2023 Writer's Salon Workshops Series

What’s the story only you can tell? As a queer Dominican immigrant raised in The Bronx, New York, who lives in San Francisco, I aim to nurture emerging writers to write their truth through mine. I was brought to The United States when I was six, where everything was new to me, especially my mother. My parents divorced when I was one, and both came to New York City separately. It took five years for my mother to return for me, and when she did, she had a new husband and son. My process of assimilation was a difficult one. I rejected my new environment, its language, and especially my mother for tearing me out of my grandmother's arms to place me in a car headed to the airport.  The narrative of the immigrant in America is mainly portrayed as the suffering refugee crossing the border wall, flying/sailing in from third-world countries, or as lazy opportunists who want to live off the government. But the immigrant experience encompasses people of all colors, identities, faiths, and economic backgrounds. Still, we all have in common the pursuit of the elusive idea of being an American or of "attempting" it.

About the Facilitator: Emillio Mesa Is a hospitality expert and the recipient of the Awards of Excellence and Traveler's Choice from Trip Advisor for his special events. Edible San Francisco, Food & Wine, and Brit+Co have covered his dinner parties-events. His essays and profiles have appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, NY Press, HuffPost, Medium, OUT, QZ, SF Weekly, Interview magazine, and others, as well as the anthologies The Byline Bible and The Forgiveness Tour: How to Find the Perfect Apology. He's writing a memoir about meeting his mother at 6 years old, four fathers, being a queer immigrant, having an eating disorder, and the assault that brought him and his family together while living in their basement in The Bronx.