Research ••Interest ••

This research examines how Latinx, Mestizx, Mexican Americans specifically non-black People of Color with Latin American lineage particpate in misrepresentations of Indigenous identity under the guise of spirituality and healing while using or administering entheongenic/plant medicine traditionally used in Indigenous ceremonies. Specific critques to this form of misreprentation are pointing to the lack of centering a form of decolonialization that refers to land reperations to Indigenous peoples, healing that perpetuates the settler gender binary and a process of self-indigenizing that is remiss of intersectional discussion of power and privilege from the "healer".

I posist that spaces that do not do the revolutionary healing work of centering Black, Indigenous, Trans or Queer folks is not radical nor revolutionary to the liberation of colonized communities and that violence is commited when revertying to an imagined space of self idigenization especially when failing to unsettler white passing ego. I am interested in the history of curanderismo and healing as a form of Indigenous peoples self-care, as well as the history of extraction and dissemination of this knowledge stemming from the "psychadelic" medicine era of the 1960s has lead to this reappropriation in Latinx spaces today. This research studies misrepresenations in healing space promoted online and other digital misrepresentations commited via the digital landscape.

My relationship to my intellectual passions in regards to my background and experiences, as a queer non-binary femme of color, are that I carry with me a need to examine beyond my experience, but with respect to the boundaries of my community. This means that while I am dedicated to Black and Indigenous liberation, I can only relay what radical and revolutionaries within these two communities communicate is necessary to their liberation and not what I think liberation is for them.

While my intellectual passions include experiences outside my realm of being, I respectively seek ways to rebuild my connection to Indigenous ancestry in a way that honors my relatives but doesn’t appropriate Indigenous culture. In this way my relationship is that of walking a tightrope while bearing the weight of my existence as a marginalized but privileged identity. I seek to navigate my intellectual passions with an intersectional framework while reducing harm in the world.