For Life Affirming Geographies is our motto! Indeed, the goal of the lab is to redirect geographical knowledge for life affirming ends everywhere! The story and history of Rita Martinez is not mine. This is a history we strive to live up too and honor. The late Rita Martiniz was a Chicana activist who modeled what it meant to honor the Native nations from these lands we love and call home. Martinez was instrumental in creating the conditions for the Chicano movement to join Native nations and peoples to abolish the Columbus Day holiday in its place of origin. This history of coalitional-relational world-making shapes the spirit of the lab and its vision for accountable research practices that affirm Native political orders. 

Isaac Rivera is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at The University of Colorado Boulder. His research and teaching spans several intersecting fields in human geography, including digital geographies, Latinx & Indigenous geographies, the geohumanities, settler colonialism, and environmental justice. He is currently working on a book project titled, Insurgent Cartographies & The Making of a Liberatory Geography. This project intersects with questions on the history of cartography, accountability, the role of Latine/Chicanx social movements in Land Back efforts alongside Native nations and making spaces that affirm life in the broadest sense. As a Xicanx geographer, teacher, musician, and organizer, he strives to be a good relative, colleague, and community member across the Latinx diaspora and beyond. He was born and raised on the homelands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute, and over 45 Native nations that call Denver home.