maybe if I look in my heart I can find a backdoor

Backdoors Auto class is a labor of love, about solidarity in everyday struggles, and gratitude for the friendships and community I’m fortunate to be apart of. Activism and education of systemic injustice has been a passion of mine since I was a teenager running around spray painting animal rights graffiti with my sister. Side note, she’s such a badass and I’m so incredibly proud of her! Although my family wasn’t always supportive of my activism, they were very supportive of learning, failure, and trying again. (Shout out to my dad for letting me break and fix whatever I could get my hands on, including that 1999 Dodge Durango, in his garage.)

Working on my own vehicle soon turned into helping friends and family with their cars. That eventually turned into working on friends of friends vehicles and at one point, my family lent me $1,200 bucks to start classes at community college to become an auto tech. Im still so grateful! Two years after that and I was working for the US government keeping postal service vehicles on the road in Chicago. (Don’t ever by a Chevy Uplander.) It was my first professional garage that I worked in and while I am so grateful for the knowledge and experience I was given, I could clearly see I received preferential treatment because I was white and because I was a man. Seeing how my coworker Sung was treated and how the Black and Brown mail carriers and vehicle assistants around me were treated infuriated me. Seeing how women were sexualized and talked about felt objectifying and horribly condescending. After a year, and at the first opportunity I was eligible to transfer, I was out of there and working for the USPS in Denver. Soon as i arrived something stood out to me. Out of the 40 or so technicians, there were no women. Out of the 40 or so technicians, there was one person of color. Out of the 40 or so technicians, none we’re openly queer. Out of the 40 or so technicians, almost all were cisgender, straight, middle aged, christian raised, white, men.

Working fleet maintenance in other garages, working as a roadside tech, and working as a rescue tow truck driver, I learned so much from talented and excellent technicians. I will always be grateful. Shout out to Steve and Gary back in Illinois, Briguy Ryeguy Breadman, Lauren the Music Man, Ed “you want anything from the vending machine”, Marky Mark and the funky bunch, and the list could go on. However, It was clear to me, and other people who did not fit the copy and paste demographic, that this kindness and knowledge was not only given to me for my character, technical skills, and work ethic, but also because of how close I was to the copy and paste criteria. That is my privilege. It was a privilege my family could afford to lend me 1200 dollars for community college. It was a privilege my dad was able to immigrate to the united states and put himself through college to be able to afford a house that would later provide me a garage to work in. There is intersectionality in systemic oppression and there is intersectionality in privilege. Recognition of that intersectionality is important to combat discrimination. Backdoors Auto class aims to provide equitable automotive education classes to those who have not had the same privileges as me.

We can’t fix systemic oppression on our own, however, we can help with education about your car to make life a little easier. 

Our garage is located blocks from Sand Creek. The same Sand Creek that the Sand Creek Massacre happened on. This land was not a gift and it was stolen through violence, destroyed through colonialist values, and sold into the capitalism system that we see today. If you’re ancestry is from the Ute, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Apache, Pueblo, or Shoshone tribes class will be free for you indefinitely.