By Jackie Courchene Spayd
Last April we held our Onda Latinx Ohio (OLO) experience at Emporium Wines & Underdog Café in Yellow Springs, Ohio featuring OSU professor and poet fabi romero (they/them). We listened to poetry and music and shared from the Chusma Box. Translated as “riffraff,” chusma is what we call our ritual of sharing anonymous messages from the audience, and it always builds a sense of community in a given space. It felt particularly intimate at this cozy wine café that was hosting OLO for the first time. For myself, this was my second time participating in OLO. The last time I did, I was the featured artist and shared what I was working on for my MFA project. This time I challenged myself to perform a short zapateado number that would fit within this new setting. Sharing a new part of my dance practice is always anxiety-inducing, but I felt held by my OLO community which made this zapateado debut even more special. In this reflection, I hope to relay our collective experience in community with one another and provide some insight into Fabi’s process and artistic vision.
I reached out to fabi to get a refresher on the material they presented, learn more about their choices in what they read to us, and learn more about their background. fabi was born in a small pueblo in Michoacán, where they said “most residents needed their children to work rather than go to school because the wages were so low.” fabi’s beautiful poetry comes from a love for oral storytelling on their mother’s side of the family, a skill developed because “most didn’t read well enough to read a full children’s book, but they could tell stories with such detail and passion that [they] tried to emulate them in [their] writing.” fabi’s work not only gave me pause that night in the way they described a long legacy of colonialism that exploits the labor of Indigenous people, but also provided the hope that we may be able to create a better world through solidarity and a renewed love and understanding for our Earth.
When I asked fabi about how they chose their poems for OLO, they shared that they chose poems that would “challenge the notion of Latinidad. Poems about queerness, colonialism, Indigeneity, and solidarity.” While most scholars intend for Latinidad to be a broad term that covers diverse experiences under its umbrella, the term risks flattening the many identities that intersect within the label. fabi’s work reminded me of my own experiences growing up in suburban Texas where my Latina identity felt like a strike against me, making it hard to open up and seek a queer community or locate help for my mental health. By the way we all leaned in during fabi’s performance, it was clear that their words resonated in each and every one of us. For me, it brought up memories of when I felt like I needed to hide, and reminded me why we continue to show up to share out art, cry together, and pen our secrets on little papelitos to feed the Chusma Box.
This community continues to grow with every event. Onda Latinx open mics provide brave spaces not only for our featured artists and regular participants, but also offer warmth and community for new friends who find themselves in a Latinx-centered but radically inclusive space for community. Please keep an eye out for our next event this December!
Adelante siempre,
Jackie Courchene Spayd, MFA
For more information about fabian romero’s research and creative practices: Professional Website
Photo credits: Carlos Rivas