"Healing A Community" Dr. Anita Tijerina Revilla

[MUSIC PLAYING] Teach it in Chicano Studies, but Chicano Studies, but we don't always teach it in every field. And the goal is to teach it everywhere, because people need to push out the old racist, classes, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, anti-immigrant ways of being in business, in the arts, in the sciences, in any field of study. So we're just trying to transform that whole system. Hello, beautiful people. This is Bambi Salcedo. And I am Maria Roma. We are greeting you and sending you so much love and appreciation and welcoming you to our show, The Fearless. Before we begin, we want to do a quick grounding exercise. If you're able and willing, please, let's do a collective breath three times. I am going to guide you if you can do it with me, would be great. So let's begin. Inhale, hold it, exhale, one more time, hold it, exhale, one more time, hold it, thank you so much. We want to acknowledge the land where we are standing on today, and the land where you may be. We are in Tango Baland in Los Angeles. And this time that we're together, we want to invite the four elements that ignite our being. We hope that our conversation sparks the fire that we all have within. And that it claims all of our listeners to understand and to also take action. We also hope that the water will help our conversation in thoughts to flow freely. We hope that the winds inspire all of us to deliver the message that our people need to listen to today. And that continue to provide the strength that we all need to continue to move forward. I would also like to call upon Mother Earth, who continues to provide for all of us to exist. And we invoke the spirits of our ancestors to guide us and to give us the strength, intelligence, and tenacity to continue to move forward in this world. Today, we have an amazing and beautiful and incredible soul who is joining us. Anita Tijerina is not just my friend, who I have the privilege to know. Anita is an academic, is a mujerista. It's such a beautiful and amazing and incredible warrior for all of our peoples. So welcome, Anita. And thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us. Tell us about you. - Gracias, Bambi. Gracias, Maria. Thank you for inviting me. I want to start by sharing that I, you know, again, foremost thankful to you all for having me here. But also, I want to honor my mother and her mother and her mother before her. But my mother, Delia, is a wonderful, amazing pierce, the Hanna mujerista. Was a mujerista before I knew the word mujerista. And she took care of us. Was a single parent from the age of 30. My father died when I was eight. And she took care of three children. We lived in poverty. We experienced lots of the isms and the phobias that so many of our community members experienced. So I was born and raised in San Antonio. I went to college in New Jersey. Then I went to college in New York. And then I went to UCLA. I have a PhD in education. I started my first-ever job in Las Vegas at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in women's studies. And I worked there for 15 years. And there I built a department with Michael Legas and my students. It was called the Department of Interdisciplinary Gender and Ethnic Studies. It was the strongest, most radical, most student of color, friendly, queer, and trans-friendly, and inclusive community that I have ever been a part of at the university. Outside the university, we have much fiercer communities. But that usually doesn't exist at the university. So we really worked to build that. However, in 2019, I decided that I wanted to be with more Chicanex and Latinx community. And so I decided to move back to Los Angeles to be closer to community that was more similar to the family that I grew up with in San Antonio, more working class folks, more immigrant families, more people who didn't have access to the university so that I could better serve them. And also to be in an institution that really believes in ethnic studies. So I am teaching at one of the oldest Chicano studies department in the country that Bambi is also a graduate of. And I'm really proud to work with a fierce team of Chicanex, Latinx faculty in the Department of Chicano and Chicana Studies and Latino and Latinas Studies at Cal State LA. Well, that is amazing. What inspires you everyday to continue to do the work? What inspires me most is my family, my mother, my sister, my brother, and all of their kids. We struggled a lot growing up. We had a lot of violence. My father, like I said, he died when he was young, but he was already struggling with alcoholism and had cirrhosis of the liver. He had what I think is an undiagnosed mental illness. Now I think it was either bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, which my sister has. And I have watched my sister for 13 years struggle with mental illness and I have raised her children, our children for 13 years. So I think watching my mom struggle and knowing that my brother inherited the violence of my brother and that my sister inherited the illness. I inherited the sadness and the trauma. I wanted to, at some point, at first I just wanted to survive, right? And then at some point I did want to thrive, but I didn't really know how to thrive anymore. I didn't know how to just thrive. And I wanted to stop fighting because I had spent my whole life fighting both physically and emotionally. And so then I said, well, I know what my family has never been able to do is heal and forgive. And so what inspires me is the desire to help myself, my family, and my students understand what it means to heal your community, not just to survive in it, but also to heal that community, not to continue