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OC Register - How Diamond Bar shaped David A. Romero’s supernatural thriller ‘The Enemy Sleeps’

David A. Romero had been thinking about writing a book when he got inspiration from an unlikely place: the Green Day album “Dookie.” While scanning the song titles, Romero misread the track “Emenius Sleepus” and it sparked something in his imagination.

“I read ‘Enemy Sleeps’ and thought, ‘Wow, that’s so fascinating. What does that mean?” Romero said during a recent interview. “I thought that it sounded really cool.”

Shortly after, the book began to take shape, with new elements often arriving in vivid daydreams and eerie nightmares.

Romero said one of those elements came from the Bible’s Ten Commandments (don’t murder, don’t lie, etc.), and another from growing up in Diamond Bar. The result is his debut novel, “The Enemy Sleeps,” a supernatural thriller set in a fictional Southern Californian town.

The neo-noir, set to debut Feb. 5, tells the story of a Mexican American family who moves from the L.A. neighborhood of Boyle Heights to the fictional, sleepy suburban town of Harper, where they face suspicion because of their race. If moving into a new community isn’t stressful enough, there is also a killer on the loose, dubbed the “Harper Murderer,” and a list of racist, xenophobic locals who seem like prime suspects for the killing of a young Salvadorian girl.

“A lot of the characters in this book, and the way that religion shapes community and challenges hypocrisies in suburbia, was inspired by ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,‘ including the town’s name, Harper, a nod to the author Harper Lee,” he said.

In the book, a 16-year-old character named Edward is coming of age and beginning to understand what it means to be seen as Mexican American by the world at large. Edward’s journey was partly inspired by Romero and his friends’ upbringing, as they tried to navigate their identities with little understanding of what society had ascribed to them based on their ethnicity and race.

As Romero grew older and went to college, he took a sociocultural course that began to open his eyes to his Mexican American background. Though he had Mexican lineage, Romero passed as White. He said he felt disconnected from his culture and ignorant about a lot of things relating to his racial background, despite being the nephew of Frank Romero, one of the most influential pioneers of the Chicano Art Movement. He said his only reference to that culture was visiting his grandparents’ house in Boyle Heights.

“What I did with this book, over time, is that I started to develop a counterhistory of a family that would be like an alternate version of my own,” he said, adding that his dad had left Boyle Heights and often regretted it. Romero wanted to tell a story of a family that didn’t leave their community while exploring pressures of assimilation, such as speaking and dressing “White,” all of which he experienced in his own life.

Romero also researched the communities that made up his hometown of Diamond Bar after coming across a plaque at his hometown’s supermarket that recounted its history. It told the story of how the town had been a ranch where Indigenous communities lived before Spanish settlers arrived, and of its existence as part of Mexico before becoming part of the United States.

Read more here:
https://www.ocregister.com/2026/01/30/how-diamond-bar-shaped-david-romeros-supernatural-thriller-the-enemy-sleeps/

El Martillo Press: poetry for healing and defiance

When poets Matt Sedillo and David Romero launched El Martillo Press in June 2023, they set out to create more than just a publishing house. This Latino-owned press is built on the belief that poetry can challenge injustice, serve as a form of protest, and unite communities.

El Martillo Press: A Literary Revolution

El Martillo Press brings a hammer to the world of independent publishing

Meet David A. Romero of El Martillo Press

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to David A. Romero of El Martillo Press. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Riverside Art Museum: The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture - Viva Poesía Draws Large Crowd

Riverside, CA – The voices of poets rang out through a microphone and echoed upon the brightly-colored canvasses of paintings and the bronze of sculptures, and into the ears of the approximately hundred and fifty, both sitting and standing in attendance, at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture & Industry, as part of Viva Poesía: the first live poetry reading event in the museum’s history.

Hampton Institute - Sin Fronteras: Dispatches from Mexico City

Nov 15-19, 2022 — A delegation of Chicano poets, artists, and intellectuals flew to Mexico City for five events over the course of four days across the city.

