Tamara Oyola-Santiago (born December 1, 1971 in Santuce, Puerto Rico) is a harm reductionist and public health educator. Areas of life work include harm reduction services grounded in social justice in Puerto Rico and New York City, HIV/AIDS decriminalization, self determination, and restorative practices. She is co-founder of Bronx Móvil, a fully bilingual (Spanish/English) anti-racist mutual aid collective and mobile harm reduction and syringe services organization. She is also part of the What Would an HIV Doula Do collective, a community of people joined in response to the ongoing AIDS Crisis, and Director of Public Health Services, Student Health Services, at The New School. Tamara is also part of the Board of OnPoint NYC, the organization that opened the first USA sanctioned Overdose Prevention Centers.

STAN WALDEN: Okay. So it looks like we're recording. Um, and before we proceed, Tamara, I just wanted to ask if I have your permission to record our conversation here.

TAMARA OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yes, you do, Stan.

WALDEN: Okay. Thank you. Do you mind giving, just a brief introduction of yourself?

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Sure. My name is Tamara Oyola-Santiago. My pronouns are she/her/hers/ella en español. I am Director of Public Health Services, which is the Public Health branch within Student Health Services at the university.

WALDEN: Thank you. Um, and, you know, we were just talking about—well, first, I know, I understand that you started at The New School in 2009?

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yes, 2009.

WALDEN: And then you gave an interview for [The New School Archives and Special Collections] in 2019 about your work, with Student Health Services and, um, you know, the kind of infrastructure that you built that, which was, uh, in a lot of collaboration with student activists.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: Um, but you also noticed that that was changing, um, over time, uh, given new leadership and, uh, forgive me for asking me to repeat yourself, but, um, and you know, for the record, uh, all of this is captured in the Archives [see The New You Peer Health Advocates oral history project], so people can always look back to that collection, but maybe you just wanna briefly touch upon that.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Sure. When we look at health promotion and solid and effective, public health practice, it needs to be grounded in community, and it needs to examine the personal, the interpersonal, the community-wide, and basically the macro structures that include in many ways systems of oppression. The New School is a microcosm, it's a higher education institution, private, not-for-profit in New York City. So what happens at The New School is a reflection of, and sometimes even feels a little bit more strongly because it's a smaller community where everything gets intensified. So all to say that wellness and health promotion, which I helped create when I came to the university in 2009, found itself, centering student activism as a way to address the public health issues that get manifested in all of those different dimensions I mentioned.

There's a model of higher education known as Student Success, which is a neoliberal model that sees the student as a client. And that model came to the university under President David Van Zandt. And slowly but surely there was a shift in the mission of the university. Social justice, for example, was eliminated from the mission itself of the university, and there were some academic changes. There was a centralization, for example, of what academic advising should look like across the different divisions or schools. And within Student Services, we became Student Success. Again, that's part of that model. Within Wellness and Health Promotion and SHS we had been doing a lot of social justice activism on campus. For example, we had created lactation booths for caregivers who are lactating, who are breastfeeding. We created Safe Zone, which is a program centering gender and sexualityand respect and honoring , queer identities that are part of the university community. We created the university food pantry because we knew that food justice and hunger were real and part of the university experience for students. So those are examples of the kind of public health programming based on social justice that we really thought were important to bring to the university.

But with that change to Student Success there was a shift in what we were able to do on campus. And we wanted to really document our work before we were disbanded, if you will, or dismantled or, uh—we were being threatened, right? And so we thought we need to document this work, especially with this beautiful community of Peer Health Advocates who are students at the university, graduate and undergraduate, who got trained and who became ambassadors for Student Health and Wellness [and Health Promotion] with this framework of social justice organizing. Again, the personal is political. How we live, how we thrive, how we flourish, how we connect with each other is embedded in systems of community care. And so we really brought that to the Peer Health Advocacy program and wanted to document it through the work that is now in the archives. In two thousand and, uh, last year, uh, now, now I'm blanking [laughs] but I think at the end of 2023, I came back to Student Health Services and I am now director of Public Health Services and Wellness and Health Promotion. Um, basically got cleared to come back into Student Health. It had been transferred to Student Life and Involvement. It is now back in Student Health Services and we're able to embrace that social justice framework of health. And so we reactivated the Peer Health Advocacy program last year, and we're slowly but surely building up this framework of the personal is political, and the university itself needs to invest in student leaders that organize on campus for equity, diversity, and inclusion.

[05:45]

WALDEN: Yeah. It's so interesting just to hear the arc, um, you know, in your, uh, you know, almost two decades at The New School. Like, there's so much change and hopefully this changes something for the better, that better serves the community.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah.