the anger and the continued fight, right? Because it's one thing to realize racism is attacking us. These phobias and antagonisms against our communities are constantly attacking us. That fuels you for a little while, but then you burn out. And then eventually you need something else. So what fuels me is the love of my family and the desire to heal myself so that I don't continue the pattern and then my children to make sure that they have a different reality. And then I extend that to my community. That is so beautiful. Yeah, thank you so much. You touch on something that is very real, that particularly in our communities, right? We have ignored for such a long time. What would you say to our listeners who don't want to talk about mental health issues and our families and our communities? And how can we encourage for people to do whatever they need to do in order to heal, like you said? I think something that we need to realize is that when we have a lot of pain in our family, we usually stigmatize it. So physical abuse, it's usually inherited. We're a colonized people. Colonizers literally beat us and sometimes enslaved our ancestors, sometimes murdered our ancestors, are still murdering trans and queer siblings and ancestors. And so we come from a legacy of abuse. And it's up to us to put a stop to it. If we don't talk about the way it's impacting us, our spirits, you don't even have to be religious to believe in your spirit. Your spirit, you know you have it. It's what feels gives you essence and your ability to know who you are, right? So your spirit is being murdered. You go to school, it's being murdered. People don't let you be who you are. They don't believe that your trans, that your mojave, that you're an ombré, that you're queer, they don't want you to be that person, then they're murdering your spirit. They're attempting to murder that spirit. So this has an impact on your emotional, psychological state. And if we're not talking about it with friends and support, then we have to find therapists who are, and we have to do both, I think, because what I'm finding is that people want a quick fix of healing for generations of pain and trauma. I invite people to ask themselves, like, is my spirit like healthy? How am I behaving like a spirit murderer? Even as a queer or a person of color, am I spirit murdering somebody else? 'Cause sometimes we lash out against our own community. So again, I just want to invite people to think about how we want to, like, say, oh, that's a bad person. But the reality is that it's not just that there are good and bad people. We all need healing. And we only have control over ourselves. But I invite people to think about how they can take care of themselves. And when you take care of yourself, other people will see that that healing is what they want. They'll want to be around it. They'll want it for themselves. I'm gonna take your invitation. I think that that was so profound. And it literally spoke to me. I think you touched on something that is so close to the work that we do about living that daily trauma from sharing the stories and the trauma from your family and community that I'm gonna take your advice and work on some of those things. 'Cause you're right, if we're not completely healed and continuously working 'cause there's always any trauma introduced to our lives. So I'm taking your advice and your invitation to do that as a project. Yeah. What would you say is one of the biggest misconceptions the world has about you? - I think that, you know, and some black and brown women of color have brought up this idea already. I don't want to take credit for it. But that idea that I'm so strong that nobody can mess with me. And you know, this speaks to the fearless broadcast. Like there are ways in which I have taught to myself to be fearless, but I cry, you know, I cried yesterday. I am sad, you know, I have my own sadness and my own pain and I need help and support too. So I think the biggest misconception when people see me and my, my Facebook name is Mujed Fierre, right? Like that's my, you know, and I am fierce, but you can be fierce and sad at the same time. You can be fierce and need desperate support at the same time. And so the biggest misconception is that I am so strong that I know I need no support, that I need no help or that I can help and save everybody. - Everything that I'm hearing right now, I'm taking it as liberation, right? And our movements, right? We always talk about liberation. And so I wonder if people do understand the concept of liberation. I want for you to tell us on your own words, what that's liberation means to you. - Old, I'm gonna say Chicano scholars, Old Chicano movement people, they thought they could define liberation for us in one sweep. And that liberation didn't include queer and trans people or oboeris. So that's the problem with one liberation definition. For me, liberation means, it means healing myself specifically from co-dependent relationships. I don't know if you all know what co-dependence means, but co-dependence for our audience members means that you are so busy taking care of other people that you're not taking care of yourself. It looks like you're really helpful and you're trying to do all the things and you're really on top of stuff, you're controlling things, you do all the events, you do all the perfect classes, et cetera. You're the perfect parent sometimes, not perfect. But you're on top of stuff, but you're only doing that stuff because you're not dealing with your internal sadness, your internal healing. And so liberation for me is eliminating as much as possible my co-dependent behaviors in my family, in my relationships with my partner, with my work in my workspace, even