Las Doctoras Podcast

Ep. 45: Holding Our Politicians Accountable and Creating a Better America with Anna Lily

Today, Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina sit down with friend, political advocate, and fellow teacher Anna Lily. The three share an inspiring message of change and daily action, encouraging us to go beyond visualizing a utopian future and start creating a system of liberation today. To kick things off, Dr. Renee, Dr. Cristina, and Anna Lily go through a lightning round of fun questions around how they would do things if they were President. The questions include: “Who would you have on to sing the...

Ep. 44: Deconstructing Mariposa de Barrio with Bernice

Today, Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina sit down with their good friend and former student Bernice to discuss Mariposa de Barrio, the telenovela based on the life of Jenni Rivera. One of the most striking parts of Jenni’s story is the fact that she built a career in a man’s industry. She is a true trailblazer who single-handedly made other women who are fans of Banda—a male-dominated music genre—feel validated. There is a surprising amount of domestic and sexual violence depicted in the telenove...

Ep. 43: Strengthening Your Money Mindset with Nathalia, aka Mom Money Boss

Today, Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina sit down with money coach Nathalia, known to most as @mom_money_boss on Instagram to talk all things money and financial freedom. From budgetingto generational wealth, Nathalia wants to be a powerful voice in her community, many members of which lack the mentorship and resources to grow their money mindset and leave a legacy to their family. This hits especially close to home for her as she also had only recently been on a journey to pay down her student lo...

Ep. 42: Creating Space for Our Creativity to Shine

Creativity. It’s a huge part of our lives, and one that Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina believe we all need to have more conversations around. Today, the two specifically zoom into priming our entire being to embody creative states. Believing that creativity requires everything in us—body, mind, and soul—in order for us to express it fully, Las Doctoras encourage us to see creativity as a holistic process that is just as powerful as a tool for meditation as it is a tool for productivity. Most of...

Ep. 41: An Honest Conversation on Masculinity with Benjamin Perez

Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina sit down with CPA Benjamin Perez (@perezadvisor on Instagram) to touch on his evolving views on masculinity, both within himself and among the Latino community as a whole. Benjamin considers the various aspects of the complex topic that is masculinity from the point of view of his lived experience, particularly as a Latino. He breaks down the old beliefs that he had to overcome such as traditional machismo and gender roles. Speaking of unlearning, Benjamin talks ...

Ep. 40: Unpacking “Toxic Masculinity” and How to Overcome It

Welcome to the 40th episode of Las Doctoras! Today’s topic (and one which Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina will continue to unpack in the next few episodes) is masculinity. Being mothers to young boys, this is an especially personal topic for the two. Listen in as they share how they intend to help their sons navigate a culture where toxic masculinity continues to prevail, as well as how they define the healthy sort of masculinity that they hope their sons can embody growing up. Our hosts reflect...

Ep. 39: Campaigning for Transformation and Grace in Academia with Dr. Ana Linda Arellano Nez

Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina continue their discussion on the state of academia and attempt to pull back the curtain behind its hierarchical structure, based on their personal experiences in this world. Today’s guest, Dr. Ana Linda Arellano Nez, first met our hosts through their writing course and today works as the copy editor for Saint Lunita magazine alongside being an ethnic studies professor at California State University, Fullerton. Our hosts and Dr. Ana Linda reflect on their search f...

Ep. 38: Creating Spaces of Love and Resistance in Academia

Today, Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina sit down with Diane Nevarez, a professor in the Education department at University of California Irvine. They do a deep dive into the current state of academia with a focus on the many challenges that the American university system poses, both in general and specifically around the pandemic. There is a lot of exploitation that takes place among adjunct professors precisely due to the contractual or part-time nature of the job. The hiring process is toxic an...

Ep. 37: Celebrating Grief and Our Beloved Dead

As we approach Día de los Muertos, Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina revisit the topic of grief and loss by speaking on their personal experiences loosing the people closest to them. Dr. Renee reflects on her father’s death seven years later. From his final request (“If anything happens, write the book.”), to the chaos of having countless long-lost relatives flying in once it was clear the situation was grim, to the moment Dr. Renee realized that it was time to let him go nine days after being adm...

Ep. 36: Why Facing Grief is the Beginning of Our Healing Journey with Tida & Soyeon

Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina welcome Tida Beattie, a 1st generation Thai-American end-of-life doula, community educator, and grief activist; and Soyeon Davis is a 1.5 generation Korean-American end of life doula. Tida and Soyeon are the co-founders of MESO, which provides advocacy, assistance, and support to immigrant families dealing with chronic illness and/or aging. Much of Tida and Soyeon’s work at Meso is a product of their lived experience. Having lost many family members of their own a...

