Human: María by

Dear Maria,

angl3508 — 2021-07-12 21:18:15 UTC

Thank you so much for sharing this clip and part of you. When I watched the clip earlier today I was taken by the many emotions communicated within the short trailer- joy, struggle, sadness, happiness, belonging, to name a few. As you spoke about the film, I would feel your emotions and connections to this film as well. I especially connected to how you spoke of the many places in the film and your life that make up the characters and your community pedagogy (not sure if this is the exact "academic phrase"...). This had me reflecting on the places that were impactful and helped to shape me to who I am today.
Love, Andrea
P.S. I can't wait to watch the whole film soon!

María

dehe7320 — 2021-07-12 21:18:23 UTC

I know what you mean when you say you felt stuck about choosing what to share! Thanks so much for sharing this part of yourself with us today. I felt moved by those few minutes in the trailer and love your description of the characters 'exploring queerness on their own terms'. I appreciate your vulnerability in sharing your stories and connections to the film. I appreciate the wisdom that you bring to this team, and I feel lucky to be working with you! Thank you, thank you. - Devon

Thanks so much for sharing this amazing trailer!

2021-07-12 21:18:27 UTC

I am so excited to watch this movie and learn more about you in the process. Although the trailer looks really good, I so appreciated how you explained your connection to the film, how the film is a representation of you. I also loved how you engaged in an analysis of embodiment in the film. Even without seeing the movie, because of your commentary, I noticed how bodies and movement were essential. It makes me think about the importance of embodiment within and outside of this academic space.
- From Stephanie

<3 María

sjstaley — 2021-07-12 21:18:30 UTC

I think one of the last things you said when you talked through your text selection was about richness. I feel like there was so much richness -- and depth -- in what you shared with us. I'm sitting with what it must have felt like to have that conversation with your mom after watching this film. How many emotions must you have felt? What richness did that opening yield? I'm sitting with the richness of this story -- how profound the experience of watching it must surely have been for so many young queer Chicanx girls. I'm sitting with the richness of the medium of film and how much can be conveyed in a single frame. I love what you shared about the film's use of gestures and what they communicate. I'm sitting with the richness of theory, of your lived experiences, and the lens of critical public pedagogy that you used to share and speak through this text. These are all reflections of your richness. Thank you for sharing. I can't wait to watch this film.
*Sara

Maria,

2021-07-12 21:18:30 UTC

The way you weave academic language and ways of being with self... The ways you queer the presentation of such concepts is so beautiful and accessible and important. Thank you for bringing this to life and sharing this film with me. I feel like I want to re read your notes and go back to so many of these scholars. I want to re/member. I want to be in their / your presence. My lineage. My muxeres. Thank you for reminding me of our role in education scholarship and more clearly where we come from. Thank you for your vulnerability and your leadership. I have watched and listened so closely through this process and I look up to you mucho! -Brittni Laura

queerness on their terms

leonarmb — 2021-07-12 21:18:43 UTC

Thank you, Maria-- for sharing this piece of you and for starting with saying "there's so much that I want to share." That really struck me, and made me grateful and excited and feel lucky to share space with you. So much of what you said is sticking to my insides-- theories in the flesh, critical public pedagogy, honoring the labor involved in the lineage that you name. Listening to you feels like I'm learning so big-- about me, about academic-y things, and most significantly, about how I want to see and feel and love in this world. How I want to teach and do research. There are such things as academic families, and I don't think we think as much as we should about the power in cross-generational connection there. I'm really feeling that this afternoon. Thank you.

Kachine

2021-07-12 21:18:43 UTC

I felt all of it & you and what you offered to us as a adieu to the world, a nod to queerness, a nod to your histor(ies). When you explained the cenotes as a sacred place, the walls, layers having wisdom and sacred, deep knowledge and paralleled that to queer spaces of the body and of the sharing of headphones, the arcade, the moment of pause that can happen in a moment that is the sacred--------im floored by your brilliance, yes cerebral, genius, intellect, but your brilliance of spirit, the body, and your roots.

also--your focus on the knowledge of the everyday, the beauty in those moments that seem so trivial, yet are so profound, that is the sauce. that is the point of wonder/curiosity for me. How do you capture all of that beauty into research? what are the movements that need to occur for the capture, or does it not need to be captured at all in live in our beings, our stories shared voice to voice. I just asked my niece (who is 4), "are you a storyteller?" she said confidently, "yes!!" storytelling, storyfeeling, storyembodiment.

gawd, gushed heart, thank you thank you thank you.

daga5285 — 2021-07-12 21:18:46 UTC

I'm amazed by the movie! I need to see it!! Love the beautiful depiction of a special bond between Chicanx folks. Your reflection on this reminds me of everything in life that makes us, us, but maybe these little things are forgotten about or not mentioned, but they are so significant. I really like how you talked about the spaces that we occupy outside of school that form our consciousness of critical public pedagogy. We can learn so much from this perspective. Having known you in and out of school, I see how both your professional and personal worlds are a wonderful and complex, authentic combination of who you are, and all these aspects are beautiful. The complexities are the best things I have the pleasure to witness, and I'm happy that you shared this with us. Thank you!!
-Danny

Queerness in all spaces

robynrasberry — 2021-07-12 21:18:51 UTC

Maria, I love that you are sharing this piece of your lens and lived experience. I appreciate that you chose this to contribute; it's a beautiful reminder of the complexity and richness queerness and community and culture can hold, and not always negatively. Your thoughts and the trailer have my mind wandering through the ways we define and dictate connection and community, and I appreciate that your have brought this train of thought into this space. It's very much a part of the work we're hoping to do, and I feel like my gaze strayed from it a bit. So, thank you. And thank you for sharing and allowing us to know you today.

Mosquita y Marie forever <3

jago9113 — 2021-07-12 21:19:55 UTC

When I first witnessed this movie I was 20 and still new to adult queerness. I was part of a group of Latinx women at ASU organizing events on campus & we hosted a viewing of the movie with the author. I remember being captivated, and also so over-my-head with the meaning embedded in the movie. The intersections of experience in this movie were complex and exciting for me, and I resonate with your description of the movie. The way the girls relate to each other, the way that it isn't explicitly a love story but a coming of age in exploration. It is not a linear narrative of love but instead of relationality and desire & pleasure.

I also am very grateful your description of cenotes as a spiritual experience. I want to think about this more!

Cenotes...pedagogies of the body...non-sanctioned sites...

pare8771 — 2021-07-12 21:20:16 UTC

Ah, María, I could listen to you share all day. Thank you for sharing the bridge and portal of this film with us. Such a beautiful story, the film, and the dialogue and connection it afforded you and your mother. I am holding on to so much of your wisdom from today, Rodriguez and gestures as archives and pedagogical acts, theorizing from the borderlands, what's said through the body, critical public pedagogy...so much. Thank you. I feel like your presence consistently improves upon and expands the world and I am so grateful to know you, from our outing in Toronto, and to both the promising and perplexing learning spaces we've shared, thank you! <3 Page