When Maria Yepez drove from Tri-Cities to Pullman for the UndocuQueer conference, with others in the undocumented students group from WSU Tri-Cities, she did not know what the conference was about, or what she would learn.

She left Pullman with the desire to share her new knowledge about all the similarities the two communities face with her family members. Yepez told her mother about pronouns and how to ask about someone’s identity. She continued to remind her dad not to joke about the LGBTQ community, and beamed as she thought about the upcoming conversation she planned to have with her queer and undocumented cousin, who has a boyfriend in California.

On Friday and Saturday, WSU is holding its second UndocuQueer conference in the Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center. The conference is free for students and $40 for educators, and it is designed to highlight the resources and support available for both undocumented students and LGBTQ students. The keynote speaker is Ray Corona, an undocumented graduate of University of Washington who currently serves as the co-chair for the City of Seattle’s LGBTQ Commission and specializes in leadership development and organizing.

As marginalized communities, the conference focuses on the intersections of the groups.

“We have a lot in common and this is a great time to come together to find solutions, to find activism within each other,” Yepez said.

There are 267,000 undocumented LGBT adults living in the U.S. today, making up about 2.7 percent of the undocumented adult immigrant population, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. Of the LGBTQ undocumented adults in the U.S., 71 percent of them are Hispanic and 15 percent are Asian or Pacific Islander.

An estimated 75,000 of the 1.7 million people who were eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals this year, identified as LGBTQ, according to the Williams Institute. Estimates show that 36,000 of those people received DACA status, and about 24,000 people renewed that status.

Yepez, who joined the Crimson Group after transferring to WSU Pullman, immediately volunteered to be the Crimson Group’s liaison for the event because she was so moved by the first one. She said she had never before considered the similarities the groups would have before.

She referenced the acts on campus after the election last year, such as the Trump wall demonstration by the College Republicans and the graffiti with an anti-gay slur written on a student’s car.

“It’s very hard for someone to show their status just because of the climate on campus going on last semester. A student might not want to come out due to fear,” Yepez said of students exposing their immigration status.

Yepez also recognized that fear was a daily part of both communities’ lives.

“One of the similarities we have is fear, is getting judged,” Yepez said. “Once again, the climate on our campus was targeted to both communities.”

She said that the group with which she went to the first conference talked about the lack of education within the Hispanic and Latinx communities on the topic. In past generations, few people came out to their families in the community, now, Yepez said, there are more people coming out and finding acceptance.

Yepez’s father, who used to make jokes about being gay, made his queer nephew the godfather of Yepez’s brother. She said that demonstrated the progress that has been made.

“They are learning to open up to the family, and I love the way my dad accepts my cousin,” Yepez said.

Matthew Jeffries, the director of the Gender/Identity, Expression and Sexual Orientation Resource Center and co-chair of the UndocuQueer conference planning team, said that it is that acceptance and open dialogue within both communities that is the special aspect of this conference.

“Even if you don’t belong to both or either group, you learn so much about how to be an ally to the other groups and how they intersect,” Jeffries said.