Itzpapalolt came to me during a break: on academia
I still remember the day I re-read my first co-written academic manuscript, Dr. Sonya Aleman and I powerfully stated, “We understood this creation-process as Lara does, when she writes that woman can be “pregnant with a child, an idea for a book, the spark of an artwork, the will to politically organize, or any other way we as humans across sexes and genders can embody maternity as a positionality from which we create and not only biologically procreate.” I also remember the moment it clicked with the work I was doing. I was sitting in a programming meeting, deconstructing with facilitators best practices for facilitating workshops with young, underrepresented girls in our community initiative. One of my supervisees said, “I just feel so bad when they don’t know how to express themselves. I feel like I need to teach them the words they need because no one has taught them. I also don’t want to dumb down what they need to know in order to be here where I am.” I felt so