Ep. 35: Elevating the Chicana Experience Through Writing with Ana Castillo

Audio Block Double-click here to upload or link to a .mp3. Learn more Today, we welcome Chicana novelist, poet, playwright, and independent scholar Ana Castillo who has been at the forefront of publishing works on the socio-political realities of the Chicana experience, including race and gender issues, since the 1970s. Ana reflects on the timeless impact of her work and recalls with great joy how fans would reignite that fire within her whenever they approach he...

Celebrating the Launch of Season 4: What to Expect

Season 4 has arrived! Dr. Renne and Dr. Cristina are rested and ready to launch into a new phase of the podcast and, of course, the community. Having returned from their well-deserved rest in July, Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina are raring to get back into action! But not before thanking the community, whether through the podcast, book club, writing course, or magazine. So much opportunity came out of this supportive and encouraging family, and the ladies are forever grateful! Speaking of the ...

Ep. 33: A Celebration of Rest

This episode is centered around rest. “Rest” is not usually something you find on someone’s list of things to celebrate, but Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina sit down to discuss exactly why the right amounts of rest, in the truest sense of the word, helps us move forward stronger and wiser with a renewed sense of purpose. ●     Rest is something that helps us recover with more vigor to do the most important things in our lives. Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina note that capitalism always pushes us to r...

Ep. 32: Creating a Home for Us

This episode is centered around home. Whether an actual physical home or a community that makes you feel at home Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina touch on how to find your place of belonging, operate from a place of abundance, and do your part to build a world free of injustice by becoming more conscious of how you raise the next generation. ●     Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina kick off this episode by sharing the importance of setting aside time and energy to recharge and refill your creative tank a...

Ep. 31: You have a right to celebration

This episode is all about celebration! Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina have a lot to celebrate, so join them in shining light on jaw-dropping achievements, exciting news, and new opportunities for growth and connection.  Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina kick off this episode by celebrating the sold out Sacred Writing Course and all that it has created for them and their community. In creating the spaces they need for themselves, they’ve held space for so many amazing women to connect to the sacredness...

Ep. 30: F*ck the Dishes!

We’re celebrating 30 episodes with a special discussion about motherhood in the patriarchy. We’ll examine our own personal experiences with parenting and the emotional labor and expectations handed to women and femmes in a male-dominated society. 1:58 Announcing our latest “Writing to our Ancestors” course with a new series called “Sacred Writing.” Learn more about it here. 4:12 Launching our online magazine! Watch a Chisme Session with editor Selisa here. 7:58 Decolonizing Catholicism...

Ep 29: A Raw Conversation on Queering and Reclaiming Our Sexuality

In this episode, we discuss our own sexual journeys and the fluidity of sexuality as we age particularly as it relates to our sexual preferences. Join us for a a very raw conversation about sexuality, gender binaries and intimacy.

Ep. 28: Making Space for Latinx Books with Fabian Flores Publishing

We are inviting Norma back onto the show. She previously came onto the show to talk about her article on colorism in the family. Norma is a first-generation American and a Sagittarius. She is an attorney by trade and she started to write during her time as a stay at home mom. She was driven by a mission to share the stories of brown women raising their children.  After she published an article in the New York Times she started thinking about the power of representing her community through s...

Ep 27: Synastry Astrology Readings with Esoteric Esa

In this episode, we interview Esoteric Esa, an astrologer, numerologist, and creator of an oracle deck. We are doing a reading with her. We have each recently had individual readings with her, and today we are getting a deeper insight into the soul work we do together.  We are getting a synastry reading, meaning that we are having our two charts compared to each other. Esa does this for couples, business partners, friends, and any two people who want a deeper understanding of their relation...

Ep 26: Conscious Children's Books with Aida Salazar

Aida Salazar is a writer and arts activist. She is a mother, and she has been writing for children. She recently published The Moon Within about a young girl who is about to get her first period. She also just published a book called Land of the Cranes, about a 9-year-old child who experiences being an undocumented immigrant. We discovered Aida through our book club. We read The Moon Within, and Christina uses it in her class.  In our interview today, we talk about the challenges and gifts ...

Ep 25: Natal Chart Readings

We are talking about spirituality today. We have discussed spirituality in the past, and we see that spirituality is often defined within the context of religion or white supremacy. As we go on the journey of finding our own spiritual grounding we are recognizing that our practices are a part of our journey in reclaiming what was lost through colonization. What saves us from whitewashing and white supremacy is the spiritual connection we have with our ancestors.  We also have all kinds of h...

Ep 24: Reflections On Our Retreat

We went on a retreat away from our families. There was tequila, self-love, and lots of laughs. We hadn’t seen each other in person for months because of COVID after being used to seeing each other every day. So it was so beautiful to come together and share this experience with each other. In this episode, we talk about our experience on the retreat, and some reflections on how taking time away from our families redefines motherhood, moving away from capitalist, patriarchal narratives into ...

