¿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 manifest my dreams into fruition.

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 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Unpublished Scribblings