Fedella Lizeth

This episode features Fedella Lizeth, a Nicaraguan and Italian lesbian photographer from San Diego, California. In this plática, Fedella discusses her upbringing in San Diego, her journey with analog photography as an archival tool, and the importance of building relationships with community members through and beyond her lens. They also discuss the significance of their lesbian identity and expand the meaning of Chicanismo to account for Central American perspectives and those of other marginalized communities fighting alongside Chicanx movement activists, past and present. You can learn more about their work here.

This episode was originally recorded in August 2025.

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 

Meagan Solomon: Hello everyone. Welcome back to Malflora Podcast. This is Meagan and I am so excited to be co-hosting this episode with Mariana. And we are joined by Fedella Lizeth, who is a lesbian, Nicaraguan, an Italian analog photographer from San Diego, California, the city she pays homage to, which is one that houses a very distinctive culture fueled by hardworking people from many different backgrounds, which she celebrates through her lens. This is the basis of their work and what fascinates them as a photographer, or what they call "the poetry and the hustle of life." You can learn more about their work at fedellalizeth.com. Welcome to Malflora Podcast, Fedella! 

Fedella Lizeth: Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for you both of you guys like inviting me and I can't wait to have our conversation.

Meagan Solomon: Yes, thank you so much. So to begin, can you share about your background and upbringing and how it has informed your work?

Fedella Lizeth: Yeah. Um, well I was born and raised here in San Diego. You know, San Diego is a, it's a city. It's a, it's a big city, but not really that big. And growing up here it wasn't really like a popular city. Um, now it is. Um, but so my upbringing here, was very beautiful in the way that, you know, San Diego is a beautiful city.

We have access to beaches that are nice and also mountains the opposite way that aren't too far and good weather and stuff like that. And also San Diego is a city that is a, a bigger border city. There's a lot of military presence here with navy bases everywhere. And we also have the biggest Marine Corps base here.

And so with that comes systems of certain struggles that people of color go through in populated cities. So my upbringing here also was a little difficult, just in battling what a lot of us here that aren't maybe put on like the mainstream tourist brochure. You know, battling like food insecurity, housing insecurity, addiction and stuff like that, you know, generational curses that live with us. A lot of our families here are immigrant families.

And yeah, so like those, those parts were hard to grow up in for sure. But somehow as I've been older, I've been able to kind of therapize myself by making those things beautiful. Not in the way that takes away from the pain and the true essence of what those things are, but to learn and understand why those things happen and try to heal within myself and heal those that I love around me too, in some way, through photography.

Meagan Solomon: Thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate you offering a fuller portrait of San Diego than maybe what meets the eye to those of us who are not from there. And I appreciate you just sharing your very specific experience and how it has inspired your work as a photographer.

As I mentioned in your intro and as you name on your website and other parts of your work, you are of Nicaraguan and Italian descent.

So a follow up question for you, what did that look like in your upbringing? Did you travel at all to Nicaragua or Italy? And/or how did those cultural elements shape you or arise in your upbringing as well? 

Fedella Lizeth: That's a really good question. I have never gone to Nicaragua and I was only able to go to Italy last year.

I think that traveling like that was never accessible for me and my family. There were other family members who could, but we just couldn't. So, you know, like even going to Italy for the first time last year, I had like an immense amount of anxiety just two weeks before for those two weeks because I felt like I didn't, like, deserve it.

Like I felt like, no, this is how far I can go. I can get the ticket, but I felt like I still wouldn't be able to make it there because it just never was a part of my reality before. It wasn't even a thought once. And like that was a really hard to get over that, to realize that, how anxious I was, because I felt like this is something I couldn't do.

But I was doing it and then I made it and I was like, oh. And when I got there, I had like my 10 family members behind me bringing them there too, you know? But, growing up in San Diego, we have a pretty big Italian community.

A lot of Italians moved here, um, in Little Italy. And also a lot of Mexicans moved to Little Italy, so a lot of us are Italian and Latino. Most are Italian and Mexican. I'm Italian in Raan, but so there was this melting pot of a community that has very similar values and ways of living, so that's like where my mom came from and where I grew up when I was with my grandma and stuff.

But I would say our sense of culture on the Italian side was found in those in that neighborhood and in my Nona's house and in our family homes. But also we did have the convenience of having a Little Italy where like, you know, I had delis I would go to and stuff with my Nona and go get you know, food and see people she knew go to the church. There's an Italian church that most all of our nonnas go to.