La Bottega del Barbieri - David A. Romero .. La Parola e'lava che danza

sguardo solare generoso .. uomo dalla fragorosa risata contagiosa ..

La Jornada Baja California - Somos de aquí y de allá; estamos y no nos vamos: poetas chicanos

Matt Sedillo, Iris de Anda, David A. Romero y Sonia Gutiérrez estuvieron en Tijuana invitados por el Cecut y en colaboración con el Instituto Cultural Mexicano de Los Ángeles.

La Izquierda Diario - Cultura Chicana. CDMX: Encuentro de poesía chicana rendirá homenaje a la escritora Gloria Anzaldúa

Organizado por Chicanxs sin fronteras, Tianguis Literario CDMX y Gorrión Editorial, este 15 de noviembre comienzan las actividades de Desfronterizxs. Homenaje a la escritora Gloria Anzaldúa. Encuentro de poesía chicana, mismo que reunirá a más de 15 poetas, artistas y académicos de México y Estados Unidos.

DURA :: Dundee University Review of the Arts - My Name Is Romero Review

Mexican-American spoken word artist David A. Romero’s most recent collection My Name Is Romero opens to a picture of the poet’s family to whom the collection is dedicated. In the introduction, he sets this photograph within the context of the America he grew up in:

The Pomonan - "What if we're the first Chicanos to ever go to Elba?"

"What if we're the first Chicanos to ever go to Elba?" Matt Sedillo, author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (FlowerSong Press, 2019) asked, as he and I sipped hot coffee at a blue table on a ferry cutting through the cool winds and waters of the Mediterranean...

SHOUTOUT LA - Meet David A. Romero | Independent Contractor and Spoken Word Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with David A. Romero and we’ve shared our conversation below.

L.A. TACO - How this Chicano poet from Diamond Bar got into over 50 bookstores without a major deal

What has two thumbs and has gotten his book of poetry into 50 bookstores in Southern California without having landed any deal with a major publisher? This foo.

KTEP - Words on a Wire - David A. Romero

In this episode of Words on a Wire host, Tim Z. Hernandez interviews poet David Romero.

The Signpost - Bringing in hope with Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic Heritage Month has begun, and in celebration, Weber State University has a month full of events planned starting Sept. 15 and continuing until Oct. 15.

USC Trojan Family - One Mexican American’s Identity Struggle: Confronting Race and Belonging

Thoughts on speaking Spanish and passing as white all come out in a starkly honest Q&A with spoken word artist and USC alum David A. Romero.

Ocean State Review - ART, IDENTITIES, AND REFLECTION IN DAVID A. ROMERO’S MY NAME IS ROMERO

David A. Romero’s My Name Is Romero is a funny, dark, investigatory look at what it means to be Latinx in our present moment. Romero also powerfully balances how one is looked at, looks back, and is constantly in the process of creating identities through the practice of art.

Public Intellectuals - An interview with David A. Romero author of “My Name Is Romero”

David A. Romero is a Mexican-American spoken word artist from Diamond Bar, CA. Romero is the author of “My Name Is Romero” (FlowerSong Press 2020). Romero is the second poet to be featured on All Def Digital. Romero has appeared at over 75 colleges and universities in over 30 different states in the U.S.

Grist - Poetry Review

There are many occasions that prompt us to introduce ourselves: over the phone, in an email, at a business meeting, for a friendly get-together, on our first day at a new job. The typical introduction requires that we share our names with others, and sometimes this is as far as it gets before it gets uncomfortable, whether that’s because of mispronunciation or mistaken assumption.

Cultural Daily - David A. Romero’s My Name Is Romero

I have never attended one of David A. Romero’s spoken word performances, but when the quarantine is lifted, it will be one of the first things that I do. His work on the page is extraordinary, and I can only imagine the life he brings to it as a professional spoken word artist.