetheless there, however I nonetheless refuse to suit into them,” Romero mentioned. “Labeling us may be very harmful since you can not match our 500 years of resistance as Indigenous individuals in a single block.”
Romero, 53, left her hometown — “the perfect place on the planet,” the place her grandmothers grew their meals and drank from rivers — for Los Angeles at 10 years outdated. Quickly after, she recollects, she first encountered racism: A Latina lady known as her an “uneducated Indian.”
That form of racism has by no means abated. In 2022, an audio leak revealed anti-Indigenous sentiments amongst some Mexican American members of the L.A. Metropolis Council. (Romero was amongst those that known as for his or her resignations. Council President Nury Martinez stepped down.)
So Romero has spent a long time advocating for interpretation to be seen as a human proper and visibility of Indigenous individuals throughout the U.S., beginning in Los Angeles, house to one of many largest populations of Indigenous individuals within the nation.
‘It’s not one individual that does all of the work. It’s collective work.’
— Odilia Romero
In 2016 she co-founded CIELO, which interprets from Spanish to Indigenous Communities in Management, along with her daughter, Janet Martinez. The L.A.-based group gives Indigenous-language interpretation in 24 states, conducts cultural consciousness coaching for police and helps Indigenous residents navigate establishments — reminiscent of courts and hospitals — the place language obstacles can have large penalties.
In the course of the pandemic, Romero led the hassle to translate COVID security precautions and vaccination efforts into languages reminiscent of Akateko, Ok’iche’ and Q’anjob’al, making life-saving info accessible. And CIELO helped preserve immigrant households afloat, distributing thousands and thousands of {dollars} to those that had misplaced earnings.
Her individuals are all over the place, she says, laboring unseen in eating places and bars. They’re enterprise house owners and college students. Final September, Romero attended a competition in L.A. honoring San Bartolomé Apóstol, her hometown’s saint. A whole lot of individuals had been there. She had a relationship with virtually each one.
For those who ask about her victories, she’s going to insist she will’t take credit score alone. It’s gozona.
“It’s not one individual that does all of the work. It’s collective work,” she mentioned. “With out Indigenous communities, with out the migrants … we’d not exist.”