As far as my Nicaraguan side, that one, there was no visibility outside of my house for Nicaraguans and Central Americans alike. There still really isn't, but I'm trying to change that. So my community, our Nicaraguan community is our family.

And so that side, my dad's side, is very, very family oriented. They migrated here from Nicaragua, my dad included. And you know, as I'm older, I can understand why we're so family oriented. Not only because that's the only place we could celebrate our culture, our salsa music, our eating, our ways of living as well, but also like it was the only safe place we could do so, fully, authentically, you know, unapologetically.

So, I would say I grew up really proud about my two cultures, but I also grew up in a city where the demographic, if it's Latino, it's typically Mexican. And if it's white, I mean, it's white. So like my community that I grew up in and felt comfortable in was also the, like the Chicano community, Mexican community here. That's my community too. Um, because that was the closest resemblance of both cultures. I mean, that was, that was all around us.

Meagan Solomon: Yeah, definitely. And I really appreciate you sharing the ways different communities interact in San Diego and how you manage to find community, obviously first and foremost in your own family structures, but also the larger community. And we'll talk about this more, but also in the greater Mexican community in San Diego, just having shared traditions, shared language, while there is obviously a lot of differences, there's important connections that it sounds like you've made, that have allowed you to sustain community across difference, which is really beautiful and really important.

Fedella Lizeth: Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I feel like for a lot of the people around me I could speak for, my closest friends and myself, I think that living in San Diego with all these different, parallels and complexities, we're all kind of very fluid. There's also San Diego culture that is so beautiful and unique and does not repeat itself in any other city I've been to.

And I think that has a lot to do with how fluid we are. Yeah. And if you come here, you're probably gonna be greeted with kindness, we're very friendly here, and like, I think the sun helps a lot for our mental health. But, um, I think we were given no choice but to acclimate to our ever changing environment, whether that's society, politically, or, um, economically.

So, it's important that we all learn to understand each other's differences and also start creating our similarities and creating bonds.

Meagan Solomon: I have visited San Diego a couple times myself, and I've definitely witnessed that, even in the short stints of time that I've been there. You can see, especially in the more predominantly Latino communities, and just larger POC communities, this melding of cultures, not so much that it robs them of their individuality and their differences, but I think an important source of solidarity across difference between Latino communities, between Asian communities, Black communities, Arab communities, so many, because California, similar to Texas, has a lot of migrants, and I can really see that in the fabric of the city. So I appreciate you highlighting that.

So, it's very clear that community is a really central part of your work. Can you spend some more time speaking on that inspiration as well as the mediums that you take up in your work to document community?

Fedella Lizeth: Yeah. Sometimes I wish there was another word for community just because it is so commercialized now and it sucks, but like, I love my community and it's the one word I got right now. When I say that though, I also mean I love the people that I've gotten to know. I love the people that have led me into their lives, and I have the privilege of learning about them and seeing them and letting them see me.

And whether it's a stranger or someone that I grew up with, my community is relationships. It's not like a visual aspect, right? So like the visual aspect is, for me, the photo that comes after. But what's before that is, could be months of just a friendship building with no purpose to take photos until it aligns, until that's what we both feel like doing. You know? So I think it's very important for me to make bonds with people. And that goes without my camera in between us. That's just about me and the other person. And if there was a option, like opportunity or something, where I can say like, "can I take a portrait of you?" Like then they might just let me, you know, but that's never like the purpose.

The purpose is to just, I love to love and I love people. I know that a lot of us forget what it feels like to be loved unconditionally. And maybe it's the way that I grew up, all the things that I've seen and experienced where I've had to be open to so many different realms, makes it easy for me to love someone unconditionally.

And I think that's just kind of like what drives me as a person, as a photographer.

Meagan Solomon: That was so beautifully said. And I think that's such an important reminder for all of us, that community is not something that just exists by virtue of having a similar identity or similar upbringing. It is something that takes work and consistency and showing up for each other. So I can totally understand the commercialization of the term that you described and how, um, it almost needs to be revitalized and taken back to its roots of community is relationship building.

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: I think was really, really, as Meagan said, it was beautifully said. I think it totally connects to what you said in the beginning on like documenting as also part of a healing process, right?

