Introducing Malflora Collective

Malflora Collective is a community project dedicated to preserving the lives and legacies of Latina/Latine lesbians. In this inaugural episode of Malflora Podcast, you'll hear members from Malflora Collective share who we are, what brought us together, and what you can expect from our work as a collective.

To stay connected, visit our website at malflora.org or follow us on Instagram @malfloraco.

Transcript

Meagan Solomon: Welcome to Malflora Podcast, a series of pláticas, or community dialogues, with Latina/Latine lesbians.

Alexandra Nichole Salazar: Pláticas are a Latina feminist methodology rooted in the belief that we produce knowledge about our lived experiences through conversation.

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: This podcast is published by Malflora Collective, a digital platform dedicated to preserving the lives and legacies of Latina/Latine lesbians. And we are your hosts:

Meagan Solomon: Meagan Solomon 

Alexandra Nichole Salazar: Alexandra Nichole Salazar

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues 

Alexandra Nichole Salazar: In this inaugural episode, you'll hear members from Malflora Collective share who we are, what brought us together, and what you can expect from our work as a collective. Thank you for tuning in! 

Meagan Solomon: Hola a todes. We are so excited to have each member of Malflora Collective here to kick off our very first podcast episode. I want to start off by introducing who we are. Malflora Collective is a Latina/Latine lesbian community project that reclaims the term "malflora," or "bad flower," as a source of collective empowerment and resistance.

In this episode, we'll share more about our work and our vision for the project, but before we do that, we'll have each member introduce who they are, and I'll go first. I'm Meagan Solomon, the founding director of Malflora Collective, and also one of the podcast's co-hosts alongside Alexandra and Mariana. 

I use she/her pronouns. I'm a Chicana/Tejana Jewish lesbian from Arlington, Texas. I'm a Pisces Sun, Aquarius Moon, and Aries Rising. And currently, I'm an Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies at Southwestern University. My research focuses on lesbian and queer intimacies and narratives of resistance in Chicana/Latina feminist literature.

And at Southwestern, I teach courses like Radical Women of Color and Latina Lesbian Literature, among other feminist studies courses. And honestly, I'm just always thinking about or dreaming about lesbians, both personally and professionally. I'm also a cat mom of two. And I'm a big animal lover in general. I strongly believe the liberation of all living beings and land are interconnected.

And now I will pass it to Guadalupe. 

Guadalupe Ortega: Hi, my name is Guadalupe. I am originally from North San Diego County, and I am a Leo Sun, Sagittarius Moon, and Virgo Rising. I identify as a non binary lesbian, and I also sometimes use the word "queer" to identify myself. Outside of Malflora, I am a second year grad student at UCSB's Feminist Studies PhD program, and my work broadly focuses on how older lesbians use emotions that society typically label as negative, and so thinking about things like fear, grief, um, anger as part of the archival process. And I specifically focus on digital archives simply because a lot of these archives come in the form of websites and social media and are able to live outside of these like broader institutional spaces like universities or the government and they can serve as a more of a counter cultural or resistance space.

And so I'll pass it on to Alexandra. 

Alexandra Nichole Salazar: Hi, I'm Alexandra Nichole Salazar. I am a Cancer Sun, Aries Moon, and Sagittarius Rising. And I am a queer Chicana from the Rio Grande Valley, in particular, Pharr. I am also the creator and producer of Jotxs y Recuerdos, a queer podcast dedicated to archiving and preserving queer stories, histories, iconographies from the Rio Grande Valley and other borderlands.

I am a PhD candidate in the Mexican American/Latinx Studies department at UT Austin, where my dissertation and my research is heavily influenced by my podcast, but also thinking more largely about queer borderland memory and archives and grief and healing and, and iconographies and photographs.

So as you can tell, I just love the homos, I love the gays, the theys, and that's what I do and that's what I'm about. I also have four dogs, and I'm just really excited to be in community with everyone here. That said, I'll pass it to Mia.   

Mia Santoscoy: Hello, my name is Mia Santoscoy. I use she/her pronouns. I am from the Rio Grande Valley as well. Um, I'm from McAllen, Texas. And I am an undergraduate at Southwestern University. I'm actually Meagan Solomon's research assistant. I'm a major in Communication Studies and Latin American and Border Studies.

And so far, my goal in academia and my goal with my research is to give voices to underrepresented communities, specifically within Latine communities. And yeah, I am a queer Chicana, and I'm a Taurus with a Libra Moon and a Libra Rising. And I'll pass it to Anahí.  

Anahí Ponce: Hello. Hello. My name is Anahí Ponce. I use she/they pronouns, and I'm a queer fronteriza from Chuco Town, El Paso, Texas. Um, but specifically northeast El Paso, which is its own sort of upbringing in and of itself. I'm a Scorpio Sun, Taurus Moon, and Sagittarius Rising. And that also sort of guides like my creative work I think pretty well.