WALDEN: Um, something I've found in the interviews I've done so far, which included a few alumni who were around, uh, Parsons and The New School in the eighties, was that, you know, trying to figure out what, uh, university discourse, like the atmosphere, um, was as, uh, the AIDS crisis was unfolding. Um, and some of the information I got was, you know, like the, um, in terms of like health, uh, and, uh, being safe, they were getting that information largely from other sources, much less The New School, um, and its services. And, uh, there's just a different expectation at the time of what the university should provide perhaps in that case. But obviously that's changed drastically. And so—

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Absolutely. I think really quickly—

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Think of The New School and—think of The New School as this beautiful quilt that if you look at the history of how it came together to be The New School, was essentially these patches of fabric, beautiful patches. Mannes School of Opera. Drama, which, you know, um, is on the west side and has its own history, School of Jazz, The New School for Social Research.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Um, Lang, right? So all of those pieces have their own history.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And then again, under David Van Zandt, what he tried to do was bring us all together in a branding [laughs], if you will, that was like the thing. Um, but those threads, that quilt, that create the quilt, some are really strong, some are stronger than others, and then some are really frayed. And so I think when we look at activism, whether that be around HIV/AIDS, um, union and labor organizing, or right now with Palestine, um, that quilt gets frayed even more, or it can be strengthened even more.

So I think for those of us doing the work at the university is how do we strengthen, right? Make a robust wrapping blanket that can really cover all of us and protect us, but also then center what it means, to be together. Right? So I, I just, I always use that kind of metaphor. And around HIV/AIDS specifically, and I didn't mention this earlier, but I think what was really important in terms of what I brought and what we brought as Peer Health Advocates to Student Health Services was centering HIV/AIDS care and treatment as part of the standard protocol of healthcare services that is provided to students while they're here. And so today we have PEP, we have PrEP, we have HIV/AIDS care and treatment. And that includes what we can do on site, but also lots of community resources to continue that care that's long-term that will support the student past their days at the university.

 COVID-19, I think in some ways impacted our ability to do some of that work. We had a standing weekly HIV/AIDS provision of testing in partnership first with the Hispanic AIDS Forum, and then later with the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center, where they would come on site and provide testing for New School community members, but also for any community member that walked in through the doors. And that was anonymous, right? That was like the traditional testing where you don't have to give your name or you give whatever name you want in order to remain anonymous. We still provide HIV testing, but only as part of the standard of care within the healthcare setting, which means that it's not anonymous, it's confidential, right? And so for me, as I've come back to Student Health Services in the last year, part of what I'm thinking about is how do we go back to, yes, offer the confidential, the standard treatment, but also how do we open the doors and leverage university resources for HIV testing that's anonymous for anyone who needs it on site, you know, at our location on 14th and Fifth.

So that's an example of how COVID-19 impacted. And that's simply because we're not open in the evenings. We have budget cuts.

[10:19]

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And so we don't have the frontline staff that is an SHS resource that would be provided in kind for that kind of availability of services, but we're getting there. We're gonna work towards it.

WALDEN: Yeah. Bit by bit. I am wondering if you can get, um—I'd love to hear more, like, hear more about centering like HIV/AIDS care, um, just in looking at what the archive has, you know, you see everything from, um, uh, early articles in like 1986 about students, um, kind of doing the work of getting information into people's hands about safest practices. Eventually there's information about testing. Eventually there's, um, articles about testing being included in Student Health Services, um, and so on and so forth. So you see this like, growing trajectory of care that's owned by, uh, New School, first students, and then, um, uh, staff and more curricula. Um, and so I'm curious to get more into the details, but also, um, you know, you talked earlier about like, we're so siloed across the university as organizations, but also I think just in our own social circles. Um, I wonder if you can talk as much as you're providing the care and like the testing and, um, uh, you know, treatments, I wonder if you can talk about the care that is, like conversations and educating and just, um, like being an informed member of the community when it comes to what it means to center HIV/AIDS care, um, as part of like The New School's approach.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Absolutely. What I will do is, I'll bring two examples, of how The New School has been a community for people who wanna do this kind of activism. One person you've already interviewed, that's Ted [laughs], Ted Kerr, and I'm one of the co-founders. Ted is like the convener, but I am one of the co-founders that joined Ted, another community activist, when we created the What Would an HIV Doula Do?. And there have been many New School community members, whether they be staff, students, or faculty who are part of that founding collective, and that have continued to partner and leverage resources and knowledge and just like the care needed, um, in order for What Would an HIV Doula Do? to grow, right? And so , for many years we met at Student Health Services. That was the meeting place for the collective. And around World AIDS Day and ongoing HIV/AIDS programming, Ted and I, him as a faculty member and me as a staff member, were always around, [and brainstorming] how can we host this? How can we leverage the resources that the university with, for example, space, which is such a hot commodity in New York City, so that we have the space, or I would provide through my budget the food and the refreshments necessary for our program. I think the other thing that's important is much of the work that we do around HIV/AIDS activism is free. It's not paid, although it is deep, profound labor. And so whenever possible I hire student organizers to get paid to do this work. And again, because The New School is in New York City, I see that leveraging and resources of being, getting hired to do work about, okay, this is what's happening at The New School, how do we connect that with what's going on, where you're living, where you're studying, right?

