In the Midst of Academia: Honoring Our Chola-Muxerista Matriarchs

Resumen

This collaborative paper is an exploration of two Chican(a/x) PhD students' testimonios honoring their Chola-Muxerista femtors, Dr. Marie “Keta” Miranda and Dr. Gloria V. Gonzáles, whose teachings and Chola-Muxerista wisdom are rooted in collective self-preservation, sisterhood, and care. We interweave embodied methodologies and pedagogies of critical chisme and pláticas, grounded in autohistoria-teoría and the cenote as an inner geography of memory, to creatively and intellectually map our struggles within the extractive conditions of the neoliberal academy.

This paper expands on Revilla's (2004; 2022) and Orozco’s (2025) Muxerista and Jotería principles, which are grounded in our Chola-Muxerista praxis that centers self-preservation, reciprocity, consent, and solidarity. Our visual and written testimonios are a healing praxis of slowing down and sifting through the painful and joyful memories. We write this as a loving effort to preserve collective memory, archive, and speak from the margins of academic isolation, competition, and exhaustion. By centering embodied knowledge, relational care, and creative survival, we share the lessons, consejos, and life-giving affirmations that sustain our friendship and academic sobrevivencia while resisting the extractive logics of the neoliberal academy.