Here at Malflora, I work as an editor, creative director, and researcher, and I guess my day job is that I'm a PhD candidate also at the University of Texas at Austin in Latino Studies with research interests in thinking about how women and queer organizers from El Paso/Juárez are historically and contemporarily working with and against technology as a tool for mobilization, and sort of getting us to think about how histories of the Bath Riots and Chicana feminist genealogies like that of Carmelita Torres connect into the present moment. Um, I'm a lover of all things knives, records, and jotería generally. Um, just really happy to be here in conjunction with a bunch of other badass bitches. And I'll leave it at that. Um, I'll go ahead and pass it to Deysy.  

Deysy Bonilla: I'm Deysy Bonilla. Pronouns they/she. I am a queer Central American artist. I am from Houston, Texas. I was born and raised there. I'm a Libra Sun, Libra Moon, and Virgo Rising. Um, currently live in Austin. I went to school for photojournalism at George Washington University. I graduated from there in 2021, and currently I'm a photo lab technician at a camera store here in Austin just kind of archiving people's memories. People bring in old photographs and that I get to like work with and like give back to people to preserve their histories, which I think is really nice.

And I'm part of the creative direction here at Malflora. I helped create the logo for the collective.   

But yeah, photography is my main thing, but I also love design. Any multimedia art, um, that helps bring awareness to underrepresented communities, especially, um, my Latinx and Latine community, queer community.

I also have two cats. I'm a cat mom too, Sol y Luna, and I'm just excited to be a part of this and see everything come to a culmination. Uh, yeah, I'll pass it to Mariana.

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: Hello everyone. I'm Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues. I was born and raised in Brazil and currently living here. Uh, I think I'm in the U.S. for the past seven years. I am, um, sapatão, which means, um, it's loosely translation for dyke, or dyke-ish identity in Brazil.

I am a Cancer Sun, a Pisces Rising, and a Sagittarius Moon, but I do have at least eight Sagittarius placements in my chart. Sometimes I get really confused about that. I am a mom of one human, um, two cats, uh, a few dogs. I'm very excited with this project. I've been working with grassroots queer feminist organizations in Latin America for the past 15 years.

And I decided to come back to school and do my PhD in Women's Studies. And that's what I do too now, um, at Ohio State. 

Um, and what else? I'm really, really excited to be here, um, breaking a little bit of the hegemony, but I think it's super cool to be in a space with like such great people talking about what it means to be Latina, what it means to be lesbian, queer, um, so thank you.

And I pass to Melissa.

Melissa Aslo de la Torre: Hello. I am really excited to be here with everyone. My name is Melissa Aslo de la Torre. I am a recent graduate of UT Austin from a dual master's program in Information Studies and Latin American Studies. And I now live in New York City where I'm a librarian at NYU. I am the librarian for Latin American, Caribbean, Spanish, and Portuguese studies.

So it's my first year as a full time librarian. It's been really exciting, challenging, um, I'm learning a lot and I really love working with students, especially first gen students or Latine students who are getting started in research.   

My big three are Taurus Sun, Gemini Moon, and Aquarius Rising. Outside of that, I guess, biographical, um, I am a first gen, immigrant, um, first gen college student. My mom immigrated from Zacatecas, Mexico, which is like Central Mexico. And I grew up in Missouri, so I'm from the Midwest. And that shaped me a lot, but I've also lived literally all around the United States, at various parts of my life.

So, I lived in the Pacific Northwest, I've lived in the mid Atlantic in D. C., and most recently in Austin, Texas for several years, and now New York City, so I kind of find that home is, continually evolving for me. It's something that I create wherever I go and I feel so blessed to make community, um, in so many places and including in this space here.

Um, I'm a faculty librarian and my research focus is on queer and trans archival praxis across Latin America and in the U. S. Latine borderlands. I'm really interested in how queer and trans communities record our own histories, how we preserve our histories, how we create space for our communities, how we write ourselves into history, when we have been ignored, when we have been suppressed, you know, when violence has happened, um, when sometimes the only records in official archives are records of violence and death.

And so I'm interested in where and how members of our communities are able to record life and how they are able to share that through digital platforms, through, creating, you know, physical archives. So that's kind of where my research interests are and it's kind of always evolving and I'm really interested in, in what we can do as a collective towards that end for Latina lesbian history.

So I'm really excited to be working with everyone here. Um, and yeah, I work as an editor, translator, and researcher and I love digging into the archives. 

So yeah, that's me. I'll pass it to Lu. 

