Poetry is Not a Luxury

Teofanny Saragi

“Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.” –Audre Lorde

 

Poetry has the power to create counter-narratives. As a critical space for building community and sharing experiences, this workshop will include a personal narrative share-out by the facilitator, followed by a creative and collaborative writing workshop, and concluding with an open mic.

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Decolonizing Beauty: Makeup as a Form of Expression, Radical Softness, and Activism

Lesly Silva and Evelyn Diaz

This workshop is designed to look at the critical and social issues based in makeup and how this has historically empowered and been associated with womxn and femmes. We will discuss social issues that are prominent in the world of cosmetics, but also how makeup is used to make statements and used as an every day tool in social change. We will also be discussing how important it is to support POC and Black Owned Brands, and other ways we can fight against anti-blackness in the beauty community.

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Emotional Labor: A Chapina’s Perspective

Carla Osorio Veliz

The workshop will introduce to participants what is emotional labor using an intersectional and intergenetarional approach by connecting ourselves to our family's stories. Participants will be invited to share their stories to heal and also as a collective we will create solutions and discuss how to build skills using transformative justice methods to avoid having womxn of color continue performing emotional labor.

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Decolonize Your Intuition: Listening to Your Gut is Revolutionary

Leah Garza

Your intuition is your most important and powerful ally in this lifetime and being able to access your innate guidance system is your birthright. However, many of us have lost our connection to it. As members of a society built on patriarchy, white supremacy, and social and legal oppression, our intuition has been colonized. The dominant culture has set up shop in the last possible frontier- our hearts, minds, and intuition. When we trust ourselves over the narrative employed by the patriarchy, we are always led in the right direction, even when that path challenges us, or poses obstacles. In the end, our intuition has our best interests at heart. Now is the time to decolonize our most intimate and trustworthy ally. In this workshop you will learn how the structures of the dominant culture participate in colonizing our intuition, how to use mediation to reconnect with yourself, and how to use muscle testing as a way to listen to your body.

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Own Your Own: Creating Security Through Your Insecurities

Ciara Wong

Attendees will be able to write an insecurity on part of their body and be photographed with the caption of how that insecurity does not define them. They will then be able to write a statement about how that insecurity has contributed to their self growth and how their insecurities have actually empowered them to embrace their identities and to be proud of oneself. These photos will be posted on COSWB's Facebook page and hopefully, the Women of Color Conference event page, with your permission.

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Politics of Love and Desire

Lyra Kim

In our society, where ideals of beauty are based on Eurocentric standards, how do womxn of color navigate desire and love? Our identities themselves and our most personal decisions hold political connotations whether we like it or not. For our workshop, we will be exploring and discussing the complex process of choosing who to love, who to be loved by, and how we are loved.

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Body Image in the Light of Appropriation

Courtney Carlson

This workshop explores the effects of cultural appropriation on the body image of womxn of color, and the toll that it takes on this population. The messages sent to womxn of color tell them that they cannot be beautiful, that they are commodities, and that their features are only attractive on white bodies. These messages are wrong and detrimental; this is an affirming space that seeks to counter negative messages and to celebrate bodies of color.

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Food, Sustainability and Environmental Justice

Sebastianne Kent

This workshop seeks to elaborate on the issue of sustainability in diet, how veganism achieves sustainability, and how issues of nutrition and accessibility are an environmental justice concern that tends to effect womxn of color. Recipes will be provided!

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Writing Womxn of Color into Wikipedia

Patricia Fancher and Gina Barukh

Wikipedia has long had a gender and race problem: editors are predominantly white and male. Womxn and people of color have not been included in sufficient detail and depth. In addition, when womxn and POC are included, the editors have at times included sexist and racists language choices. This problem in Wikipedia is, “Due to such policing, an image of womxn of color has been born without our consent, therefore disallowing for the complexities of the multitude of identities that we embody.” This workshop will teach womxn to write the multiples of identities that WOC embody back into Wikipedia with technical aspects of editing Wikipedia and providing research materials to lead participants as we actively revise and expand the Wikipedia page of a few womxn of color.

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Targeting Womxn of Color as Smokers

Navpreet Khabra

This workshop will center around how tobacco industries use store advertisements as a way to capture womxn into purchasing tobacco products. Understanding the targeting and methodology of the tobacco industry will leave participants leaving empowered to take action in their lives.

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Womxn of Color in Leadership 

​Michelle Macrohon