Ep 23: We Are Back for Season 3

It is September 2020, and we are in season 3 of the podcast. We are going to kick off this new season with a chat about our lives and our future plans for the show. We start out with some updates on the beginning of the school year, thoughts on everything that has happened this summer, and some intentions we have moving forward with this next cycle. We are beginning a new phase of our work. Things are evolving, new opportunities are coming forward, and we are excited to have you along for th...

Ep. 22: Fatphobia & Diet Culture with Monica Hernandez

In our last episode for our body politics series we explore the topic of fatphobia and diet culture with professor and scholar Monica Hernandez. We talk about how we often learn fatphobia in our families, and how it get perpetuated in the media, diet industry, fitness industry, and the medical industry. Monica share her personal journey with her relationship to her own body as well as her academic journey in centering her experience in her research.

Ep. 21: Mindful & Intuitive Eating with Amanda Sauceda

In this episode we continue the conversation about body politics. We interviewed Amanda Sauceda of @guthealth.nutritionist. We explore the world of diet culture and the vicious cycle and toxic relationship to food it perpetuates. Amanda talks to us about her Mindful Gut Method which reframes nutrition from a more holistic approach. This conversation adds nuance to the larger topic of body politics and both questions the mainstream message about diet, and offers an alternative that does not r...

Ep. 20: Learning to Love Our Bodies (Body Politics Series)

In this episode, we talk about our relationship with our bodies. Our most vulnerable discussion yet, we dig deep and uncover some childhood wounds that had a lasting impact on the ways we see our bodies and how we relate to our bodies. As always we put this in context with larger structures of oppression and all the outside impacts on our body image. This will be the first in a series of episodes covering the topic of body politics.

Ep. 19: Podcasting in the Time of Covid-19

Here we are in all our rawness, coming to you from the middle of this pandemic. Trying to survive, to make sense of it all, to find hope, and continue our struggle for social justice, what more is there to say?

Ep. 18: Representation Matters- Our Thoughts on American Dirt & The Halftime Show

This episode hear about our updates, how we survived Mercury Retrograde, Full Moon in Pisces and illness. We are deep in our feelings, and using this platform as a therapeutic outlet. If you bear with us for about 20 minutes, then we get to the meat of our topic. We are discussing the controversy surrounding the novel American Dirt, and it’s cultural appropriation among the many critiques of the author and the book. As always we see ourselves in dialogue with many other Latinx scholars and...

Ep. 17: Parenting with Nonviolence with Latinx Parenting

In this episode we talk with Leslie Arreola Hillenbrand and Lizeth Toscano of Latinx Parenting. Our conversation brought up so many topics including generational trauma, mother wounds, gender roles and more. We shared with our guests what their work has helped us to heal, create more conscious approaches with our children and our own parents that take into consideration our cultural values and the systemic power dynamics at play. Our main takeaway from our conversation: Parenting with nonvi...

Ep. 16: Healing Generational Wounds with Semillas de Las Abuelas

In this episode you hear us talking about how much healing writing this book has already brought us, and how healing is a part of our intention in writing this book. It might seem like it's only a collection of recipes, celebrations, songs, stories, etc. But it’s also more than that. It’s a book that is also about integrating a way of being, a way of living, and way of knowing that honors the history and ways of our ancestors, our Abuelas scarred by the wounds of colonization while giving us...

Ep. 15: Shame, Money & Student Loans

We get real in this conversation about our relationship with money, and our debt. We reveal the real amount of student loans we owe, and deconstruct the systems of power at play not only in our debt but in how we are socialized to feel about our debt.

Ep. 14: Our Updates for Season 2

In this episode we discuss our updates, what we’ve been up to over the summer, and many of the accomplishments we have achieved. One of the biggest being our feature in Oprah Magazine. We originally planned for this to be a longer episode getting into our first topic of the season, student loans, but we decided to have this be a shorter episode just focused on our updates, and our plans for the season. We have a lot of interesting ideas for the season, and we hope you continue to join us. O...

Ep. 13: Colorism & Parenting with Norma Newton of The Hermosa Journal

In this episode we interview Norma Newton founder of the Hermosa Journal. She recently wrote and published an article for the parenting section of the New York Times entitled “I’m Darker than my daughter. Here’s Why it Matters.” In the article she shares an incident that occured with her daughter that had her confronting her own feelings of internalized colorism, and how she experienced this throughout her life. Colorism in and of itself is such a complex and yet important topic in the Latin...