Like you try to bring the beauty of it without taking the truth and what it is. And this becomes like this healing process. And I feel that documenting as part of, right, you have the fine, you have the picture, you have the portrait, you have like, um the work. But also it's in the process. It's not just that it's there and we can commercialize again. And I think it really, it really shows. I was looking at your albums in your gallery, in your website, and that it's really, it's visible that conversation, uh, especially in the portraits. Like the portrait, it really shows this conversation and the beauty and the truth and the conversation you have in your work with your community.

So I just wanted to add that.

Fedella Lizeth: Thank you for saying that. And it meant a lot to hear the both of your guys's like assurance really. That's what it always sounds like to me when someone sees me. As assurance. And I think that's one of like my love languages. So I appreciate you guys. 

Meagan Solomon: Yeah, of course. And then the second part of the question is, if you feel compelled to speak more on the specific mediums, especially for those of us who may not be as savvy in the world of photography. You describe yourself as an analog photographer. Could you share more about what that means and maybe your specific approach to photography more broadly and maybe portraiture?

Fedella Lizeth: Yeah. So I immediately think of just what made me want to get a camera and what it meant for me to get a camera. So I found a film camera at a thrift store and it was $40 and I was 18. And I had a camera before, like one that my dad got me, I forgot about this, but I realized he got me like a little digital camera and I used it enough.

I'd always, you know, use whatever camera resource on someone's phone I could use. Like photography was always, always living in me because I really liked to document what was going on, but I didn't ever see it as something like as big of a scale as now what it is for me now. But I think that year when I walked into the store and left with that camera, that meant that for the first time I was going to invest in myself and invest in something that had to do with only me.

I grew up having to take care of others. And then when I worked, I worked and then, you know, like I just always had to be of service of others. Um, and I never really felt like I was a creative person. I know I'm an Aquarius, but I never felt I was creative. Because all my other friends were in high school, and I was like, this is cool. You guys have cool art shows and they're painters and I don't know, they're cool. I'm just the cool looking friend on the side. But yeah, I guess when I bought that first camera and then found a camera shop and realized, oh, this costs money. It's film. And so film costs money. Film is not digital. Analog means film.

Yeah, investing in myself really changed the way I started to think about myself and also thinking about what my capabilities were. And it provided me a different way of, or a different avenue of seeing my world, because literally, I'm used to surviving here and the camera, I don't need to survive with it.

If anything, I was able to take my time with my world this time. I was able to sit and think about what is it I wanna spend my film on? Because each frame is delicate. It's 36 exposures. You only get 36 tries. And after pattern and pattern of learning, 'cause I also taught myself, am teaching myself, um, you know, I'd began to get frustrated because I'd be like, oh, I just wasted a whole roll. Or I put it in wrong and I thought I photographed this event. It didn't even, it didn't even photograph 'cause I didn't put it in right. And so that was also like an experience where I had to like, be patient with myself in learning something new, be there for myself and understanding that this, that that photo would not be available to me and then encourage myself to try again.

You know? And so it became this this kind of relationship, new relationship with myself that I've never had before. And so I think that the strength of film, the strength of analog is that you do have to put more intention and you do have to have more patience in photographing with film.

And the access to film is now more popular again. So there is film around to buy and to get developed and stuff like that, but it also is very costly. And I, you know, as an educator who teaches kids photography, we use digital cameras because they're accessible, more accessible. But I always wish that I could show them how, not how to just use a film camera, but I wish we could start with that. Film photography is also made to be inaccessible to certain demographics historically too. So, you know, I feel like by choosing film I'm also in a way resisting structures that were not meant not just for me, but also others that were not meant for us to like take hold of this sort of photography.

Meagan Solomon: That's beautiful. Thank you for giving us that perspective about film. Um, specifically I wanna highlight the fact that because film takes time and money, it also creates a foundation to build trust with the people that you're working with. Because with a digital camera, you can show the photos immediately, you can delete them, you can redo things. But with film, there's a longer process. So I can see that as maybe being something that helps build trust with community members and even yourself. But I also just think it's beautiful how photography also became like a vessel for your autonomy and agency as an individual.

Fedella Lizeth: I appreciate you saying about like how film develops this sense of trust because yeah, that's one of the things that I learned quickly when I started to get comfortable photographing other people. Like people that were not my friends. It's like, oh, like you have to wait. I have to wait. Like I can get your phone number. I'll send it to you. And yeah, that's definitely a level of trust for sure, to quickly develop with someone that I don't know.

