https://isabelromero.site Isabel Romero Wed, 29 Apr 2026 23:09:26 +0000 https://isabelromero.site en https://isabelromero.site/About Mon, 22 Aug 2022 19:44:56 +0000 Isabel Romero https://isabelromero.site/About <img width="2259" height="2259" width_o="2259" height_o="2259" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5f589f8fee9f26b0872ec6af3d362b968ac89934e5ca3a8bbff32030ce5c0c3a/Mask-group.png" data-mid="242710341" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5f589f8fee9f26b0872ec6af3d362b968ac89934e5ca3a8bbff32030ce5c0c3a/Mask-group.png" /> Isabel Romero (She/They) grew up in California, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington; claiming each a piece of her while accepting the transience of never belonging to one place, wholly. Isabel graduated from Seattle Pacific University with a BA in Global Development Studies and a minor in 2-D Art. These areas of study embody themselves through work in communications in the NGO sector. Creative solutions to communicating on forced migration and personal expressions of large populations. Outside of the paying gig, Isabel experiments with mediums such as painting, writing, film, with the same ephemerality that was experienced in adolesence. Isabel currently lives in New York, NY with their partner and two cats. “If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected—those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most!—and listens to their testimony.” ‘No Name in The Street,’ James Baldwin, 1972 https://isabelromero.site/Entry-1 Mon, 22 Aug 2022 19:44:56 +0000 Isabel Romero https://isabelromero.site/Entry-1 <img width="2732" height="2051" width_o="2732" height_o="2051" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/06b8cc79edf26e5ea1652e4f1093f6b63a35800b0cdbead0faa8368235b46fcf/IMG_1331.jpg" data-mid="244337246" border="0" data-scale="60" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/06b8cc79edf26e5ea1652e4f1093f6b63a35800b0cdbead0faa8368235b46fcf/IMG_1331.jpg" />‘Found,’ oil on wood panel, Isabel Romero, 2025 Entry 1 ︎Found: A Multimedia Journey of Awakening Welcome to the inner scrambling of a stranger’s mind. If you enjoy art, politics, social justice, people, and books, you are in the right place. To share one’s own perspective and create a platform for the other to be heard is precisely why we are here. <img width="1024" height="1024" width_o="1024" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/866ad4b257228868a0af4a6964bacaf979a147022d90f0063f7eea7eded98b61/Image-3.jpg" data-mid="218628575" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/866ad4b257228868a0af4a6964bacaf979a147022d90f0063f7eea7eded98b61/Image-3.jpg" /> Found May 12, 2024There is often discourse on what it means to find who you are, what you are. Is this a solvable equation? I reflect upon the history before me, the long tradition of women asking this question, earnestly searching for said answer, yet never arriving. Is this an issue of non-evolution, that as a woman I don’t have the software to address such a dilemma? It is hard to argue, yet persists. Rather, I think it is this elegant and messy natural phenomena of women seeing the trajectory of their journey in the women around them and before them, yet the communal expression of being found is not tied. We are intrinsically connected, yet, we struggle to draw commonality between ourselves and other women in turmoil, waiting to be found. It is unquantifiable to place time as experience in this journey; I have experienced more developmental peaks than some do in a lifetime. I think fondly of my time in transitory placement, always adjusting, always reflecting outwardly to fit rather than reflect inwardly towards my own discovery. Emotions well up at the thought of the person I suppressed, in an attempt at survival. Honoring that version of my journey, while feeling tremendous unease at the idea. I see a shell of divinity, forced to inherit the set societal flesh. The defensive response to change is not stagnation, rather, commitment to change being status quo. It is a loving, non-forgiving relationship, me and change. I often find solace in the connection between the hero's journey and a woman's becoming. It feels redundant but how special that an ordinary girl becomes something more, only in their own livelihood. I think at any pace, in any circumstance, it is never too late to wake towards the birth of self. The making of something with one’s hands is an intimate, sensational experience that is in line with the divine. It is a display of alchemy to put one’s hands to something, a set of ingredients and pieces, to form a new outcome. I consider this experience sacred, an invaluable experience of self and other. When it comes to the making of one’s self, the birth of self, it is difficult to articulate. It is not as magical in practice, it is often non-linear, no clear path forward. And yet, it is the greatest desire. What a joy to be found. https://isabelromero.site/Portfolio Wed, 29 Apr 2026 23:09:26 +0000 Isabel Romero https://isabelromero.site/Portfolio Paintings <img width="3110" height="3159" width_o="3110" height_o="3159" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/be7167b1c79b8393942f10b0facbc15f0dbca59b543484c74dcebaec1f398397/R0194270.jpg" data-mid="252690163" border="0" alt="&quot;Shell&quot; oil on wood panel, 2026." data-caption="&quot;Shell&quot; oil on wood panel, 2026." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/be7167b1c79b8393942f10b0facbc15f0dbca59b543484c74dcebaec1f398397/R0194270.jpg" /> <img width="1590" height="2036" width_o="1590" height_o="2036" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b54190f593683a72aaac29c95766e4c069dfe2c95d3d16c5e3915d0b582c79a9/IMG_2261.jpg" data-mid="247715763" border="0" alt="&quot;L'interior d'hiver&quot; oil on wood panel, 2026." data-caption="&quot;L'interior d'hiver&quot; oil on wood panel, 2026." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b54190f593683a72aaac29c95766e4c069dfe2c95d3d16c5e3915d0b582c79a9/IMG_2261.jpg" /> <img width="1683" height="2117" width_o="1683" height_o="2117" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/93ffda3405be61ffdb2a54e028d86b4aa7ced93fab99322cd77a067afdcc04b7/IMG_2105.jpg" data-mid="247715766" border="0" alt="&quot;Five&quot; (1.5 hour live portrait) oil on wood panel, 2026." data-caption="&quot;Five&quot; (1.5 hour live portrait) oil on wood panel, 2026." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/93ffda3405be61ffdb2a54e028d86b4aa7ced93fab99322cd77a067afdcc04b7/IMG_2105.jpg" /> <img width="2732" height="2051" width_o="2732" height_o="2051" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/06b8cc79edf26e5ea1652e4f1093f6b63a35800b0cdbead0faa8368235b46fcf/IMG_1331.jpg" data-mid="247715651" border="0" alt="&quot;Found&quot; oil on wood panel, 2026." data-caption="&quot;Found&quot; oil on wood panel, 2026." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/06b8cc79edf26e5ea1652e4f1093f6b63a35800b0cdbead0faa8368235b46fcf/IMG_1331.jpg" /> <img width="1801" height="1796" width_o="1801" height_o="1796" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/374d358224bc19e8448b6035b2403280db2d8643d4cfe0415b109c9cb06fd255/IMG_2067.jpg" data-mid="247715765" border="0" alt="&quot;Tit for Tat&quot; oil on wood panel, 2026." data-caption="&quot;Tit for Tat&quot; oil on wood panel, 2026." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/374d358224bc19e8448b6035b2403280db2d8643d4cfe0415b109c9cb06fd255/IMG_2067.jpg" /> <img width="2171" height="2200" width_o="2171" height_o="2200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6c848b14143bbef7f1da72ab744718c5314d435bcff6b1d724d98d00f2e113cc/IMG_2060.jpg" data-mid="247715764" border="0" alt="&quot;Birth&quot; oil on wood panel, 2025." data-caption="&quot;Birth&quot; oil on wood panel, 2025." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6c848b14143bbef7f1da72ab744718c5314d435bcff6b1d724d98d00f2e113cc/IMG_2060.jpg" /> Short Films https://isabelromero.site/Entry-2 Sun, 07 May 2023 16:41:13 +0000 Isabel Romero https://isabelromero.site/Entry-2 Entry 2 ︎Luma Mufleh on Her Journey To Belonging Written by Isabel Romero <img width="2259" height="2259" width_o="2259" height_o="2259" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/79afeba4400cf989efa843fa3f2517c92c936482bb8f75713a29016445f2e57a/Mask-group.png" data-mid="242710342" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/79afeba4400cf989efa843fa3f2517c92c936482bb8f75713a29016445f2e57a/Mask-group.png" /> “Although we often pass around the old cliché about walking in someone else’s shoes, we usually can't. Our imagination will always be limited by our own assumptions, politics, and cultural blind spots, not to mention our built-in instinct to avoid things that upset us or make us feel guilt” (Mufleh, Page 61). Despite this disclaimer, Luma Mufleh captures a vulnerable and authentic journey of the individual’s desire to care for the marginalized in a new way in the book, Learning America. As the readers, we can feel, cry, and laugh with her as she vividly captures the wonderful highs and devastating lows of her refugee experience in the United States. But the story does not stop there. In 2006, Mufleh founded the precedent school system specifically tailored to refugee and immigrant children. Fugees Family is a brilliant initiative to holistically tend to a broken system of acclimation and resettlement in the United States immigration process. This 501(c)(3) was formed in a parking lot pitch, 40 minutes outside of Atlanta, Georgia, with a group of 12-year-old boys each carrying their unique adolescent weight. The success that the organization has produced in pulling in children who lack structure and community to bringing them into a holistic and open community that