with my students and community members, because there are activities that you might be one of these who take care of their community at their own demise, right? You're sick, but you want to show up for your community and you get sicker and you don't take care of yourself and then we lose you. That's the worst of co-dependence. So that's one part of my liberation. The other part of my liberation is just a truly loving home and community space, where I don't have to be afraid that the people who are closest to me, that are in my home or in my friend's spaces, will say mean things to me. I'm very sensitive, so I don't even really like jokes when people are making fun of me or insulting me or saying racist, classic, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-immigrant stuff. That's not allowed in my house. Not from my family and not from my friends or community. So for me, that's my, I know I can't control the world, but for me, that's the liberation that I can do in my, in my own life. - So I appreciate everything you're saying. What are some of the most proudest moments in your life? If you can look at your biggest accomplishment, what are those and how have they influenced where you are today? Most recently, my children who are my sister's children as well, like I said, I've been raising them since they were three and four years old. They are now, when just turned 18 on Thursday, so she's an adult, raise an adult. She got into Cal State Long Beach in Fullerton. Yeah, I've had one in the Seva, and my nephew is a junior in high school. Yeah, I've had to give a said. I mean, I just want them to be happy, self-sustained children and young adults soon, and I think I did it. (laughs) And then beyond that, I have built some wonderful Muherista, Hotheria spaces. So I talked about UNLV. I also have worked to build a community with Bambi, called the Association for Hotheria Arts and Activism and Scholarship, and it's a national organization that lots of our Amigas, Amigos, Amigxes, Amigx have contributed to, and I hope it keeps growing because it's one of the most beautiful spaces that brings together academics, artists, and community workers, organizers, et cetera, bring us all together to create that future liberation experience that we want for Hotheria space, and Hotheria trans-eclusive space, right? So we want that to build in wider ways and be very inclusive, and we want that to be rooted also in the Muherista vision, Muherista being like a Chicanax, Latinx feminist vision. So I've already seen it. My students are out doing like wonderful things. You interview them right now. They're teachers, lawyers, organizers. They're doing amazing things. Even if they're just doing community work or family work in their house, you can see them doing Muherista work. Anywhere they walk, you can see them doing their Muherista work. And so that's an incredible accomplishment to me. - You talked about the students that you have mentor and supported, and that they're now doing amazing things. What has inspired you to do that? - I think I had a really wonderful role model, and believe it or not, he's a Chicano heterosexual man. Danny Solorzano, some of you have maybe heard of him, he's a professor in education at UCLA, and he single-handedly, he has probably graduated like, I don't know, hundreds of people of color, critical scholars in critical race theory and critical education, and beyond. When I met him, it's a common deal. You meet him, he's got these wonderful little crinkles because he's always smiling. He's so loving and welcoming. And a place like UCLA that's usually known for being competitive, for sometimes being like unwelcoming of students of color, women, again queer people. Every time I talk to him, every time I talk to his students, they always say, Danny made the difference. Like Danny created the space for me. I got there and he said to me, 'cause I was like, "Mm, Danny, "I don't know if I want to do this PhD, right?" I see so much, right? Like, simply, when we're activists, we're like, "I don't know if I want to do this." They've been, you know, masters, even bachelor's. I was like, "Ah, why do I want to go to school?" Like, school doesn't matter, the community works. And so that's where I was when I first started my PhD. I said, "Danny, I believe in revolution. "I don't want to do this." Like, "What is writing an article gonna matter?" He said, "I need them." You have a fire that burns within you. It is my job to keep that fire burning. He says, "You and I want the same thing. "We want to change this world for the better. "We're going to do it differently, "but we want to work towards that." And so, literally, that sunk into my soul and it gave me the animal, right? Because I kept telling him, "My mom, my brother, "my sister, I'm never gonna read these articles. "It's not gonna make a difference to them. "It's not gonna change their lives." Maybe my mind hasn't changed their lives a little bit. It's helped them survive a little bit better. And even that has not been enough, right? But what Danny gave me was the animal and the ability to say, "Oh, maybe "sitting in this classroom will matter." And so, what I did is I took that and it gave me permission to study what I wanted to study, which, in grad school, I studied flasawomen, which is a Chicana Latina group at UCLA that created the term muherista, right? They taught me how to do a muherista work. I wasn't even identifying as a, you know, I'm sure I was a feminist already, but they solidified my muherista identity. They even solidified my hotelia identity. At the time, I was basically a questioning bisexual, right? And I now I'm a very fluid, queer person who loves whoever I want to. I don't ask permission, regardless