Diné
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An Email to My Peers: Black Lives Matter
Hi, everyone; As you know, across this colonizing nation, Black People are organizing and demanding justice for the murder of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmad Arbery, Tony McDade, and so many others killed by state-sanctioned violence. As individuals with various financial means and access to privileges and power in academia, it is imperative that we…
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Perfect Moment(s): My 25th Birthday
Content Warning: Death, Sexual Assault, and Rape. It has been so long since I have written anything here. The last thing I wrote was in December. Three months later and the world feels so much different than my last post. There is a sort of haunting beauty with that revelation as I celebrate my 25th…
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I write this letter to you
Dear Indigenous Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2S+) Youth; I write this letter to you and at some subconscious level, I write this letter to a younger version of myself. The words I write here are meant to offer hope and to remind you of the strength, beauty, and wisdom that was inherited.…
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The Right Sequence: Guardians, Innovators, & Guides
I have these childhood memories of dancing, closing my eyes, and hoping that with the right sequence of steps and grace, I could call forth the rain. Then, there it was. The raindrops kissing my skin. The mud caressing my feet. My body bursting with joy and laughter being liberated. I remember the strike of…
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A Story To Be: Queer, Trans, & Indigenous
I grew up knowing who I was culturally. I was born and raised to be Diné (Navajo), but I was not allowed to be queer or trans (specifically non-binary femme). Those were identities that I was not meant to explore in my household or even in school. My memory is not the best, unfortunately, and…
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Truth-Telling & Possibility Making: My 24th Birthday
I spent the last few days before my birthday attending a symposium emphasizing the idea of truth-telling and possibility making, especially for Black, Indigenous, People of Color as we/they navigate higher education. This past year has been filled with many beautiful experiences and lessons that I cannot fully share in just one blog post and…
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Loving Myself in Colonized Spaces
Over the last few weeks, as we entered the 2019 Gregorian New Year, I have been thinking about love, specifically love for myself, self-love. I have been thinking of the ways that my love has been colonized, how it has been modified and twisted in ways that aligned with what/who is considered desirable and what/who…
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Photography as Storytelling
Several months ago, I submitted the above photo in a contest sponsored by URI Research and Scholarship. It was the first time that I shared my photo without filtering my audience. The photo submitted was also my re-entry into photography, as I have been neglecting it since I graduated last year. I am happy to…
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Telling (Creation) Stories in the 21st Century
I recently read TRAIL OF LIGHTNING by Rebecca Roanhorse (Ohkay Owingeh /Black/Navajo in-law). It is considered a Sci-Fi/Fantasy postapocalyptic/dystopian book that takes place sometime in the near/far(?) future and the main character is a Diné womxn. Below is Amazon’s description of the book: While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters…
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Trauma & Broken Bones
March is almost here, and it is the month of the Gregorian calendar in which I was born during. It is usually at this time that I begin to reflect a lot about the year that I experienced and the year that I envision. Yet, as February ends and 2018 continues, I have been thinking…