Meagan Solomon: Thank you again, for sharing that. So, another important feature of your work that we appreciate is the way that you seem to utilize photography as a venue for archiving your stories, those of your community, of family members. Um, and here at Malflora, one of the things that we're deeply invested in with our podcast, with our magazine, and then with our actual digital archive we're developing, is using this moment to preserve stories, especially of everyday people whose stories are otherwise maybe not preserved.

And we know that this is especially important now under the intensified fascism that we are living under, where our stories are literally under attack and our histories, and how they're preserved are under attack. So can you speak on the importance for you of using photography as an archival practice?

Fedella Lizeth: For sure. I think that's one of the main intentions as a photographer for me, is to document the world around me. Um, the parts that I think are important to visualize, and I think also the parts that I fear might change or might be taken away. Um, and that could be through portraiture, but it also could be through just like identifying staples in my city or certain environments or things like that.

Yeah, it is overwhelming to understand that a lot of things that we felt strong about in the past that might have not been taken away are definitely quickly taken away. And I think that my way of coping has been holding onto the work that I have photographed. I've been spending a lot of time actually going through my archives lately, and that's something I've avoided for a long time.

Because there's so many stages of life behind these photos. Um, but now I look at these and I'm like, oh, wow. Like, you know, this was, it was actually hard then. It was hard then, and it's gonna be hard later, and it's hard now. And somehow we still keep going. And I think that's why it's important to continue to document the world around us as reminders, that it's always going to be difficult.

Unfortunately right now it feels terrifying, but I remember in 2020 I felt really terrified. I remember in 2016 I felt really terrified. And as long as I have the opportunity and privilege to keep walking one foot in front of the other, then my intention as a photographer is to keep documenting and to teach others how to do it too, because these are moments we should be preserving.

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: Yeah, that's so, so interesting. How to connect, um, the importance of documenting the community, the practice, but also that be the piece of resistance, right? Uh, is the way that we can show up also. And it's really interesting because I think we're in this moment that everything feels so emphemerous, right? Like so it can go and, um , it's a short attention span.

It's a short memory. Right now, it's just another thing and another thing and another thing. And that, that documentation, that archival as something so political, right? But also, uh, so organic to you and how you connect to yourself, how you learn by yourself, and the people around you.

And how to you express love and see love in the people around you. It's so important because it really connects on how the work is done and just resistance, right? Like showing up how we resist and instill love, um, and still create beautiful things. I think that also connects a little bit of, um, with the identity part.

I was going to ask, and I know you started, uh, to talk about earlier about what it means, um to be Latine, Italian, and lesbian. And how the lesbian part of your identity is now communicating. And I think, um, it would be cool if you could tell like more how that lesbian identity connect with the Latine, Italian, and the other parts of your identity.

Fedella Lizeth: That is a great question. And like I said before, I'm glad that it's being asked today. Both my parents were very open, in general, like I went to Pride every year and I went to Chicano Park Day every year. Like both those days were mandatory.

So being queer didn't feel hard for me. It didn't feel like it was going to be an issue ever actually. And I, I'm glad, but it didn't prepare me for the moment that I realized it was going to be an issue for me because my parents, while they love me unconditionally and support me, my extended family does not, and they were the last people I thought that would have an issue with it.

And they're the Latino side. Um, because growing up the Latino side was very much a safe family for me in a way. They were more stable. Um, they were more planted in my eyes. And whenever I felt like I wanted to escape from my reality at home, I would go 40 minutes up north and see them hang out with them and let them, they would be the only ones that would really take care of me, in a way where I didn't have to worry about anything.

So I grew up very close with them. And so when I came out to them, I mean, it was like I told my best friend and then she was like, absolutely not. You know, like, that's not welcome in my house. And that was soul crushing. I was 18 and I was like, what? And so, yeah, that sucked. And you know, we didn't talk for three years.

Um, it was like mutual, but not mutual enough for me. Like I was 18, you know? And I think that my superiors, the adults in my life, could have been there for me and they weren't. So I do feel like in a way I was kind of shunned, you know, because if I didn't do anything other than accept maybe their agreement of like, don't ever, you know, come in with that in my house. Like, leave it at the door. I didn't wanna do that. And there was no other, there was no compromise. We didn't see each other for three years. I didn't talk to them for three years and that was when tradition started changing.