is intentional with respect, diversity, and excellence leaves one to believe that Mufleh had a glorious and structured program from the beginning. This could not be farther from the truth. Instead, what occurred was a woman who saw herself in a group of boys who were desperate for something to ground their experience in a new world. Boys who found themselves all bringing a different citizenship, a different cultural barrier, a different pain, a different familial responsibility, and different isolation within their schooling found unity while playing soccer. Mufleh saw an opportunity to build, not just physical healing, but educational and emotional healing. But the route to that goal was not linear, but rather an organic journey of needs needing to be met and one individual saying “yes.” To the call from the principal’s office to come to pick up Amadou because his family could not be reached or the call from Saif from the emergency room where his mother lay unresponsive, Luma Mufleh was not just a coach or an emergency contact to these boys, she was hope embodied.“Community begets community. Show kids what it looks like to love and trust one another, and not only will they feel supported, they will also know how to support others.” (Mufleh, Page 154). This is not just a sentiment to Mufleh, but something that deeply guides her solutions to immensely adverse and nuanced problems. Learning America is rich with story after story of a community being valued and championed. About how one individual’s success is tied to those around them and their failure is everyone’s responsibility to carry and lift. The marriage of ultra-American and anti-American ideals in this book is impressively executed. Luma Mufleh, at face value, has succeeded in the “American Dream.” Born to refugee parents, excelled in international educational institutions, graduated from an American university, applied and was granted Asylum, built a business, and built a family. However, as she conveys her story, her experience and journey towards being a credited educator were far from conventional. How Mufleh succeeded in building the first network of refugee-tailored schools came from upholding anti-American values. Chapter after chapter, students’ triumphs, and devastations are shared in a way that is not telling a story of “other,” but rather Mufleh shares these stories as if they are her own. Her own hurts, her own victories. Because she is in these children’s lives and this community binds them together. Not superficial or creepy cult-adjacent communal values, but something authentic and far from Western Individualism that prevails in the United States. A community that is unafraid to approach leadership due to retaliation but seeks counsel even when it is not in their mother language. A community that does not just push through students for social promotion, but meets them where they are at; whether that is starting with the Kindergarten curriculum for 6th Graders because they never had the luxury of schooling in their home country. Or starting with sight words for a high schooler because they had managed to move through every grade level in public school thus far without learning to read. A real community that is not casual, but survival. Mufleh states that it is impossible to be placed in another’s shoes, no matter how hard we wish to be. One read of an autobiographical book or one documentary on refugee camp realities will not an empathetic and motivated individual make. But wherever you find yourself, you should take the time to read one Arab-born, Gay, Muslim, Asylee’s story and the story of those brought in with her. The table is never too small or unimpressive to invite a stranger to it. And it is in this precise birthplace of community that empathic, creative solutions are born to our country’s most devastating immigration phenomena.Resources: Luma Mufleh. Fugees Family. (2022, February 8).&nbsp; https://fugeesfamily.org/about/luma-mufleh/ Mufleh, L. (2022). Learning America: One Woman's Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children. HarperCollins. https://isabelromero.site/Entry-3 Mon, 22 Aug 2022 19:44:56 +0000 Isabel Romero https://isabelromero.site/Entry-3 Entry 3 ︎Woman Written by Isabel Romero <img width="2259" height="2259" width_o="2259" height_o="2259" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a615c4dbd2695e65b30bad5b80e05881ae4a25fae3ec2407da290860652d0c23/Mask-group.png" data-mid="242710343" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a615c4dbd2695e65b30bad5b80e05881ae4a25fae3ec2407da290860652d0c23/Mask-group.png" /> Relishing in the disturbed. I have never truly met these feelings that feel&nbsp;so foreign and standoffish. I have shuffled and avoided and dissociated as if I had a reason to run. However, as this&nbsp;period&nbsp;ends, I desire to formally introduce myself. Consider this a proper