of gender, et cetera. And so, but I took what they taught me and I shared it with everybody I came to contact with. Every classroom, every person, I'm like, you know, this is what I learned. And then I wrote about it. And so now, you know, these students, from me, sharing it verbally in class and in my writing, they've been able to take it bigger and better, right? And one of the cool things is recently I wrote, I read my colleague's dissertation, the recently minted queer doctor Roberto Rascal who just got his PhD from Rutgers. And he wrote about muherista framework, a muherista consciousness framework. He literally documented where my former students, my current community and friends talked about what they learned in women's studies and in activism in Vegas. It's like a history book of Vegas, like it's his own research project. But it's so beautiful because it literally shows me all the ways that my work mattered, that even the work of Danny, and before him, the work of my mother, right? And she's always the origin story. My mother was the first feminist I ever met. Her father was what we call a benevolent patriarch. Like everybody loves him, he's really sweet, you know, but he had all the power and that power was sometimes, you know, hurtful, but nobody really says it because he was in violent or hurtful. But he was still a very strong benevolent patriarch and everybody, you know, did what he said. And my mother fought against that patriarchy, both his patriarchy and my grandmother's patriarchy. So my grandmother wasn't a patriarch, but she was loyal to patriarchy. And I always tell my students, women aren't necessarily the patriarchs, but they're loyal to patriarchy. They hold it up and they can be just as vicious in their patriarchy. So those two people, they were the ones. My mom, my advisor, they gave me all the motivation that I needed to build that community everywhere I go. To me, this is all inspiring. How education and the liberation of people, it's kind of intertwined. How do you inspire more people to understand that? Although it is kind of a systemic issue, how do we utilize that to liberate our people? - Yeah, no, that's a great question. And again, like I think what I realized was that I always had the home knowledge, right? And the home strengths and, you know, other people write about it, like pedagogies of the home, like how we learned this in the house. You know, we learned a lot of these survival strengths from our, from my mothers, our grandmothers, you know, the people who took care of us, but we don't have the language. And we don't usually know how to defend ourselves in ways that people with power will respect. And we want to eventually get rid of those people who don't respect us, right? But it's a slow process. And I think until we replace them and they become obsolete, because they will. And you see that already happening, already administrators of schools, teachers, et cetera, are already having more critical thinking and legislators, et cetera, that soon, you know, if we continue to push people to raise their awareness and have a liberation, you know, perspective, a critical perspective, in anything you study, 'cause that's the thing, we did teach it in Chicano Studies, but Chicano Studies, but we don't always teach it in every field. And the goal is to teach it everywhere, because people need to push out the old racist, classes, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, anti-immigrant ways of being in business, in, you know, in the arts, in the sciences, in any field of study. So we're just trying to transform that whole system. We want to remove the power that has continued to dominate and oppress the people who are, include ourselves in our community. And in the meantime, what we're doing is empowering ourselves with the voice, the skills, and the knowledge to articulate for lack of better words, how messed up they are, right? Like how effed up they are, and then we'll tell them, you know, this is a better way to do it. Anita, I do want to say that I am so privileged that I get to also use your work, you know, when I did my thesis for my masters, it was important to include you and your work and to, into my thesis, I wish we had more time, but we also want to give you the opportunity, is there any message that you want to live people with? - Gracias, Bambi, for that opportunity. I think I just want to say that you both honor me. You honor me with your love and with your company. And Bambi, this is the master, I'm assigning your thesis to my class. I'm teaching the first ever Hothedia Expressions class. I just want our community to know we exist. We're here, and as you, you know, point out Bambi our existence is our resistance. So I love you, and take a class with, you know, a queer scholar. - Yes, and yes or you know, and I don't know if I have shared with you, Anita, and I am going to be teaching also, at some point, either community college or in some kind of college, but definitely we'll be teaching sometime down the road. Beautiful people, unfortunately, we have to close this session, but please show love and appreciation to Anita. You know, our beautiful and amazing sibling who just has enlighten us with, with their wisdom. Thank you so much, everyone, for being here with us. This is Bambi Salcedo and my beautiful sister. Maria Roman, and it's been a pleasure. - The fearless podcast is hosted by Bambi Salcedo. - And Maria Roman, we wanted thank you for tuning in for sharing space and for learning with us today. - I hope it's that we have given you a little bit of knowledge, joy, and feel inspired. - And always, always remember to live out loud and live fearlessly. - With much love and respect, always, hasta la próxima.