And how we then, you know, do the work. So it's across a continuum of the communities in which we are living in New York City. So that would be one example. And there's a lot on the What Would an HIV Doula Do? in terms of the different programs that we've done at The New School and whatnot. Kia [LaBeija], Ted, myself, um, those are three that come to mind right now as we speak, who have been part of The New School, and then also the What Would an HIV Doula Do? The other thing that's important is, have you heard of QUEEROCRACY?

WALDEN: I don't think so.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: So this is not necessarily in the archives, but QUEEROCRACY started out as a group of students at The New School. Um, at Lang specifically, I'm thinking of, Camilo Godoy is one of the founding members that comes to mind. Um, oh my God, I am blanking on the other ones right now. But there were a couple of other students and Camilo who were like, we're students at The New School and we need to be able to talk about activism, queer activism, HIV/AIDS activism. And they created that as they were students. But also the student category ends pretty quickly, right? You got either four years or two years, or five. If you're [an] undergraduate student, you got a little bit more. So they were really conscientious about how we make this thrive beyond The New School? And pretty early on, they integrated Michael Tikili, who's an activist, and others from the community, to also be part of this New School grassroots movement.

[15:34]

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: We, for example, we did a die in the Lang courtyard for HIV/AIDS activism. We created convening dialogues around—and Ted would also come in and out. So I'll to say that QUEEROCRACY that started as a student collective -what they did was create a board, an advisory committee board of which I was a part of, as well as Carlos Motta, who at that time was, I don't know if he's still at the university, but Carlos was also part of that advisory group and mentor and advisor to Camilo Godoy in the academic program. And we figured out a way for Queerocracy to thrive beyond The New School. QUEEROCRACY is now a program of VOCAL-NY, which is a syringe services provider and harm reduction organization that does a lot of public policy activism around dismantling the war on drugs. So look for QUEEROCRACY and then look for, for how it's operating now. But the roots of QUEEROCRACY are The New School [and student activists]. And so those are some people that you should like to talk to. Camila Godoy, and then Carlos, I don't know if Carlos is a faculty member still at The New School, but he would be an interesting kind of like, bridge of an academic advisor, faculty member that then helped create, or like with me and with others, basically help kind of like leverage it for what it's become now.

WALDEN: And what's Carlos's last name?

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Motta. M-O-T-T-A. And then Camillo Godoy.

WALDEN: Thank you.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah. I have, I'm not so close to Carlos, but Camilo can definitely get you in touch with Carlos. And I have Camillo's information. In fact, I can look for it and drop it into the chat really quickly.

WALDEN: Great. Thank you.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah.

WALDEN: Um, something I'm curious to hear about, um, I was looking in, um, are you still operating or working with Bronx Móvil?

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: I am. I am.

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: You wanna hear more about that work? [laughs]

WALDEN: Yeah, please.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Hold on. Let me look for Camilo's—

WALDEN: Yeah, of course.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Email 'cause otherwise I'm gonna get distracted. All right. I'm gonna drop it into the chat. I hope it's still active, you know how emails—.

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Shift over time. But if it bounces back, let me know, and then I will go into my Instagram. I have him on social media, but this is the email that I have for Camilo.

WALDEN: Thank you.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And he's all, he collaborates a lot with Visual AIDS and with Ted, so he's—

WALDEN:Okay, cool.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: He's a good person to know who's a New School graduate.

WALDEN: Great.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Um, so Bronx Móvil. So in 2018, I live in the Bronx. I'm a migrant to New York City. This is personal, so not part of The New School, but I migrated to New York City in 2001, originally was here for a couple of years, and then went back to Puerto Rico.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And then my final migration to New York City was in 2006. Um, and in the interim, as a public health educator and community organizer, when I first started, it was really around HIV/AIDS and queer organizing. That was the framework of harm reduction. And then over time, and especially in Puerto Rico, between 2006, um, no, when did I go back? 2003 and 2006, I started to work with Iniciativa Comunitaria, which is the first syringe exchange program in Puerto Rico, working under "Chaco," Dr. Vargas Vidot, José Vargas Vidot. And I learned a lot about harm reduction in, with regards to syringe exchange in Puerto Rico, very specifically. Um, HIV/AIDS is still very much, it's almost like half sexual risk and half injection drug use risk in terms of the HIV/AIDS, um, epidemic that exists in the archipelago. And so that it's, you know, it's like, I was on the mainland, I was in the US and knew about the syringe exchange harm reduction, but it wasn't, it was like, it's good.

