UW Student Civic Leader: What If It Was Me?

To be awarded the UW President’s Student Civic Leadership Award in 2026, at a time that is consequential in ways that won’t be understood for decades to come, is not a role I take lightly. The award is more than a title, honor, or acknowledgment; It is a call to action in its own right and sets a bar for what types of action can be taken. I can’t merely be a keyboard warrior, ranting or sharing posts. Every word must be backed with action, not just passion. If I do take to keys it has to be with purpose, so here are a few words that came to my heart in a time of hurt, when I’m being leaned on to lead and the path is obscure.

What if it was me?

Would your gut sink if my last act was shielding a stranger?

What would you think if my final words were concern for someone just thrown to the ground?

Would you let them take my reputation, libel me outside my town?

My last name is Romero, I’m brown, my story might not even make the rounds.

Would you hold my family afloat from the tears so they don’t drown, or will you go back to upholding the system that shot me down?

Will I be known as a domestic terrorist because I wanted to scare the darkness away.

To shine a light so bright my son didn’t have to be scared of having to enter the fray, a conflict that exists between classes that they say is actually race.

They can’t keep up the lie when they’ve turned to shooting any of us in the face.

How much longer will we accept that America is not a safe space?

I was just a mom, someone who wanted to make the world a better place.

Now I wonder the same phrase on repeat, what if it was me?