La Trenza retreat

La Trenza Leadership concluded its first retreat at the Vallecitos Mountain Refuge in New Mexico. Young women from the first and second cohorts attended the retreat along with La Trenza coaches Eva Young, founder of La Trenza and senior associate with the National MultiCultural Institute; and Zenaida Mendez, director of external affairs at Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founder of the Dominican Women's Caucus, and racial diversity director for the National Organization for Women (NOW). The retreat was led by Linda Velarde, founder and director of Centro Cultural de la Raza: Instituto de Anahuac, co-founder and former co-director of Vallecitos Mountain Refuge, environmental activist and organizer for 35 years, Aztec dancer, and recipient of the 1992 Martin de la Cruz international award for keeping alive the tradition of curanderismo.

This mountain refuge among the wilderness of the New Mexican terrain –without electricity or phone service!—helped La Trenza members (me included) get in more in touch with nature and to remember our connection to this earth and to our ancestors. By spending time with ourselves and in community during meditation and silence sessions, this retreat reminded us of the importance of rediscovering the self. Together, we were able to renew and develop a deeper sense of self-awareness and purpose.

La Trenza is committed to providing holistic leadership training for Latinas or Spanish speaking women of color. Its mission is “to organize and cultivate an intergenerational network of women of color transformative leaders to positively impact ourselves, our families, our communities and the workforce.” Recently, La Trenza received a grant from the Mayor's Office on Latino Affairs (OLA) to work with Latina girls at a DC public school.

La Trenza: Rebraiding my Grandmother's Hair A Transformative Leadership Initiative

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: La Trenza (the braid) is building a community of transformative leaders by re-braiding the wisdom and power of leadership. Rebraiding includes honoring nuestras abuelas (our grandmothers/ancestors) for paving the way and holding ourselves accountable for leading with heart and courage today and for future generations.

La Trenza's rigorous program includes coaching techniques for reframing negative archetypal patterns, leveraging positive cultural values, strengthening competencies to practice new ways of beings, analysis and utilization of data impacting communities locally and globally, and identifying areas for powerful actions.

Colombian mural

If you have not seen it yet, you should check out the new mural in U Street (in the alley between 13th and 14^th Streets and U Street). A landmark for Afro-Latinos in DC, this mural features the culture and the struggles of the Afro-Colombian community in their home country. It is beautifully constructed into several sections that narrate their legacy and current history of displacement. Joel Berger, with the input from several Afro-Colombians and a grant from the DC Council for the Arts and Humanities, used his experiences and the pictures he took during his travels in Colombia to display the lives of this Afro-Latino community in what used to be called Black Broadway. In contrast with the exhibition of Colombian hearts placed around the city, this mural tells a more somber history that specially affects Blacks in this Latin American country. The inauguration on September 12 attracted members of the DC community who were able to taste Colombian food and watch folkloric dance performances.

The inauguration was a wonderful opportunity for members of the Black community to learn about Afro-descendants from Latin America, to observe the cultural similarities, and join in brotherhood/sisterhood. Events like this also showcase the Black legacy of Latin American that usually goes ignored in the media (such as Univision where you hardly see any Blacks).

My Personal Borderlands

Newspaper articles, CNN reports, and even political campaigns are now flooded with references to the importance of “securing our borders” from potential “terrorists” and immigrants that are labeled as “invaders.” Post-9/11 America is marked by a growing concern with identifying, labeling, and “deporting” those who do not belong to an ideal of Americanism according to physical characteristics, color, language, or religious preferences. As we speak, the United States frontier mythologies are being rewritten and their boundaries redrawn, separating North and South, English and Spanish languages, and unauthorized and legal residents.

My personal experience of being suddenly labeled, named, and ascribed an imposed identity based on what is unacceptable in the United States awakened in me the urgency to explore and challenge those borders created by discourses that silence and erase the agency of women of color who are seen as illegitimate “undocumented” individuals in the discussion of boundaries. Since I reached these shores, I have not been considered an authorized agent to speak about who I am, to name myself. Discussions of my identity usually set off heated arguments about who I claim to be and who people think I should consider myself, turning people’s suggestions into impositions. The fact that I am a Spanish-speaking and racially mixed individual from a North African island (Tenerife in the Canary Islands) makes me straddle those borderlands between Europe (Spain), Latin America (language and colonial cultural affinity), and Africa, spaces to which I belong to simultaneously. However, my position within identities disrupts United States parameters of belonging and I am generally forced to chose, to pick sides, or be considered a traitor and a liar. Unfortunately, I was forced to take a side and join the cause with Latinos when, coinciding with CNN’s coverage of immigration, I was suddenly and rudely reminded by long time friends that it was time I stop speaking Spanish and assimilate. Yet, you can take the individual out of the border but you cannot take the border out of the individual. I still transgress those frontiers in various ways, such as in my poetry and now my blog.