Even when it’s hard.

Justice Through Joy was never just a name for a passion project. It’s always been a commitment.

It was my dream to create community for women of color and gender queer people of color who engage in and around the U.S. legal system. In these systems not built for us, I can say that telling the truth is a radical act. And I longed for a space where celebrating our joy would be as welcome as recognizing the world in which we are othered.

I created this…even though no one asked me to. Even when Self-Doubt and Insecurity kept me company.

And I was supported to get here by so many along the way. My mom And sister. And my friends in recovery. Lifelong BFPVS. My sisters from other misters. Childhood, college, and law school friends who become family, and friends from work and community from my entire ASS life.

And the Latina Visibility Challenge with Ruby Garcia came along after years of dreaming about and quietly planning for this labor of love passion project I knew someday I would launch. Yes. I had hoped, and dreamed and feared that someday I would actually need to walk the walk and do this messy beautiful work, just as soon as it was perfect.

Just as soon as I knew all of my ducks were in a lovely row. Just as soon as other women of color and gender queer people of color thought it was also a good idea. Just as soon as a person who was older, wiser, more financially stable, better known, a person with more prestige or privilege, once others said, Hell Yes to my project and agreed it was an amazing idea—I had big plans—then I would show up and it would be right what folks wanted and needed.

And by the time I participated in my first Latina Visibility Challenge with Ruby Garcia I had no idea she’d urge me along another path. She urged me, like so many wise ones before had also, to get off of the perfectionism train and go my own way.

And it clicked! WELL…it clicked with all of the work that I began in earnest that first years of the global pandemic. All of the work I had been doing with Kari Ginsburg and Uproar Coaching for Glitterbombs, and the years of healing I’d been navigating with SAGE alumni weekly group, a gift from the folks at Renfrew Center for Disordered Eating, the group for folks within the queer community in recovery from disordered eating that kicked in with all of the work I did with Paula Atkinson and my crew working toward truth and peace away from diet culture and capitalism and white supremacy and toward Body Liberation, that kicked in. And together with all of the healing work that I’ve done on my own, supported with my amazing ass individual providers that I’ve been fortunate to work with: Stephanie Gilbert, Dionne Jimenez, Sara Shiffman, Ashley Vickery, Anna Paunovac and Janely Rivas, and of course the never ending love and support from my gay ass partner—the absolute love of my life, all that work FINALLY kicked in.

And I did the thing. And it was amazing. And it was what I needed and what others needed. And to say that all of this has prepared me for the moment where I can speak my truth, even when it’s hard, even when a man in power begins cursing at me and my cast mates, when my body can just kick in and begin re-enacting trauma, but my awareness, emotional regulation, my ability to respond and not react, my ability to speak my truth even if it’s hard, my ability to shine like the badass glitter bomb that I am and, my ability to rewrite my own story, one moment, one “no” to others and one “yes” to myself at a time, that is powerful. And so am I.