[19:54]

It works, it's legal, you know, roll with it. I was in California and New York, so it was like, good [as in, there was funding and resources dedicated to harm reduction]. And then in Puerto Rico, I come to an under-resourced colony of the US where syringe exchange programs are still super vital in terms of keeping the HIV/AIDS—like urgent, like urgently vital, right? Like we, it needs more funding, it needs parity of funding, it needs all of that. And also you have this cultural paradigm and framework where under Governor Pedro Rosselló, former Governor Pedro Rosselló, where essentially they made drug use a moral issue. Even though he was a medical doctor, he really took this Christian fundamentalism and applied it to drugs and sex, kind of like a moralistic perspective. And that impacted the funding available for harm reduction programs. So I learned all of that, started to really work on the ground in syringe exchange programs in Puerto Rico, and then came back to New York City and ended up in the harm reduction field.

Because of my experience and knowledge with the Puerto Rican drug use experience. In the Bronx, most of the folks who are unhoused and experiencing chaotic and disruptive drug use are Puerto Rican, which tells you a lot about the air bridge that is deeply impacted by colonialism, racism, poverty, like settler [colonialism]—like you name it. And it's almost like it gets replicated, amplified to serious community disconnection and basically an abandonment of the most vulnerable folks. And so, Bronx Móvil got created in 2018 by myself, Nelson Gonzalez, and Alexis Del Rio. Three persons who are Puerto Rican, Bronx-based, who had experienced migration in different forms, whether it was intergenerational, multi-generational, or literally in the last years. And who are impacted by HIV/AIDS in different ways, whether it's a sibling who's passed away due to AIDS or having to live taking PEP and PrEP, and—right?—as queer folks.

So there's a multitude of identities that basically shaped and influenced why we decided to create Bronx Móvil. And we are, we started as a mutual aid collective, basically all of us chipping in for peanut butter sandwiches and becoming a peer delivered syringe exchange program with the Alliance, with the Lower East Side Harm Reduction, in order to access harm reduction supplies, including syringes. We would all chip in for a Zipcar where, we live in New York, where New Yorkers, none of us own a car. [laughs] And we would just hit the streets. Um, at different times we leverage our funding, uh, with friends; [for example] friends would chip in, and like it became a beautiful collective. And that collective is now much more solid. We received our first funding in 2020, and we are now working towards a 501[c][3], but still incorporate the mutual aid cooperative principles of equity and dismantling credentialism, which has become de facto part of the harm reduction world.

That's where we are at. So, so right now, we hit the streets of the Bronx all days of the week. Our vision is that harm reduction should be 24/7,, and culturally [and linguistically]. Our team is, um, over half of it are people who are actively using drugs. Several are living in shelters as we speak. And all of us are impacted by racialized drug policy, which is the war on drugs. Right? And so this is personal, it's community. Um, yeah. And I continue to do that work while I'm also at The New School. So—[laughs]

WALDEN: Yeah. Your hands are full, to say the least.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah.

WALDEN: I am, I'm curious, when I was reading about Bronx Móvil, I think during the pandemic, um, or at least the height of the pandemic, you were doing less driving and more just walking streets, so more tied directly to a neighborhood, at least per—

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Where we live. Yeah. I always say, this is where we live. This is community care and action. Yeah.

WALDEN: And I'm curious to know, um, what that experience was like. But I also want to, uh, I guess to back up a little bit, um, you know, I came across this, you know, this project came out of my studies in an architectural program. Um, so we're looking a lot about neighborhoods, adjacencies, and space. And one of the things that is compelling to me is that, you know, The New School campus, it's, you know, less than two blocks away from, um, former St. Vincent's Hospital. Now the AIDS memorial.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Right.

WALDEN: Um, so there's this adjacency, and yet there's often a gap in memory or, like, reluctance to address or to, um, kind of go there.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO [24:57]:

Well, we have to think about, it's about St. Vincent's, right? Like what it is now versus what it was, right?

[25:03]

WALDEN: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Luxury condos. Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah.

WALDEN: And I'm, so I'd love to know your experience of, um, moving to the city, your experience in the neighborhood where you lived, how it has changed for better or for worse. But also, I also wanna hear about your experience coming to The New School after all these years and, um, the changes you see there, for better or for worse. And then, you know, spec, if we can talk about like, how that might, may or may not tie into like HIV/AIDS care and awareness.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah, that was a lot, Stan.