Lu Farrell: Thank you. Um, my name is Lu Farrell. My pronouns are they/them. I am from San Antonio and I live in San Antonio. And I am a Leo Sun, Pisces Moon, Libra Rising. Um, I am currently in grad school. I'm getting my master's degree in sustainable design. Um, particularly interested in using indigenous futurism and design thinking to approach movement building. I'm also a visual artist, a digital strategist, um, community arts organizer. 

I really draw on inspiration from Latine folk art and my queer community, and a lot of my public and private work has been around celebrating, um, diverse queer community, and trans celebrations and embodiment.

And I am also a Chicanx trans non binary lesbian. So very excited to be part of this collective, learning about myself as much as I'm learning about my community and you know, sharing stories, preserving our histories, which is such a long time love of mine.

So it's really exciting to be able to participate in this. 

Alexandra Nichole Salazar: Thank you so much for those bad ass introductions. It was really great to hear everyone talk about what they do and just an amazing group. With that in mind, you know, Meagan did bring us all together. And so, Meagan, can you talk a little bit about how the Malflora Collective came to be? 

Meagan Solomon: Yeah, so Malflora Collective began as a passion project dedicated to memorializing and celebrating Latina/Latine lesbian existence in all of its complexity and diversity. Um, as I mentioned in my intro, I am a scholar of Chicana/Latina feminist and lesbian literature. And I'm also a Chicana lesbian myself, so this work emerged as both a professional and personal project to celebrate our stories and build community across borders.

So I had this vision to build a collective, and I began inviting a few friends to join, who then invited more people in their circles to join. And we ended up building this pretty expansive network of folks based in different regions of the U. S. with connection to different parts of Latin America. Our members also embody a wide range of gender identities, like femme, butch, non binary, cis, trans, queer. And I think this is important because it helps reflect the heterogeneity of Latina/Latine lesbian existence, even as we do so imperfectly and incompletely. But that was, I think, a shared priority to work together to organize across connection, but also across difference.  

So yeah, this expansive network came together and we began brainstorming the project and all of its different parts, which include Malflora Podcast and Malflora Magazine, which is a community-centered publication where we invite submissions from Latina/Latine lesbians and queers to creatively represent our individual and shared stories. And the first issue will actually be out this spring, so stay tuned. And we are also working on a digital archive where we can share photos and literature and other materials focused on Latina/Latine experiences. 

So that's what ultimately brought us together. And I feel that in doing this, we are honoring a long tradition of community-centered organizing and scholarship and publishing that is so central to Latina/Latine lesbian existence.

On another note, we have some amazing artists on our creative direction team who I want to spend some time talking with. As Deysy mentioned, they actually created the logo for the collective, so I'd love to pass it to you now, Deysy, to talk about your inspiration behind the logo and anything else you'd like to share about your process and the beautiful art that you offered us.

Deysy Bonilla: Uh, so yeah, me and Meagan were speaking about the Malflora project and I just became really interested in helping out however I could with my creative side. And in my art, I really enjoy doing reflections of people, just like silhouette reflections. And I think that the way that I tried to incorporate my style with the theme of the collective, I thought that placing a reflection of two lesbians facing each other with like the symbolism of the violets, which the symbolism of the violets kind of represents, you know, the lesbian experience, and um, it went through many different iterations. But I think at the end, what we decided on encapsulated what the project is about, which is remembering that we kind of all reflect one another through our queer experiences, we're not alone through how we discovered we were queer and I just think it represents the beauty of our queerness, and I hope that it is able to resonate with other queer Latines about our experience as just being ourselves and out and proud to be who we are. And I think, uh, having spaces like these really remind us that we're not alone and we have a community to lean on at the end of the day. 

Meagan Solomon: Yes, and it was a really collaborative process and Deysy was so generous with doing different iterations of the logo until we felt like it was the best representation, and the most visual representation of, malfloras facing each other. And so the violets in the background of the lesbian silhouettes help capture that, as well as the lavender and purple colors, which have long been associated with lesbians. So we hope that that translates as well. We're so grateful, Deysy, that you created that for us.

Lu is another artist on our team who actually created the podcast logo. So I'm going to pass it to you, Lu, to share about your inspiration and your process. 

Lu Farrell: Thank you. Yeah. Um, I think, you know, very similar to um, the collective logo and it really came out of collaboration with and discussion with our larger collective.

We came together to brainstorm and talk about what themes we might want to consider when creating this podcast cover. And something we talked about were really the community power of zines and DIY forms of communication and even talking a little bit about, um, Zapatista, or Radio Zapatista, and talking about how it originated as a way for members of the Zapatista movement to spread news amongst the country and the larger, the larger world, and you know, it grew so much from there, um, and it was really a way to reclaim that form of communication from the government and reclaim power and help build that movement.