introduction, as one might expect long-awaited acquaintances to endure. You know me. I believe I am brave enough to encounter you, fully. Why must I fear you? Is it a possibility of the&nbsp;unknown becoming unwanted? Is hopelessness embodied? However, it may be diagnosed, I believe there to be&nbsp;a&nbsp;duality to these emotions that I am timid to embrace. It is time to validate and see myself as the complex, intricately designed being that is more than one thing at once. Creative, while also uninspired. Confident, while weak. Found, while also lost. Fearful, while also faithful. Stuck, while in motion. Feminine, while masculine. Mindful, while also destructive. Decided, while floating. Awake, while sleepwalking. Happy, while also saddened. Heavy, while carefree. https://isabelromero.site/Entry-4 Sun, 21 Jan 2024 19:19:41 +0000 Isabel Romero https://isabelromero.site/Entry-4 Entry 4 ︎May 19, 2023 Written by Isabel Romero <img width="2259" height="2259" width_o="2259" height_o="2259" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8d5c116911bbb7524bc648ef1421fd6d174ba2309b439aab6182cd751de9e42d/Mask-group.png" data-mid="242710344" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8d5c116911bbb7524bc648ef1421fd6d174ba2309b439aab6182cd751de9e42d/Mask-group.png" /> Free will and curiosity are the two halves of the whole of being alive. Why does my brain negate my meek attempts of carelessness? Is that free will? I find it poisonous to accept that my feelings lie to me and I must push the tide away, scooping buckets out of the tidal waves. It is humorous to think that this could be a reality. However, when trained like a domestic animal to hear the bell and answer with discipline, it feels unnatural to rebel against it. It does not fade, it does not depart. Yet, I am oddly comforted when I am met with this pair of emotions and constraints. Because it is a gift to feel at all. As long as I am breathing, as long as I am having internal battles between the old and new psyche, I have free will. But can I be curious? Curiosity is humanity bare. Human nature, however, weighted and grotesque a colloquial phrase, is an innate knowledge. It is not learned. It is preeminent, it is not to be avoided or treated as an infectious disease. No, it is soft, yet brutal. It is a curious thing. It is inescapable and is that such a negative sentencing? I grift against, towards, and onwards to a state where I am warmed by such programming. I am most comfortable in the questions. Not merely because I learned this trait, but because it is survival. Not only physical but spiritual. My curiosity may lead me to distant or proche unknowns, but it guides me. If I am stripped of my ability to question or have an ounce of unfamiliarity around me, then my spirit dies. I may be physically healthy, and may have all indicators of a lush and prosperous life, but know that the spirit is dead. It died the moment I could not question. Curiosity, with the spouse of the unknown, builds a home in humility. How might I be proud when I am in the company of the curious? It is a fallacy to think that an ecosystem without question can be humble and kind because these bloom in the presence of a foreigner. When the walls are built so high that a stranger is nothing other than strange, then arrogance is the only outcome. If I can never be corrected, how can I develop? If I can only develop in the company of my friend, then any development is a mirage. I need the stranger. I need to be wrong. I need to make the decision. I need the free will to get there. I need to be curious; as much as I need oxygen to breathe. https://isabelromero.site/Entry-5 Tue, 16 Jul 2024 16:23:40 +0000 Isabel Romero https://isabelromero.site/Entry-5 Entry 5 ︎Cyclone Written by Isabel Romero <img width="2259" height="2259" width_o="2259" height_o="2259" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6a765112263b339e531eb73a7d4e8fa58fff12ae5fa7ff2476c2839ce366ec37/Mask-group.png" data-mid="242710345" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6a765112263b339e531eb73a7d4e8fa58fff12ae5fa7ff2476c2839ce366ec37/Mask-group.png" /> It is tumultuous. This swirling chaos, this natural disaster. I face the twister as I would any part of myself that feels uncharted, as I would anything unknown. And yet, there is familiarity that is toxic and burning. It is metallic and strong, binding to my core like poison. My community of nerves react like it is consistently under threat. An intruder is there, yet it is not unknown to me, rather a familiar face.