WALDEN: Yeah, it's a lot.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: [laughs] I'm trying to think, where do I start? Where do I start? Um, so we are living in multiple pandemics.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Got HIV/AIDS. It's still present, it's still here. Um, we have economic inequity. Um, what I would say, I would quote Reverend Barber, “This is a war on poor people.” Um, and we really do need to think about that in a capitalist society. Um, that is, I call it capitalism on steroids. The haves and the have-nots. I think it's becoming more acute. And I think that COVID-19 varies specifically, for those of us living in New York City, and maybe this has felt nationally, right? But I'll talk about the Bronx experience and what I see on the streets. COVID-19 literally showed us the vulnerability of the nonprofit industrial complex. Those of us that have the privilege of being housed, of having a home, we were able to shelter at home when Governor Cuomo told us to do so. And when I think about that time, and in many conversations with participants who are unhoused they will literally say we were abandoned.

That is real. I do think that we abandoned them, whether it's shelters that closed down, how we closed down the subway system. You remember that? People were living on the subway system, and then they decided to close down the subway system, [and at the same time] didn't give them shelter. And there's these horrible images of people on staircases. I don't know if people remember, like for [laughs] right? People [organizations/agencies] stopped doing outreach. We didn't know [what was COVID, how to protect ourselves]. There was no testing. There was no vaccination. We didn't know how this was spread. And so those of us that could, sheltered, and our participants also sheltered. They sheltered in their encampments. They actually created, and I wanna honor this, they created these bubbles of communities of care. Encampments became bigger. They took care of themselves and each other. Um, they found a way to do it.

And, and what, I'll say this really quickly, and it's, it's a bypass, if you will, or a side note. But when we talk about that vaccine resistance, right? Um, uh, it does not surprise me, and I'll say this: many of them survived alone and on the streets and among each other without any kind of vaccination or testing. And so for them, it's like, why should I get vaccinated? Why do I need another one? “I'm good. I got this. We took care of each other, right?” And so for us that do public health work, that talk about multiple pandemics and talk about vulnerability and the science of vaccination and testing and all of that, that's part of the hurdle, if you will, that we need to overcome because COVID-19 [is a] pandemic, and we're still living in that, [and yet] there’s this resistance to an effective public health measure.

But it is because of the vulnerability and the abandonment, right? It's, it's not because they don't want to, it's because their lived experience at the height of the pandemic is that it wasn't necessary. And so I just wanted to kind of name it.

WALDEN: Yeah. Yeah. It's important.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And if there are lessons there for us within, for HIV/AIDS, and I'll talk about hepatitis C, is that lived experience is deeply influenced by the social matrices in which we live. And so if the system has abandoned you through either inequity, lack of power, lack of access to food, housing, shelter, right? Healthcare treatment. And folks start using drugs, right? Or experience pleasure in different ways, we have to think of it as a trauma response. And, and I'm, and I'm not being very, um, articulate in this, but when I think about my participants and about the folks that who are actively using drugs and living on the streets, they're warriors.

[30:11]

They have figured out a way to survive in a system that has abandoned them. It's that we can judge it, we can still label it, we can stigmatize it. But the truth is, it is a response to their lifetime of experiences and a system that just doesn't care. So, Bronx Móvil, given that system of care that doesn't exist of care, it's basically a community response of care, right? I call it the radical love of harm reduction. It's about meeting you where you're at. It's about humanizing in the middle of the night. It's about leveraging as many resources as possible. It's about figuring it out together. Because the system itself doesn't like us. We're brown and black folks, we're poor, we're queer, we're trans, we're migrants, right? We're disabled. [laughs] We look different, we act differently, right?

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And so, how, I think that's part of, and that's a lesson learned from ACT UP and from the activists. The system, we need to push the system to care for us. We need to leverage resources, but guess what? We also need to care for each other. Policy change must also be accompanied by community care. If you don't have both, then we're spinning our wheels, right? And then we're not able to make those big structural changes that are needed. But you need the personal love—

WALDEN: Right.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And compassion. Right? You need that solidarity, because otherwise, it becomes impersonal.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm. Definitely. Do you, and can you, um, can I bring you back to like where, uh, the neighborhood of The New School and—

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Neighborhood of The New School.

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah. You know, it's really interesting because I had a conversation a couple of days ago with a student who was interested in being part of, or creating a mutual aid collective of students who do community care for unhoused folks around The New School. And so we were talking about my Bronx Móvil experience, about how to do it. And part of what I said was, look, I know a group of students out of NYU and Columbia who have been doing harm reduction outreach at Washington Square Park, in Tompkins Square. Let me connect you with them. And so part of what I've been doing this week is connecting this student who knows other students at The New School who wanna do this kind of work in the community.