And I think something that really, you know, inspired me as part of that was this concept of encuentro, a founding principle of exchange, dialogue, conversation, and storytelling, which I think you know, there's a lot of similar underpinnings to the origins of Malflora Collective.

Um, and so thinking about that, drawing on my own Mexican culture and histories, as I said, I live in San Antonio and there's papel picado just everywhere, and it's kind of something I so associate with home and my community, um, and, you know, not totally unrelated, papel picado is an indigenous art, and papermaking is an indigenous craft, and was restricted by the government, and made illegal for a time, and eventually came back and was reclaimed, and now indigenous papermaking is a thing again.

And so, there is this long people's history of fighting back against oppressive forces with storytelling and craft and community and all of those things came together for me as inspiration as I put this cover together and drawing on, you know, like we talked about with lavender, it all came together to form what we now know as our podcast logo.

Meagan Solomon: Thank you for sharing that, Lu. It's really great to hear your process and the inspiration behind the design. And again, we're so grateful that you created that for us and that we were able to come to these designs collaboratively. 

Anahí Ponce: I want to say something just because I feel like what Meagan is saying is so beautifully articulated, but it's really just getting my brain to get the wheel spinning on, like, you've given us, the how and the what historically, and Lu's artwork and Deysy's artwork also gets us to think about how what we are doing here is, not just us, it's a part of a larger legacy, of ancestors and, uh, folks who have come before us who have laid the groundwork for us to be able to come together and do this now in this moment.

So this is a question maybe that Meagan can answer but I'm open to other folks like chiming in, um, because I really kind of want get us to think about how we can ground what we're doing here in the present moment, right? And thinking about what all is going on politically and socially at the time that we are doing this kind of work, so I want to ask why are Latina/Latine lesbian legacies important in a moment like this and I know this answer is obvious and can go a lot of different ways, but I want to ask folks, like, what we think about how the work we do here can go beyond us as scholars and as activists and how are we approaching this in a larger collective outside of just us in this podcast episode?

Meagan Solomon: Yeah, thank you so much for asking that question, Anahí, because it reminded me of some other sources of inspiration for the project that I didn't mention in my earlier response. I gathered a lot of inspiration from existing literature, especially collections by Chicana/Latina lesbians like Compañeras, which is the first anthology focused on Latina lesbians, edited by Juanita Ramos. And Chicana Lesbians, which came shortly after, edited by Carla Trujillo, who will be on Maflora Podcast, so stay tuned for that.

And, um, of course before those we had This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Chicana lesbians Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga. So we have this long lineage of collective writing and publishing that really inspired me to think of this project in a collective, communal way. And I wanted to focus on lesbians in particular because I think as important as it is to see ourselves as part of a larger queer and trans community or the LGBTQ+ community, I also think it's equally important to showcase the individual forms of resistance and intimacy and politics that have been birthed and sustained by lesbians specifically. and Latina/Latine lesbians in particular. And even within that signifier, there is so much diversity, right? And so this project was also to provide a platform to investigate that and to share our stories as individuals, but also as a larger collective.

And I can share briefly that, you know, in my own experience as a lesbian and as a queer person, I kind of fell into this rhetoric that I think circulated a lot in the 90s and 2000s that lesbian was not radical as an orientation in the way that queer is. And we saw in the 90s this, um, kind of popularization of the word "queer" within the community as being the greatest signifier of radical politics.

Gay and lesbian began to be situated as identity signifiers and nothing else. But something that I had to push myself to realize even in my own trajectory as a lesbian, and this came to be more clear to me when I did research as a scholar, is that actually lesbians were doing what queer does and did prior to that word becoming as popular as it has. That doesn't mean that it hasn't come without tensions or problems, but it made me want to identify more with the term lesbian when I was in college, for example, and I began to personally push back against that widely held belief that it wasn't a radical orientation because from my readings of Black and brown lesbians, I saw how radical it has been. I think, you know, some of the popular queer theorists like Judith Butler and others who started to lead discussions about terms like "lesbian" not being as radical as "queer" were probably basing that on white lesbian experiences, not Black and brown lesbian experiences, because if you look at the archives and you look at the literature, you'll see we have been organizing and writing about our experiences through the lens of intersectionality, even prior to that word being coined in 1989 by Black feminist legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw.

And so this project is also investigating that and reclaiming that lesbian ethos of resistance and rebellion and radical thought. And I'll end by saying, I don't think lesbian and queer are in opposition either. I identify as both lesbian and queer. I just don't like it when people act like lesbianism is somehow not as radical as queer or that it doesn't have a unique history or orientation and so that's another kind of source of inspiration for the project, which I don't know if that answers your question, Anahí, but your question inspired me to recall some of those sources of inspiration for the project.