&nbsp; It is adjacent to the phenomena of murders being mostly done by someone known to the victim. It is always personal, if not to the crime itself. It is a disaster, and while it is not preventable, it is one of the glorious lessons in life that must be experienced, not taught. It is painful, excruciatingly so. Like a deep burning in your core, relaxing and contracting all muscles until you feel like the pulp of yourself, mushed and scrambled. A messy conglamoration of what you are, a product of surrounding and reaction. A liability, is that what I have become? Am I innately. I am innately people pleasing. I have been conditioned and perpetuate the conditioning towards a vacuum of liable actions, making an outcome of horrendous measures. It feels as if I have been impaled, with a blade of my choosing, and when I see whose done it, it are those I’ve surrounded myself with, with my own action the final twist of the knife. Struggling, I have a difficult time differentiating the victim and the abuser. It is a mirage of my own doing, my own condition. I am young, confronted by the revelation of this cyclical cyclone of chaos, interrelationally and internally. Unbearable, the confrontation. https://isabelromero.site/Entry-6 Tue, 24 Sep 2024 22:29:10 +0000 Isabel Romero https://isabelromero.site/Entry-6 Entry 6 ︎Scarcity of the Sun Written by Isabel Romero <img width="2259" height="2259" width_o="2259" height_o="2259" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e2c3b0a43948b9085e6cdb63fc8f0b2a9a4aa9e36411f9a1d59a2aeea0b9898e/Mask-group.png" data-mid="242710349" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e2c3b0a43948b9085e6cdb63fc8f0b2a9a4aa9e36411f9a1d59a2aeea0b9898e/Mask-group.png" /> The Scarcity of the Sun It is our philosophy, is it not? To encourage struggle, encourage darkness To create, to lighten, to make I think of the grayed birch trunk, disarmed Lady Lebanon watches over her, balancing in both Light and dark Reminded, seated on the train Of the sacred nature of public spaces Carved into this slice of stars Solace prayers made, as the traveller makes it home We must balance this light The sun She is a necessity but she is also A burning mass, out of chaos and fire How must we continue? As she hurls towards us, It is the synchronicity of it all The harmony our travels create The scarcity of light, precious And all we do to dance Is be&nbsp; https://isabelromero.site/Entry-7 Thu, 08 Jan 2026 20:32:47 +0000 Isabel Romero https://isabelromero.site/Entry-7 Entry 7 ︎How Does Empathy Endure? Written by Isabel Romero <img width="2259" height="2259" width_o="2259" height_o="2259" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5f52479057b2842855b0dfe19f5a0e69205973194dbdb48f24e0e62cfc148641/Mask-group.png" data-mid="242710407" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5f52479057b2842855b0dfe19f5a0e69205973194dbdb48f24e0e62cfc148641/Mask-group.png" /> Empathy is as titular as oxygen for me; to live without it is to asphyxiate. I am often asked how my empathy does not run dry, how it does not diminish. I spend Monday through Friday, writing and talking about the horrible state of multilateral institutions, with colleagues in the field desperately trying to deliver services to growing numbers of people in need from preventable causes, and studiously learning what new daily provisions and legislations are targeted at minorities and humanitarian action groups. On Saturday’s, I spend a few hours of my time with neighbors preparing to feed hundreds of neighbors in need of warm meals for the day, teaching them strategic and safe ways to wrap hundreds of sandwiches efficiently, and learning from those more experienced than I on how to protect and creatively lead people that are under fire from the racist and cruel police state that is rampant in this country. On the train and in the moments of reprieve, I read to survive. Stories, fantasies, statistics, theories; anything I can get my hands on to learn more of what I don’t know yet. How does my empathy not deteriorate? It’s not my own. My life became infinitely less boring when I stopped caring solely about myself, my family, my circles. What a shame would this life be if it was spent in echo circles, chambers, cages. Confined to thought I thought was indisputable. I am energized by others with empathy, not those whose backgrounds or livelihoods are identical to my own, but who have hope in empathy’s shape. I was recently introduced as a voracious reader in an introduction, and while flattering, it created a realization that there is a direct line between empathy and reading. Postmodernism in this surveillance, technological landscape has normalized debating and “rage-bating,” as it’s so aptly named. I think these are a byproduct of the fear of not being seen or heard, so we increase our volume and refuse to see or hear. With reading, this philosophical sparring is not plausible. A dwindled, quiet bias is a requirement to digest someone else’s voice. It’s simple, it’s empathetic, it’s human. This skill can quickly atrophy when neglected or misused in this aforementioned nonpersonal, technologized state. Reading is empathy’s inexchangeable lifeline. A response to and in conversation with the May 19, 2023 essay.