And I think that's part of my, my job at The New School is how do we make those connections? I think all of New York City is experiencing deep poverty right now. And so whether we feel it on the streets of the Bronx or in the West Village or Union Square, you see it, you see it around the city. There's more need, there's more people asking for money. There's more, the lines are longer in the food pantries, right? Um, I don't know what you're looking for Stan, but— [laughs]

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO:

But yeah, but what I would say is the university has a responsibility. I think all institutions of higher education have a responsibility for nurturing and creating opportunities for community care. Um, and I think that the students themselves need to name if they're gonna do it within the community outside, right? Like, what are the different ways? But for example, the creation of the food pantry at the university by myself and others, and it's been a good 10 years at this point, is really about figuring out that food justice was necessary internally, right?

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Like, we needed to do that. And, and I'll say this, I think that there's a long history of solidarity at the university. I don't know if you found, for example, archives or archival work on the occupation of the University Center that happened, mostly led by students of color in solidarity with the dining services workers who were gonna be laid off when there was a change in, um, who the provider was for meals at the University [unintelligible, 00:34:22].

WALDEN: I only, it's so funny because I hadn't seen that in the archive, but I was hanging out with friends who graduated a few years before me, um, last night, and they were just talking about this. So it's funny that you—

OYOLA-SANTIAGO”          

Really, really important. That was literally led by black and brown students at the university who, many of whom experienced food injustice while they were at the university. And all of a sudden they were private, they were changing the contract. Like, I don't know the details right now, but they were changing the contract. And in that process, they were gonna get rid of a lot of the workers that they were seeing every day when they would go get a meal, right. Who look like their families, who look like their mom. Like you, literally, I'm, I'm thinking, and I can actually connect you to Egypt. Egypt-Moyenda Staley. She was a Peer Health Advocate, part of the Queer Collective. And she was one of the organizers of the walkout and the occupation. But she would literally say, back to me, back then, I remember this: "literally laying off my mom."

[35:31]

WALDEN: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: That's what I see when I hear this. "I am literally seeing my family being impacted by the shifts that are all about capitalism and privatization." Um, lemme see if I can find Egypt's email and I can drop it. So again, not necessarily related to HIV/AIDS, but, but all of these are really—.

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: You know what I mean? They do this, you know, black woman, queer—

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Part of the collective, part of the Peer Health Advocacy program, um, essentially sees the need and mobilizes. And I think that's part of the beauty of HIV/AIDS activism, if I wanna name it.

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Is that it's not monolithic.

WALDEN: Right.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: It is intersectional. It is about identifying how we are all connected and where do we need to leverage.

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: So whether that's visiting somebody at home to provide personal love, or whether that's doing a sit-in in the capital. [laughs] Or whether that's a solidarity strike in support of, uh, dining services workers. Like I think that's part of the beauty of HIV/AIDS activism. It's—

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: It has modeled what it means to be everywhere all at once, right? And so then that's also a risk because how do we care so that we could do it for the long run? Because again, the system doesn't care. So how do we create boundaries and self-care and self-love so we don't burn out?

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah.

WALDEN: Yeah. I think that's a, that's a great point. And I think that's the, the like enlightening thing about this project as I've been researching, is just that, you know, this is one topic and tool to use to enter into a whole spectrum of topics and issues—.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Right.

WALDEN: That we are facing. Um—

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Right.

WALDEN: And so, you know, I'm trying to toe the line of, like—I guess in my experiences in the classes where I kind encountered this line of inquiry, I found there was an initial reluctance to like, uh, broach the topic of HIV/AIDS. So that's where I'm trying to like, kind of dig in and get it just more out there. But to your point, it's not a monolith. It is, um, it's part of a larger issue. Um—

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah. And like the harm reduction work I do, I see it as HIV/AIDS activism, right? When I provide a syringe, a clean—when I provide ‘works’ [syringes and safer injection supplies], so that each and every single shot is, uh, with a new work, right? With a new syringe, or when I give you a pipe to smoke crystal or to smoke crack, it's about prevention of hepatitis C, right?

WALDEN: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And so harm reduction is HIV/AIDS activism.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And it, and it was founded by people living with HIV/AIDS, right? Yeah. So, and who were also drug users, I think of Keith Kyler and Housing Works, right? Like emblematic of what it meant to be a gay black man who also identified as a person who uses drugs unapologetically [laughs] right? Like, like literally like, "this is who I am, this is what I do." So, I think it's important and that tension of and I'll name it, but not that it's part of the archival work necessarily, but, when you look at the movements that created, harm reduction in many ways, BIPOC, like the Black Panthers and the Heroin prevention program, community acupuncture, and the Young Lords led by Walter Bosque and others in East Harlem and the Bronx, they don't, they don't all agree with moderation or management of drug use.