Um, so versus my Italian side, I think because we had a lot more struggles we were dealing with in general, that was not anything like, it's kind of funny, like somehow as a little bit more of an oppressed peoples in that sense, like it allowed for more freedom to be ourselves. Like that was not a worry. And I felt more accepted easily and, you know, I didn't feel like I had to do anything.

So that was when I was 18. I'm 25 now. So, I've had a lot of time to heal and we started talking again when I turned 21 and for a couple years, it really was just us missing each other. Like we didn't really talk about it. I think like a lot of time in Latino families, if there's something wrong, you don't really talk about it. And we just missed each other. And I admit I enabled that too because I just missed my Abuela and Abuelo. I just wanted to be around them.

And I had new baby cousins I've never met before that were three years old at that point, and I wanted to meet them, and I just missed my family so much. I knew though that these feelings would come back again of feeling like insecure about the fact that, not that I'm a lesbian, but that I will not be respected as the whole person that I am.

And so, I would say as of lately with the political climate and all that stuff, and my Latino family being from Nicaragua, migrating, leaving a country that was war torn and before the war was ran by a dictatorship. So that's what they grew up in. And then also a devastating natural disaster, the earthquake that happened in Nicaragua that killed thousands and thousands of people. You know, feeling that pain in my blood and feeling their pain in my blood and like having moments where I've cried about that.

It's hard because now we're being faced with a different kind of dictatorship it seems like, and my family who survived one is not really mad at him. Like they're not really scared of him. And I think it is because they know how to survive one. But also they've assimilated a lot here since coming from Nicaragua in the seventies.

Imagine, like, you are just a brown Central American from a small country that was ruined by the US government, and you're here at the US, you don't know English. And I'm just sure that they were just bullied so hard until they started to look more like their bullies. So it is taken a lot of conversations, a lot of understanding and a lot of patience for me because I don't, at the same time with things feeling like they're gonna be taken away from us, even them, like they are refugees who migrated here. Um, I don't wanna lose them again. I don't wanna not talk to them again. And there's been moments where I was like, ah, I think I'm ready to do this again. Like, I guess I'm just gonna have to do this again. But I think that, like I said earlier, like I've taught myself and I've been taught how to love unconditionally.

And so the process right now is trying to understand the depths of my family and understanding that they are resilient people. They brought me here, they love me. They might not love me unconditionally, but they do and I love them and I just am taking my time and adjusting with also understanding them from an adult perspective and not a childlike wonder perspective. You know? And hopefully I think that at some point, me and them can have a very honest conversation, not just about being lesbian, but just about how to heal almost how they're gonna to heal. I realize like I might be their granddaughter not to just like fuck up their traditions and be like the rebel. Like, not really. I think I'm their granddaughter because I am meant to help them heal.

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: Oh my God, thank you so much for that. I really need it. Thank you for that. And I'm really sorry. It's difficult to live with the contradictions, right? And while you were talking, I was thinking about myself 'cause I have a, a very similar experience with you. I'm also half Italian, my mom's side of the family and the Italian part was totally okay and I wasn't expecting that because they were like so religious.

And the other part, my daddy's side, I was like, I was not even the first lesbian in the family. Right. And I felt this backlash so intense. And at the same time that like, while we were trying to heal or trying to live together in the best way that we can, 'cause we love each other, we went to the similar, uh, experience.

We are having here, uh, in U.S., uh, in Brazil, right? Like we had a dictator, like very anti gender, very homophobic, transphobic, very racist. And my family actually voted for him. And how I was like, how can you vote for someone that is like trying to erase my existence, is denying me the right to lead, the right to be myself, the right to raise my family, you know?

And how I can reconcile with that. It's very intense. Um, but it's part of the contradictions, right? Like the many identities and how we are so family oriented, how we can navigate that, how we can make the best of this unconditional love that sometimes it is conditioned, right? And how it can heal from that.

Um, so thank you so much. I kind of went through a rant too because you were talking and you said you are 25 now. I just turned 42 and we're in this process since I'm like 17. So it's, it's an ongoing process. It feels like never ending. But I think it also reflects, um, a shared experience, right?

