On The Brink of Joy w/ Odilia Romero

Welcome back to Come to the Brink. I’m your host, Zoë Flowers.

Thank you for joining us and for following the podcast. If you’ve been sitting with the stories we’ve shared so far—of grief, resilience, and healing—I hope you’re finding space to breathe, to reflect, and to remember that none of us are alone on this journey.

Today’s episode is for the organizers. The caregivers. The cultural workers. The ones who show up for everybody else… even while carrying invisible wounds of their own.

I’m joined by Odilia Romero—Zapotec interpreter, cultural bridge builder, and co-founder of CIELO: Comunidades Indígenas en Liderazgo. For more than two decades, Odilia has organized with Indigenous migrant communities in Los Angeles and across California. Her work has been featured in Vogue, The New York Times, Democracy Now! and so many other places—but what grounds her work isn’t the recognition. It’s the deep, personal understanding of what it means to lead while still healing.

Today, we’re talking about what it means to carry community in one hand and old wounds in the other. What it costs—and what it gives back.