But I'll pass it to others to chime in about Anahí's question in particular. Melissa, I see. 

Melissa Aslo de la Torre: Uh, yeah, so I love that question, Anahí, and also Meagan, your answer feels really aligned with like what came to my mind. So for me, one of the most powerful, like the power of archives is, there's an affective response, there's an emotional response that happens when you see yourself, when you see what a word that you said was lineage.

And I think, even a recent example, I went to visit a gallery, it's like a really, it's a renowned, queer gallery in New York. It's the Leslie Lohman Gallery, and I went to look at an exhibit, and the artist's work was interspersed with photographs, and a lot of the photographs were of LGBTQ communities throughout the years, but one photo that really stood out to me was, it was a protest photo, and it was, like, a group of Latina lesbians, and you could tell from the, what the banner said, which I don't recall exactly, but, um, the banner identified them, and I think there was just like seeing that.

I was just like, uh, like let's go lesbians. You know, just like there's something that happens when you are able to place yourself in this lineage and see a visual, like they were out there, they were protesting, and we're still doing that, you know, and it wasn't like an overly emotional experience, but it was just like, that little bit of assurance, or affirmation that you belong to a community, that you belong in history, and I think that's just so important. And I think for me, what really drew me to this project is that having done a lot of work in archives, processing, you know, archival collections, thinking, learning about, you know, how things are described in archives, which then impacts how they are found, like how they're discovered by people using them. Also doing research on lesbians in archives. And coming across records, like entire, description of a collection that I know is about someone who's a lesbian and it doesn't have the word lesbian in it is like, that's another way that we get sort of, you know, just like erased or suppressed in the records.

And so I think for me, I really loved the idea of this collective as one that really foregrounds that lesbian identity as the thing that is connecting Latine, Latina lesbianism, and that's what we're really giving a platform to.

Meagan Solomon: Yeah, thank you so much Melissa for sharing all of that. Given your work in the archives as a librarian, it's especially meaningful to have your perspective here. Mariana?

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: I really like that question, Anahí. I think we have in Brazil saying that we don't know where to go if we don't know where it came from. And I feel like this project, it's, it's really rooted on that idea of like how we can create this collective memory, right? That has like so many shared commonalities across the hemisphere, I would say.

Um, how we are racialized, sexualized, and also erased and in this specific way to take away the radicalism, right? Of the, um, of the word, of the naming and of the political identity, right? I also do not believe that lesbian and queer are opposites or exclude one, exclude the other.

But I think there's many different layers that we need to, like, bring back , from our shared history. Right? So I recall when I moved here to United States and as I mentioned, I'm like organizing for a very long time with grassroots organizations, lesbian grassroots organizations, lesbian feminist grassroots organization.

Very specific. And when I came here and I decided to go back to grad school and I was like, I want to talk about lesbians and people were like, but what about lesbians? You know, like this is not necessary. There's no radicalism, that there's no history in there that we need to explore in the political context that we are right now.

And I feel this is the project that bring that perspective, right? Like what we're doing here to create this collective memory is specifically now in this political context. And I really like how you mentioned, like, as we are recording, a lot of data are disappearing. A lot of words in research are being censored, right?

Like, um, grants are disappearing for the things that we want to do, and we want to explore, and we want to talk about, right? So this is also a way to create the space that the memory, the collective memory, not be erased. But also, talk about the individuality, right? Like, the specific thing. For what it means to be for each one of us and the people we're going to bring to the podcast and the people that we're going to publish in the magazine, what it means to be a Latina, Latine lesbian, right?

And how we express that and how we create shared, um, process, you know, to be visible. 

Meagan Solomon: Yes, thank you for sharing that Mariana. I really appreciate you foregrounding how we are all engaging in this important work of collective memory-making, specifically in this intensified moment of political and institutional erasure, and we'll pass it to Guadalupe next. 

Guadalupe Ortega: So, thinking about why this work is really significant right now, I feel like this is something that the rest of the collective members are talking about, but thinking about how Latine and Chicane lesbians have this broader history of creating anthologies that honor our ancestors and our community, and other than those anthologies, we don't really have a very formal archive that is focusing on Latine or Chicane lesbians that is specifically made for the community, by the community, and this is really important because we live in a time where queer history, lesbian history, is being constantly attacked on all sides and being like consciously erased from not just cultural history, but also thinking about broader state narratives.