I think this is also really interesting to connect with like how you navigate or how you define your Latinidad as an Nicaraguan Italian in a Chicano centric community. You are talking about the traditions, the way of living and how, um, it's important and how you grow up like that, how you, you define that Latinidad or, or this shared experience in a very Chicano centric community.

Fedella Lizeth: Yeah. I mean, like I mentioned before, the only places I could explore the cultures that are within my blood were at home, right? Or maybe a street in little Italy, right? But when it comes to my Latinidad, there's a lot of Central American erasure and living in San Diego with the demographic mostly being Mexican, most people growing up didn't even know where Central America was or Nicaragua.

So I remember like when I was in like fourth grade even, I tried to be like, no, but I'm from, my family's from Nicaragua. And they're like, where's that? And they'd like, make fun of the name and stuff. And um, and I'm like, it's just Mexico, it's South Mexico. Like, I think that's what I started saying. It's south, it's in Mexico, it's just south, you know?

And I lived like that for a long time. Um, and so also though all my friends were Mexican, are Mexican, all my friends are Mexican. And so I think that like outside of my homes, my community is the Chicano community. That's what I grew up in. And also, my dad raised me on Chicano values because he, you know, migrated from Central America when he was a baby, and he grew up in, in the States, in California.

And I think he's just as Chicano as anybody else, a Latino man, you know, who didn't know English until he was seven and then learned English and then assimilated and has all these, you know, complexities to his identity, you know? And so like, he was involved a lot more with his Chicanismo when he went to college at State, and he was in MEChA.

And, um, you know, then growing up with him, like I said, Chicano Park Day was a big, big deal. It was like as big as Christmas. And we would go see his friends that he would protest with and he'd always have us involved going to the Centro over here. I didn't realize though what that was. Like, I didn't know what the term "Chicano" was until I was a teenager.

So yeah, I just knew that that was also me actually, like, actually I'm first generation Latina too. And like, damn, I feel that about feeling like we need to carry our family's legacy on our backs. Like, you know what I mean? They came here for us to have a better life. And also just other stuff, cultural stuff, like music wise, being from San Diego, like, our style, our language, our accent, like all these things, you know? I never felt like I wasn't, but there was moments where I had to learn though about what it actually meant to be Chicano.

So, one day I remember my dad had bought me, um, a t-shirt and it said "Chicana" on it. And I was like, I looked at him, I was like, Papi, like, I was like, I don't know if I can wear this. Like, I don't know if I'm Chicana or not. Like, isn't that like Mexican? Aren't they only supposed to be Mexicans? And he like, sat me down and was like, and who do you think was side by side with the farm workers? Um, you know, with Cesar Chavez, he was like, there's Chicano Filipinos. And Central Americans and Black Chicanos, you know, and like, just gave me an example of like, when I was in school, he was like, we were all a part of the movement.

Like it's, it was us, it was Filipinos, it was Black people, and it was Mexicans, and Central Americans. But, um, as I grew up, when I went to City College, I wanted to major in Chicano studies because I started realizing like, oh yeah, like this actually really makes sense in general. I feel very empowered by the history I'm learning, um, and by the connections I'm making with my own upbringing, you know. As much as I could, because again, you know, I mean the Chicano movement was led by Mexican Americans. Right. Um, and I say Americans in quotes 'cause I'm not sure if we wanna use like the colonized language at all, but, um, and they, they fucking did a lot.

Also though, I had to kind of read it between the lines, like, well where are the Central American people? Like, did we not just exist for this time? So I would just kind of like fit myself in where I could, you know, and I have this this elder that I would talk to, his name is Jesse.

He is a very prominent figure here in San Diego, especially in the Chicano Park like movement. And he teaches youth right now. Like he often talks and we would spend so much time together. This was actually around the time I started photography. So I took a lot of pictures of him and I voiced to him my concerns of like, Jesse, you know, I feel this way, but I don't think I can be that. Like, I don't think it's allowed, you know, like what it's, you know, what it was giving at that time too was like conchas and Frida Khalo, you know? And I was like, that's not me. I didn't grow up with conchas, pan dulce. I grew up with like gallo pinto, and bread and butter with guava.

So I was like, yeah, I don't think I'm Chicano anymore. Like it was always a back and forth, you know? And he also taught me a lot and he told me like, being Chicano is a state of heart and a state of mind. And it also is about the commitment you're making to your Chicano community. And he's like, and you're making that commitment, you know, in my education at the time, or in my writing or in my documentation through photography.

