¿Quiénes Las Muletas?

Alisha, a woman with medium-light skin and black hair, stands with crutches in the middle of a large painted yellow circular design on the floor. She is wearing coral lipstick, black rimmed glasses, and looks away from the camera. Her hair falls over her left shoulder, over a yellow baseball tee with black text featuring a cartoon image of Dock Ellis. She is wearing white shorts and black sandals, and has a red purse slung across her body.

I, Alisha (She.Her.Ella), am a krip, Chicana mama whose Tucsonense family has occupied the unceded homelands of the Tohono O’odham and Yoeme people for six generations. I write to vent; dance and sing with my toddler; clean a house that will be destroyed in no time; am laboring to turn my brown thumb green; and using all the knowledge imparted upon me to make my home a better place.

Becoming a parent has been the wildest journey of my life, which has funneled all of my past experiences, knowledges, and beliefs into a new solidification of my values–I am a more joyous version of my analytical self. I honor my Mexican American-Tucsonense family, punk rock, living disabled, my acceptance and rejection of the academy, and existing within community as the epochs of my education until becoming a parent.

I’ve taught middle school, high school, and college, using these positions to channel resources into the community. I currently work at the Southwest Folklife Alliance, an the Co-Director of the Mexican American Heritage and History Museum at the Sosa-Carrillo House, and am following through on passion projects that use my training as an historian, community organizer, and educator to capture what it means to exist in so-called Tucson. Writing has always been my release valve, which I’ve done since I was 12; my style is a mezcla a la Allen Ginsberg, everyday vernacular, political economy, Simpsons references, and inside jokes–usually to make a point.

Published Writing

Unpublished Scribblings