And the archive, I feel like, is a space where you can create links and bridges between multiple generations. Um, I know that I've worked with multiple queer archives and community digital archives, and finding Latine or Chicane lesbians or people that look like me, that sound like me, is really difficult. And I feel like being able to find some of these ancestors within the archive is really empowering. And also something that I constantly think about within my work is how women of color and lesbians of color often really feel uneasy about placing their stories, their legacies, into these more institutional mainstream archives, simply because a lot of these spaces value whiteness, value this sort of normativity, that focus on institutional, assimilation, and becoming this sort of, I guess, like, quote unquote normative queer that fits into these broader, I guess, assimilationist narratives. And so to me, I feel like lesbian isn't just a sort of identity marker, but it's more about this broader politics of care, about memory, about constantly working through our historical memory and our cultural politics and kind of having those really difficult conversations.

And so I feel like as other collective members have talked about, lesbian is just as political or as queer regardless of what other current, you know, like queer political or queer theories are talking about. 

Alexandra Nichole Salazar: Absolutely. Um, I resonate with a lot with what everyone has said, and Anahí, your question is such an important question, and so I have a couple of things I want to say. I mean, first and foremost, lesbians are not a monolith, and so I think that that's, you know, we bring that to light with our own collective, and, you know, thinking along those lines, similar to what you were saying, Meagan, there is this idea that lesbians were not radical, and I'm like, okay, I was raised by, like, at the time they identified as lesbians, which is part of this, like, nuance that is, is happening here.

I was raised by queer, I mean, I guess I would call them queer Chicanx parents, but at the time, growing up, they identified as lesbians. So it's like, and they're very much immersed in lesbian border culture. And it is what helped them survive this butch fam dynamic, which is another dynamic that has, I remember when I was in grad school, was deemed as old school and traditional and feeding into heteronormativity and I also thought that and so I moved away from that and that is part of why I identified as queer for so long.

But then you know, uh, recently had another reawakening and then I was like, you know what? Like, I am a lesbian. And so I was like, I had to come out again. And I told my friends, and they're like, okay.

Like, bitch, like, we already knew you were a lesbian. Like, the fuck? Like, you were in denial, baby. Um, and so it's like, but it's because I assumed also that being a lesbian meant that you were TERFy, right? Like, there's also this idea that, like, lesbians, and by TERF, it means that, like, they're trans exclusionary.

And in a lot of ways, if we look at the records, some were, but not everyone was, and I also think they didn't have the language. Like, if I look at my parents, my dad is a trans man, and he didn't have the language for it. And he could've been read as a TERF back then, but it's like, he, what, so then he was excluding himself?

Like, no, he just didn't know the language, you know? And so, I think that lesbians can be trans and they can be non binary, and so I think like that's a really important aspect here too. And then, also, I think it's important to think about too, all the different terms associated with lesbian that we're bringing in.

So it's like marimacha, because I think of that. Dyke. All of those, like, words that we're also reclaiming that have historically had either, they could have, like, negative connotations, right? 

And then also to answer your question more specifically, like, why now, if we think about when these anthologies came out historically, oftentimes they were in response to erasure or in response to something happening mean politically, and for us, I do think that in a lot of ways, this is in response to what is happening, um, politically in terms of anti-Latine rhetoric, anti LGBTQ rhetoric, and this idea that we have not been here for a long time, that there's this newness and we know that that's not true.

 And I do want to make a note on that and say that I do understand that representation is not everything and that representation isn't going to ultimately save us, but it is part of all of the larger constellation of how we continue to fight back.

And I also want to say that for some people, having enough representation comes with a set of privilege. Like, if you think representation is good enough for you, then what does that say about you? You've seen enough of yourself, you've heard enough of yourself. There's longevity for you, and that hasn't been the case for us.

Which is why we need this, people want this . It's like you said, Mariana, we need to know where we came from so we know where we're going. So, yeah.

Lu Farrell: I think picking up on what Alexandra was saying, there definitely is some piece of this where we're trying to create representation, but I think, like we were talking about with kind of this overarching predominant narrative that, you know, being a lesbian isn't, necessarily a revolutionary identity, which is always so strange to me because in my lived experience among my community, it's very much the opposite, which makes me think that the representation that's currently existing, which is so dominated by white identities that are very willing to partake in respectability politics and like part of this project is infusing the representation options with more diversity of what it means to be a lesbian, like, like we said, lesbian community is not a monolith.

And so there are TERF lesbians, there are lesbians who are consumed with respectability and maintaining a particular identity. But if you're out among the community, like as a trans lesbian, I have only ever felt so held by my community. So, to reduce our wonderful, beautiful community to the mainstream idea of what it means to be a lesbian is so short sighted to me.

There's so much opportunity to get to know the full range of what the lesbian community has done and continues to do for resistance movements.

Anahí Ponce: I just want to thank everyone for their super thoughtful responses. And I think so much of what everyone has sort of got at in different ways is really getting us to think about how the category of lesbian and Latine lesbian at that is really such an expansive thing historically. And we all fit into that in different kind of ways, and it's like up to us to bring, like, all these different perspectives.