In fact, if you look at some of the literature, they're actually very anti-drug use because they see it as a threat to black and brown communities. Right? So, and yet I think what has happened is that there's been a recognition of diversity of voices within harm reduction who basically say, "abstinence could be," right? Non-drug use is part of the harm reduction family, but so is using in different ways and flavors and substances, right? And so for us it's about uplifting the person, humanizing, but also giving them a sense of empowerment of knowledge that they can make the right decisions, right. For community care as well as personal care. But I wanted to name that tension that does exist, and I think it exists around sex as well. For HIV/AIDS, you think of PEP and PrEP, of Doxy, right? Doxycycline—like there are voices even within the community that say, how does this legitimize, right? Unhealthy sex or unhealthy behaviors, right? The tension around apps and dating, right? Like, like all of that, all those, all those tensions can mutually exist and we can still do the work of uplifting and centering our communities.

[40:30]

WALDEN: There are two more questions I think I wanna ask. I feel like we could keep going and going, but I want—

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: [laughs] I think so, too.

WALDEN: To be mindful of your time. Um, the Peer Health Advocates still exists, right?

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: It does. It does.

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: So again, um, there was basically a low [in PHA organizing], um, during, for me personally, um, I left, when I saw the DVZ threat, if you will, [laughs] I transitioned at the university to a new role. I went to the Institute for Transformative Mentoring.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Which is a program for credible messengers, for people impacted by mass incarceration, who have lived experience of being incarcerated, who are now at The New School, taking classes on restorative practices.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: So I actually transitioned to that role within the School of Public Engagement between 2019. Like that interview that you saw is one of the last things I did. Um, and essentially 2023. So for most of the pandemic, I was doing restorative justice work at the university. Um, well, lemme call it transformative justice with restorative practices. But, essentially President Dwight [McBride], one of the last things I think he did impacting Student Health Services was greenlighting the transition of Wellness and Health Promotion back to Student Health Services. This framework of public health is vital. We just, for me, one of the most ironic things, if you will, is during the COVID-19, there was no public health branch within SHS.

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: That's like the most ironic, like, like talk about ironies, right?

WALDEN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: So, um, so again, um, thanking the leadership [laughs] of McBride and, Provost [Renee] White who basically said, you know what, this actually should be part of Student Health Services, not within Student Life and Involvement. Brought it back. And so The New You, the Peer Health Advocacy program, I brought it back last year, and right now I'm the process of recruiting students.

WALDEN: Cool.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO [42:26]:

Um, I got about 13. [laughs]

WALDEN: Great!

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: So, I don’t how to say no [to student leadership and activism]..

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: So we're there. [laughs]

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah.

WALDEN: Well, and can you talk about how, uh, you know, for once for one, there was the interview you gave to the archive in 2019, but then in terms of institutional knowledge in a place that's inherently transient, how are you thinking about that knowledge within this specific group, the peer health group?

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah. Really important. So part of the training process is a deep dive into the history of the Peer Health Advocacy program and community organizing at The New School. Um, so that is part of the orientation and training that each and every single set of Peer Health Advocates gets. And it's an expanding history, if you will, right? Like every time you come in, it's about, "this is what we've done in the past and this is what we're doing now." I think that there is this tension, if you will, right now of what is captured and who is doing the capturing. So as much—and I think it's ongoing for archival work and memory, right? And so I do, I do my best. So this is how I do this. I hope it's coming through that I really believe that each of us knows a lot, but together we know a whole bunch more.

 I try to be as non-hierarchical as possible. And all of my programs, including the Peer Health Advocacy program, are co-led. I am an, I'm working in ‘collaboration with,’ I am ‘partnering with’, right? So Peer Health Advocates co-teach, co-lead, co-facilitate, and actually help design the retreat itself where we do the organizing and the on—and kind of like the capacity to do the work on campus. Um, last year at the retreat, a big part of the conversation was Palestine and Gaza. Um, actually, let me take that back. That's part of the dialogue once it started in October, but last spring, um, no, no, no—we talk, now I'm totally confused with my timeline. I know what it was. We were talking a lot about the strikes and about the solidarity movement in terms of part-time faculty and student organizing on campus for unions. So, that, again, the Peer Health Advocacy students helped design it [the retreat and themes].

[45:02]

[For example] we decided to do power mapping on campus. So we've really focused, and we always do this, but we really focused on power mapping in terms of labor organizing on campus. Next year it might be around power mapping and divestment. I don't know, right? [laughs] So, um, but that ongoing, kind of like what is brought to the training, is very much kind of like, this is what we've done and what are the hot topics for you right now? How is it that we're gonna apply this knowledge, this experience in order to do the work? And some of our pillars within Peer Health Advocacy are the work of Augusto Boal and Theater of the Oppressed, looking at the history of the Young Lords and the harm reduction movement. Um, we bring in those historical examples, but then apply it to the modern times, if you will, in order to then kind of like unpack address and do some action planning.