And I never questioned myself since, because I started again to understand the complexities of being me in San Diego, but being Latino in the US. And I will say I don't put any term above the other because I am a proud Nicaraguense. Um, I'm a proud Italian and I'm a proud queer person. I'm a proud Chicana. I'm a proud educator. Like I'm all these things, you know? And honestly, Chicano is a political identity and it is kind of like the non-binary term for Latinos, if you wanted it to be, because like it's a very fluid term in the ways that we're not Latino, we're not Hispanic, we're not Mexican, we're Chicano because like it says, ni de aqui ni de alla, we're neither from here nor there, we're Chicano.

And yeah, I think as long as I show up for my community, then I'm able to use the term. And I think that what people my age are struggling with right now with the term "Chicano," is the commercial aspect. You know, the style of it. Literally like Willy Chavarria profiting off of the clothing, right? I don't think that everyone should call themselves Chicano because if you do not resonate with the other half of it, the work of it, you know, the actually identifying also within the community. Where are the queer people? Where are the Central Americans? Where are the Filipinos that were shoulder to shoulder in the same movement? I hope we start opening up the conversation.

Meagan Solomon: Yeah. I wanted to chime in, in response. First of all, thank you for providing such a complex and nuanced portrait of how you and your dad have experienced Chicanidad, Chicanismo, Chicano communities. Um, I'm Chicana, but specifically Tejana, and that's a very, regionally specific identity as well.

And I appreciate you expanding my own thinking as well, because I don't think it's the dominant narrative around what it means to be Chicano/Chicana/Chicane. And while there is certainly, I'm also using quotes, imagine air quotes around this, the "Mexican American," roots, I think something that you're calling attention to is the fact that, and you mentioned this, Chicane is a politicized identity.

It's not one that someone is necessarily simply born into. It's one that was created, and it's one that people have self-identified with based on a more historically radical politic of resisting Anglo oppression in the United States and embracing unique experiences and cultural practices that have emerged in being so-called Mexican American in this country, especially when that term started to gain prominence in the mid to late 20th century.

 I think it's important that we kind of question how these terms are utilized, especially on the surface, and to think about them with more complexity. Not to rob them of their specificity or meaning, because as you mentioned, that doesn't mean that anyone and everyone can just call themselves Chicano, right? But that there's intentionality, um, and there's diverse history surrounding the term. So thank you for sharing that as well as your own experience navigating that Chicano centric community while still maintaining your very proud Nicaraguan and Italian lesbian identity as well.

Fedella Lizeth: Yeah, and I will say too, I just remembered that my first Chicano studies professor was a Salvadorian woman, and so I feel like also that was validation too. I mean, here, she's teaching a whole curriculum about this, and I think that this conversation has been had, I think, in a different space that we haven't been in, maybe in the like educator space, like the higher ed space, like if you're pursuing the studies, right. But I don't think it's been had on a communal level. Like here on the streets. And yeah, I'm curious.

Meagan Solomon: Yeah. I'll add, um, I think one of the reasons people who are not of Mexican descent are drawn to the field of Chicano/a/e studies is because it is one of the most accessible fields of study representing alternative Latine experiences.

And at the same time, I think it's important that we challenge these fields to be more expensive so that we can decenter Chicanidad as the most important or dominant mode of "Latinidad."

And I'm putting that in quotes as well, because, we don't believe there is a singular unified Latine experience or identity. You know, there has been a lot of issues in the larger Chicano community, the Chicano movement, being very heteropatriarchal, upholding whiteness, et cetera, as there is homophobia.

And I found personally a lot of refuge and inspiration from Chicana feminists, especially Chicana lesbian feminists, who were very invested in like questioning the male leaders of the movement, offering different perspectives on what it means to be Chicane outside of that like heteronormative, patriarchal lens.

And um, I'm a scholar and something that I've witnessed is departments, Chicano studies departments, especially the ones that are led by heteronormative men, also not being willing to expand their worldview to include Central and South American perspectives and just like clinging tightly to this Mexican hegemony, which we shouldn't be doing.

So I think there's definitely a way we can honor the radical roots of the Chicano movement and the politics surrounding it. And also push ourselves, um, encourage our elders and others in the community, to expand beyond that.

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: I really appreciate you both talking about that.