And to keep making sure that is a term that continues to expand with the needs of the people that are taking up that term, and also, in thinking about that, you know, making sure that we are truly employing an intersectional, anti-imperial, decolonial lens to all of that, because these things don't happen in a vacuum, right?

Also just want to open it back up for any trailing thoughts, or if anyone wants to chime in.

Mia Santoscoy: Yeah. So, as a student, I've really tried to look into certain academia that really promotes, I guess, post-colonial, decolonial theories and ideologies. And it's been really difficult for me because I'm a junior now. I'm in my third year of college. So I've like learned so much, and I've gone through so much, and even within Latin American studies, there hasn't been a lot of representation within talking about queer or lesbian history.

And taking classes and doing this research with Dr. Solomon, I've learned so much. And I actually learned that it's like so central to Latin American studies and Latine/Latinx studies. So it's been a really amazing experience to be able to learn this so early on. And also, tell my friends within the community as well, and recommend them, like, books, and recommend them, uh, certain research to read, and things of that sort, and also some of my family within the community that is, like, Gen X and Millennials, and for them, it's like, it's really beautiful to see, because not all of them, like, were able to be as comfortable as like I am being queer. And so it's just, it's just such a beautiful thing because I get to like tell other people and just spread the knowledge and like, I'm just learning so much. 

Um, during this political time, it's really kind of scary because I want to go into grad school for communication studies and focus within Latino studies.

 And I'm kind of fearful of the banning of certain research and all of that, and not getting funding. Um, ultimately through Malflora Collective and other research I'm doing within classes, I've tried to be hopeful. So yeah, overall, it's just staying in touch with the community, and keep fighting.  

Alexandra Nichole Salazar: Thanks so much for sharing Mia, my fellow Valley gay, queer. And so I also want to make one last note that I forgot to say too. That we're also living in a time, which has been the case for a while, but it's especially, especially heightened under the Trump administration, is the anti immigrant rhetoric.

And so I do think that our project is also speaking to, you know, Latina, lesbian, immigrant archive, which is important as well. And so, you know, to talk a little bit more about, um, all of our involvement with this project, there's the podcast team, there's the design team and, uh, research, and I know that for the podcast, we have this vision and our intent to use plática as a form of method or methodology for when we conduct these podcast interviews.

And so for me, I came to understand plática outside of academia. Because I grew up, you know, people sitting outside talking, having, you know, chisme around the table, like chisme on the phone. I remember my grandma had a phone attached to her wall in the kitchen and she would just be there like what felt like days on end, but what it was it was her chisme time, you know, and it was a plática. And plática is directly in Spanish to English, the translation is conversation, right? It's a cultural way of talking where we talk in circles and there's not this linear sense of time. It moves on feeling, it moves on community. And yeah, I feel like oftentimes interviews are very like, this is my question and that's your answer. And you're just another question, another answer. You're not even responding to what the person is saying, which can leave out the affect, the feeling. Like sometimes people say really heavy shit and you're just going to like, okay, next question, like the fuck. And so I think that plática opens up space for, for feelings and mourning and grief and happiness and, and, and feeling that collectively. Um, Meagan or anyone else, is there anything you want to add to the, you know, plática?

Meagan Solomon: Yeah, thank you, Alexandra. I would add, there's a lot of inspiration from Chicana/Latina feminists guiding our work as a whole and guiding this praxis of plática as a method in particular. And I want to shout out Cindy Fierros and Dolores Delgado Bernal, who authored a piece on how and why plática is a Chicana/Latina feminist methodology.

Um, they wrote an article called "Vamos a pláticar," in 2016, and it's published in, um, Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social. And they describe in detail what Alexandra just shared with us, that many of us grew up engaging in this method without calling it that, meaning we had these spaces where we talked around the table or we talked in our living room with our family members to share stories and unpack histories. And this was just a natural part of life. 

And so what Chicana/Latina feminists have done in their work is pinpoint how this very familiar family practice is actually an important source of knowledge building. And I want to read a quote from the piece that they wrote in 2016 that I think captures one of the reasons why we are adapting this method for the podcast.

They write, "our family pláticas allow us to witness shared memories, experiences, stories, ambiguities, and interpretations that impart us with a knowledge connected to personal, familial, and cultural history." And that is exactly why we are formatting the podcast in a way that allows for reciprocal conversation and knowledge-sharing.

Because to be in conversation is to be changed and to be moved and to impart on each other our personal experiences in a way that crafts shared knowledge and shared history. So, we, we ultimately take up this method in service of that vision. 