WALDEN: Cool. Thank you. That sounds—

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah.

WALDEN: Yeah. There's, uh, it sounds like a great, um—you, you have all this knowledge. You have to build on it and share it and remember. Um, so it's great to know that that infrastructure's there.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah. And, and to be honest, I think, I think for, when I think of the What Would an HIV Doula Do? collective in the [work? 00:46:18]. Uh, Ted and others that really write. I'm an activ—I'm not a writer. I'm an activist. [laughs] So I, I do, but I think part of what I love when I'm with the collective of doulas is that they journal, they write, they collect stories that I am then able to go as an organizer and be like, "aha, okay. This is what I can then utilize when I hit the streets, or when we do community activism," right? And so I think it's really important. We talk about the different flavors of activism, and I think what's really needed are these different community folks that bring in all these very kind of like, skill sets, in order to then leverage knowledge and abilities and resources, right? And so that's part of what I think I really love—

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: About HIV/AIDS activism at The New School. It brings that together and in a really beautiful way. Yeah. So, yeah.

WALDEN: Yeah. I keep on finding publications from the doulas and their different projects, so there's always something new to read, and it's really great.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. And, um, I just wanna kind of name Ted, because I think if there is a lot of HIV/AIDS activism, if you will, that has continued since we started the collective, um, it's, it's Ted.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Like that is the person I go to. And, then two others would be Robert Sember.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Ricky Tucker. So those are like the three that I go to whenever I'm doing any kind of organizing that includes HIV/AIDS activism. And in the case of Ricky and Robert, more specifically, is someone vogueing the kiki ball scene, and how that scene has been vital for community organizing among, kind of like, young black men, gay men in different boroughs. Um, and so just wanna name both of them as key to also talk to around, I think, faculty activism and reading and writing and teaching, um, this topic.

WALDEN: Yeah. Thank you. I, I have spoken with Robert. I haven't, uh, encountered Ricky though, so someone to definitely connect with.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Yeah. Ricky Tucker. Yeah.

WALDEN: Um, I think the last question I wanna ask you, at least for now, is, um, uh, you've talked about this, um—well, I think I just appreciated when I was reading your last interview before this, like, you're obviously very critical of the university and the, um, kinda experience, the changes you experienced in the last decade, uh, or so of just like how power and resources are allotted and how it's impacted the important work that you do. Um, but at the same time, you obviously care a lot and you're still here and, um, you continue to do important work within the university, not to mention beyond. So I guess I'm curious to hear your, uh, like your opinion on like how do we, in a place that is so siloed, you talked about the patches and the quilt. Like how do we, um, continue to be critical, um, while also caring for this place in a way that keeps it accountable?

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: Well, when you think about it, The New School is emblematic of many other organizations and institutions. They're all, we're all part of.

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: So whether it's your medical care and the hospital setting, the library or your communities of faith, right? We're all part of institutions. It's part of living in society.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: We're part of these. And whether they be formal or informal structures and communities, everything gets loaded by the macro. Right? And so , I have found that at The New School there are profound relationships that I have built over time of people who do care.

[50:16]

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And of people who show up every day with radical love for the students and all that they do. That teach with the critical thinking and critical reflection lens, that include in their curricula and their syllabi, different perspectives that go beyond US-centric, right? Or, heteronormative perspectives. And, those are the people that sustain me when I do the work. I feel like that's vital, right? I'm at The New School because I am part of a group of faculty, staff and students who care for each other deeply. And so that is also the case in Bronx Móvil.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: That is also the case in my church, in St. Francis of Assisi's. That is also the case with other organizations and entities that I am part of. So, you know, I think all of us choose where we're gonna be more active.

WALDEN: Yeah.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And I think, I think the recognition for activists is where am I going to be cared for while I do this work?

WALDEN: Yeah. Interesting.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: And if I'm not right, and if I'm not being honored, if I'm not being respected, if I'm not being valued, then maybe this is not the right collective for [me], but lemme find where else I can go to. And so in the same way that I chose my church and the same way that I helped create Bronx Móvil and choose it, I choose The New School because of the interpersonal relationships that allow me to thrive while I also support students.

WALDEN: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Um, thank you Tamara. Um—

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: You're welcome. You're welcome.

WALDEN: Yeah. Let's, I'll go ahead and end the recording. Um, and I'll just, uh, we'll chat a little bit, um, just to wrap things up. So thank you so much. This is incredibly, incredibly wonderful.

OYOLA-SANTIAGO: You're welcome. I dropped into the chat Egypt's email. But the Egypt, when you leave The New School, sometimes you lose—

[recording ends, 52:12]