And again, Fedella, when you were talking, it was totally resonate with me. Uh, I'm Brazilian. I was born and raised in Brazil. I immigrate to United States. I was already in my thirties. And when I arrived, there was this questioning, of course you are Latina. And I was like, I don't know if I can say that, you know, as a Brazilian, I don't know if I can say that.

Um, that was right in the beginning. And but more than, um place me as a Latina, Latine, they were also like, no, you're Mexican, you're Chicana, you are, uh, they were defining right when I arrived, and I was in Florida. The first place that I lived here in United States was in Florida. So there was like all this like, no, you're a Chicana.

I don't know. Um, maybe because I have this, um, very intense commitment with, um, lesbian thinking and praxis, right? And there's like what Meagan just said. There's this, um, tradition and this, um, important history, to Chicana lesbians questioning. Uh, but also I was like, um, am I Latina? Am I not as a Brazilian?

 At the same time that the Brazilians in United States don't really recognize me as Brazilian because I'm too Latina? I'm not. I'm not really Brazilian, right? So there's like this non existence place. But what I resonate with you is you saying, um, how we define ourselves and our sense of belonging, but also from the community that embrace us, right?

Uh, the community that, that embrace and take care and heal us and uplift us, right? That recognize us as belonging, right? And that for sure I got from, uh, Latine community here. Many different ones. Cuban, Chicano, a lot of them, a lot of Colombian. Uh, they also think I'm Colombian too, but I think it's important to see.

Um, and to acknowledge the contradictions at the same time on how our identity is not just something that we just simply define by ourselves, based on our political, um, belongings and, um, commitments, but also how the community sees and embrace how you are part of, uh, something larger.

Fedella Lizeth: Yeah, no, I appreciate what you said. I also was remembering something from a conversation I had yesterday about how it's, and hearing what you're saying, Mariana, like, you know, I think in, in America we, we chase a label, like we need a label. Uh, not only unto ourselves, but unto others. And I think that's something that's very singular to United States.

I think like, it, it literally is a black and white binary system, and we need to know if we're in the black or the white, because that's what the system was built off of, was the privilege of white people and the enslavement of black people. So it kind of makes sense as to why we're always kind of also policing each other as to like, well, who are you and why do you, why did you choose that one?

You know? And it's like, it's like, who are you and what did you go through? Dang, I'm sorry. Can I learn from you or can I teach you this? Or you know, like, and I think that's how I navigate my identity is I'm learning and I'm teaching, you know? And, um, yeah.

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: That's beautiful. I'm kind of emotional the whole time here. I was really needing that. 

Fedella Lizeth: Uh, I am emotional. I'm an air sign, by the way, so I feel like I make water signs, emotional. 

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: Yeah, definitely.

So yeah, I think this is all really great and this conversation happening about community and how we need to resignify, but also acknowledge and honor what happened before, and what might come for us and how to be prepared for that, and how your work, it's also part of that, um, so ingrained on your personal experience and all the different parts of your identity.

So thank you for that. Uh, do you have any upcoming projects or exhibitions that you wanna share? Is there anything that you look forward to this moment?

Fedella Lizeth: Yeah. Um, so I'm actually launching an exhibition at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park. Um, it is a group exhibition. It's a photography exhibition with encouragement of the photographers to also do like a mixed media installation piece. Um, but what the show is though is it's a photography exhibition centered around the Chicanx / Latinx experience lived here in San Diego.

And so I had asked the photographers involved, you know, questions of getting us to think about why is our, why are our experiences here unique and also how are they similar to our community in San Francisco, LA, Tucson, Chicago? Um, but yeah, just exploring and honoring the complex reality of placement and displacement.

And then there's actually another show, an exhibition that I'm a part of. The show is called "Reencuentros" and it's about home really. And so I'll be showing some photos there, um, with an install piece as well that I'm really excited for.

Meagan Solomon: Well, thank you Fedella so much for sharing this space with us, allowing us to learn from you. And thank you for sharing your story and being vulnerable with us. 

Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues: Yeah, thank you so much. That was so important how you made the connections between your personal experience and all this with this whole political history.

It's so important. I think this is really what we want for Malflora as a collective, as a project, as an archival work, uh, to have all these connections and so rich personal experience. So thank you so much for taking the time to share with us. 

 Thank you for listening to Malflora Podcast. 

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

Meagan Solomon: Until next time!