Anahí Ponce: Uh, I want to interject by just saying that, you know, pláticas are, like, so vibe oriented and, again, to echo what a lot of folks have already said, we get our, like, earliest introduction into these things as young people, as children within our family spheres, and, like, for me, specifically, that definitely looked like Saturday carne asadas at my grandparents' house. 

But for me, pláticas were always so like exciting and they kept me on my toes. And that's sort of the energy I bring to scholarship and how like academia and Chicana feminism has gotten us to think, and theorize alongside pláticas and how we, you know, use that not only in our research, but just like as humans in our experience, um, and also just honing in on this idea again that it is supposed to be something that is collaborative, in opposition to, like, one of the pennants of white supremacy and this super hyper-individualized way of thinking about communication and scholarship and teamwork. Um, so I see like everything that that's been said by the people in this room and just generally is like an a way to interject in that line of thinking and to get us to be better listeners and better communicators and you know, that all leads to better forms of community, I think.

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: Yeah, this is so great. I like just to add in Brazil, we have the term "roda de conversa" so we don't have plática, but we have roda de conversa, which brings this idea of the shared knowledge production, right? Uh, it is a totally an ancestral technology, I think, uh, an ancestral process, right?

When we think about on Afro Indigenous legacies, the oral history. Right? Like how the knowledge, how we learn, how we understand the world. And we sing together, and we listen to our elders, and we learn, and you know, we press that knowledge in our daily lives.

So I think that's also very, very important as the decolonial perspective that we incorporate in the project, right? And it's also really important as a method for a digital archive, right? You know, we're creating this archive and it's not like something that it is static, right?

It is like a living, evolving space when everybody is sharing and building and producing that knowledge and that memory together. So I think it's very, very important for the project politically and theoretically.   

Uh, so, okay. I think we already talked about how we got together, how the project started and was envisioned. We also talk about our method and our perspective, but it will be really important for us to think what we're expecting moving forward with this project, you know, in a bigger picture and also with the specifics, with the podcast, with the magazine.

It will be nice to hear from y'all like what you expect and what our listeners could expect from our project.

Meagan Solomon: Yeah. So in addition to Malflora Podcast, as I mentioned earlier, we have Malflora Magazine in the works and set to be released this spring, and this is a publication that will have different themes per issue, but it is, um, a publication that accepts submissions from the community. So our first issue is focused on Latina/e lesbian lives and legacies.

And so we invited submissions, art submissions, photography, poetry, personal essays, interviews, et cetera, that spoke to the theme of our lives and legacies. And we have a group of editors and creative directors who are helping construct the magazine, and it's really exciting. We have at least 17 contributors in our first issue, ranging from different cultural backgrounds, geographic locations, taking up different mediums. So I think it's going to be a beautiful inaugural first issue. Does anyone from the magazine team, either an editor or creative director, want to share any of your thoughts on the magazine or what you're looking forward to?  

Guadalupe?  

Guadalupe Ortega: Well, I feel like in terms of the magazine, you can also really look forward to thinking about the tenderness, the care, the yearnings behind a lot of these communities as we search for each other, search for our histories.

But then there's also a lot of really fun aspects that I feel like are also part of community history, thinking about sex, thinking about dance, thinking about all of these other cultural practices that bring people joy, especially joy that is needed during a time like this.

Meagan Solomon: Yeah. Melissa? 

Melissa Aslo de la Torre: Uh, yeah, I just wanted to add that I think one of the great things about having a print magazine is there were so many, um, print, magazines and publications, newsletters, zines that are part of, like, a rich history of Latina and lesbian culture, um, and so I think I really appreciate that this is part of Malflora's work too, because there's something really important about the tangible, about something that you can hold in your hands, um, that you can feel. Um, I think digital work and digital archiving, digital media is so important in terms of accessibility and the reach that it has, so I think it's really cool that there's like multiple avenues that Malflora is pursuing, but it's not ignoring sort of like that history of print, of like the circulation of sort of underground print magazines, um, zines, and yeah, just part of that like legacy of DIY dyke culture. 

Meagan Solomon: Yeah, that's so beautifully said. I love that. And precisely why we are hoping to reach folks in a variety of ways, both in a digital format with our social media presence and the podcast and then the print of the magazine, really paying homage to those earlier visions of our predecessors in terms of creatively communicating our stories and connecting with one another in that capacity, too.

And I would just add, our listeners can also look forward to a more further developed archive coming soon with the support of our research team. 

And for the podcast, you can expect to hear the voices of all three co hosts, myself, Alexandra, and Mariana, sharing in the labor and the love of being in conversation with a broad range of folks in our community. So stay tuned for more.    

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: Thank you for listening to Malflora Podcast.   

Alexandra Nichole Salazar: To stay connected, visit our website at malflora.org or follow us on Instagram @malfloraco. 

Meagan Solomon: Until next time!