Ep. 12: Chicana Motherwork with Michelle Tellez & Judith Perez-Torres

In this episode we talk with Michelle Tellez and Judith Perez-Torres of Chicana Motherwork. They just released their book entitled The Chicana M(other)work Anthology, a collection of essays that “weaves together emerging scholarship and testimonios by and about self-identified Chicana and Women of Color mother-scholars, activists, and allies who center mothering as transformative labor through an intersectional lens.” They speak to many themes during our convo including, how they came toget...

Ep. 11: Redefining Activism with Dra. Lucha Arevalo & Jovita Murillo Leon

In this episode we continue our conversation with Lucha and Jovita. We start right where we left off, discussing the struggles and challenges of academia, the specific pressures we feel to produce, to hustle, to overwork ourselves. We talk about the toll it takes on our mental health having to balance our different responsibilities with basic self-care. We discuss approaches we have had to incorporate in order to navigate these pressures. Jovita reminds us to focus on the small victories. T...

Ep. 10: Femtorship with Lucha Arevalo & Jovita Murillo Leon

In this episode we interview Lucha Arevalo and Jovita Murillo Leon, two fellow academic mujeres doing amazing work in education public policy and public health respectively. This is our 10th episode and therefore thought it would be nice to return to the discussion we had in our first episode about our own academic journeys. In this first half of the interview with our guests we talk about the importance of mentorship or as Lucha calls it “femtorship.” We also discuss our intentions and inve...

Ep. 9: Spirituality & Social Justice

We discuss the topics of spirituality in relationship with social justice. We have witnessed that the conversation around spirituality is too often focused solely on positive thinking or the idea of love and light. We feel, as well as other scholars and thinkers, that this is a narrow focus and does not take into consideration the structural inequalities at play. Spiritual rhetoric often fails to acknowledge the barrier to access to spiritual resources or modalities. We call our the apolitic...

Ep. 8: Carmen Sima- Ayurvedic Practioner & Spiritual Channeler

In this episode we interview Carmen Sima, an ayurvedic practitioner and intuitive guide and channeler. She shares with us here spiritual journey and what led her to her gifts and powers to connect with spiritual and ancestral realms. She highlights the importance of self-care as a means for all of us to connect to our own spiritual gifts and the healing power it can bring us. She also discusses the importance of this work in bringing our collective consciousness into a higher state of unders...

Ep. 7: Our Spiritual Journeys

Both of us were raised in traditional religions, Renee in Mexican Catholicism and Cristina in Evangelical Christianity. We have both experienced some spiritually transformational moments that drew us away from the problematic parts of these traditions and had us exploring more of our ancestral spiritual gifts and legacies that were grounded in non-european traditions. These transformational moments were not always pleasant and left us with so many questions about how we continue on a spiritu...

Ep. 6: Semillas de Las Abuelas Book Project with Carolina Adame & Marlha Sanchez

In this episode we talk with Carolina Adame and Marlha Sanchez, our collaborators on a book project we have been working on titled Semillas de Las Abuelas. Our discussion of the book project leads us into a broader conversation about the legacy we want to leave our children, and the ancestral gifts we want to pass on to them. We talk about our personal investments in being a part of this project, and what talents we offer. We also describe the book as a collection of practical tools and reso...

Ep.5: Dr. Cristina's Flow & Birth Story

In this episode you will here Dr. Cristina share her Flow and birth story. Her story is so powerful in that she is so vulnerable in telling us so much about what was going on in her life that was impacting her relationship to her flow. Her story culminates with the birth of her child, and concludes with Renee and Cristina discussing the importance of these stories. We reflect on wanting to normalize positive birth experiences, and how much this idea play a part in the work we do. You will le...

Ep. 4: Dr. Renee's Flow & Birth Story (Flow Series Part 3)

Ep. 3: The Pill with Cindy Luquin (Flow Series Part 3)

Ep. 2: Fertility Awareness with Cindy Luquin (Flow Series Part 2)

In this episode you will hear the first part of our interview with Cindy Luquin. We give some context to how this conversation speaks to the larger topic of reproductive justice. We talk about Sistersong who coined the term reproductive justice and how the work we do in our course, and the work that Cindy does is trying to achieve the goals laid out by Sistersong. Cindy tells her amazing story, and shares with us her work and why it is so important particularly for Latinx folx. Topics discu...

Ep. 1: Shame and Menstruation with Danelia Arechiga (Flow Series Part 1)

This is our introductory episode. Bare with us, as we are learning how to do this podcasting stuff. Learn about who we are as Las Doctoras, what inspired us to do this pocast, and a little bit about what this first series will be about. Flow Series- In this first series of episodes we highlight the topic of menstruation by interviewing radical muxeres who do work in this field, who are thinking about this topic in revolutionary ways, and passionate about sharing their work. Shame and Menst...