Café with Comadres: Recent Episodes
Café with Comadres
We are three Latinas meeting at the intersection of healing, faith, and justice. Get your cafecito, bring your thoughts and tenderness, and join the mesa every week beginning on September 15th, 2021!
Comadre Sandy sets the table for this conversation with Indigenous theologian and Guna leader, Jocabed Solano. Jocabed challenges the Western understanding of the body and offers the Guna understanding of the body as connected to the land and the rest of creation. Join comadres, Sandy and Karen as they learn from the amazing
Jocabed Solano is the Executive Director of Memoria Indígena, an organization that is remembering the Indigenous and Christian wisdom in Abya Yala and creating spaces for dialogue between Indigenous Christian communities, Indigenous spiritualities, and the global church. Jocabed is a sought after climate defender and speaker.
Resources mentioned:
- Memoria Indígena https://memoriaindigena.org/
- Elsa Tamez, "Quetzalcoatl Challenges the Christian Bible," Journal of Hispanic / Latino Theology 4:4 (May 1997) 5-20.
- Tamez, Elsa, and Elsa Tamez. 1989. Through Her Eyes : Women's Theology from Latin America. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.
Disability invites us into a greater humanity by reminding us all of our need to belong, to be understood, and simply to be. Join comadres Sandy and Jennifer as they chat with Dr. Amy Kenny, author of the book My Body is Not a Prayer Request.
Dr. Amy Kenny invites us to expand our understanding of God and heaven through a disability lens. Tune in for an amazing conversation!
Resources mentioned:
- Book: My Body is not a Prayer Request by Amy Kenny
- Article: What’s Next for Disability Rights? On Sojourners by Aleja Hertzler-Mccain
This week, Comadres Karen and Jennifer continue the conversation on bodies with special guest Irene Cho. The conversations centers Asian bodies and the way they have been simultaneously fetishized and rejected in American society.
Our guest comadre, Irene Cho, shares her experiences as a Korean-American woman who had to wrestle with her identity and resist the tremendous pressure to assimilate and distance herself from her own culture.
Comadre Sandy sets up the mesa this week with guests Davíd Elí Patiño and Austen Hartke. Trans people have fiercely fought to create the person they want to be. They lead the way in defying the expectations of a confining and often suffocating society. They model liberation. Join the comadres for a refreshing conversation on trans bodies.
David Elí Patiño is a Latinx, queer and genderqueer immigrant hailing from Medellin, Colombia. He completed his M.A. in Religion from Union Theological Seminary.
Austen Hartke is the founder and director of Transmission Ministry Collective, an online community dedicated to the spiritual care, faith formation, and leadership potential of transgender and gender-expansive Christians.
Resources mentioned:
- Hartke, Austen. Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians. 2018
- Hartke, Austen. ¡TransFormadxs: La Biblia y las Vidas de lxs Cristianxs Transgénero. 2020.
- Transmission Ministry Collective https://transmissionministry.com/
Comadre Jennifer sets up the conversation this week. The beauty of comadrazgo is that it invites us to have deeper conversations. We could not talk about embodiment without acknowledging what Dr. Crenshaw coined as “intersectionality”. First and foremost, to describe the lived experiences of Black women in the United States in a legal/judicial system, today, that term has evolved and has been a gift for so many of us. Join la mesa with two special comadres. One whom you already know, Karen Gonzalez and one that is joining us in this podcast for the first time Dr. Tamisha Tyler. Dr. Tyler is an artist, a theologian, a singer, a dancer, a foodie, a lover of all things science-fiction and cartoons and particularly future pessimism. Her dissertation focused on the writings of Octavia Butler.
Resources mentioned in today’s episode:
- Coleman, Monica. Making a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology, 2008
- Crenshaw, Kimberlé. On Intersectionality: Essential Writings, 2023
- Walker-Barnes, Chanequa. I Bring the Voices of my People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation, 2019
We continue our conversation on bodies with comadre Karen leading us as we talk about bodies in movement.
There’s a lot of pressure to move our bodies in particular ways as we exercise without discussing that we can also move our bodies in ways that are natural, joyful, and just.
Join us en la mesa and bring your cafecito. Salud!
Comadre Jennifer sets up la conversación this week talking about body positivity. How did this term originate? How has it impacted our lives and its limitations?
Resources mentioned in today’s episode:
- Taylor, Sonya Renee. The Body Is Not an Apology, 2021
- Henderson-Espinoza, Robyn. Activist Theology, 2019
Ni putas, ni santas! Comadre Sandy host the mesa today for an intimate conversation with comadre Karen. Join them as they offer alternatives on how to navigate the fullness of the expression of our sexualities.
Resources mentioned in today's episode:
- The Incarnate God and Embodied Desire by Lauren Frances Guerra. 2019.
Comadre Jennifer sets up the mesa this week talking about the ways we experience interruptions to our embodiment and how we respond when we encounter them. Content warning: abuse, dieting.
Resources mentioned in today’s episode:
- Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
This week, comadre Karen sets up the conversation all about this season’s theme: embodiment. Our truest experience of life is lived through the physical body we inhabit. While Western ways of knowing have sought to disconnect us from it, to mistrust it and judge it, Indigenous and traditional ways teach us to see it as part of our whole being and honor it. We chat about how our intuition and the roots of our faith see bodies as altars that can be clothed in glory, as vessels full of wisdom and sensation that can guide us.
In this week’s episode, the comadres come together to pause and reflect on this season’s last theme: comadrazgo. We unpack how our conversations in the past three episodes intersect our sacred text and faith-based communities
In today's episode, Comadre Jennifer sets up the table and leads a discussion on finding joy amidst our resistance to the toxic systems that seek to harm us.
In today’s episode Comadre Karen sets up the table and leads us in reflecting on the ways that patriarchy has harmed the voluntary kinship relationships that particularly center female energy.
In today’s episode Comadre Sandy sets up the table for us. We discuss comadrazgo--close kinship relationships that center female energy.
In this week’s episode, the comadres come together to pause and reflect on this season’s second theme: ancestral wisdom. We unpack how our conversations in the past three episodes intersect our sacred text and faith-based communities. We encourage you to have a piece of paper and pen or other writing utensils available to participate in the práctica.
In this week’s episode, comadre Karen sets up the table. We explore the ways in which we connect with our ancestors for guidance, nurture, protection, and sabiduria.
Resources mentioned in today’s episode:
Voices from the Ancestors: Xicanx and Latinx Spiritual and Healing Practices
In this week’s episode, la comadre Sandy sets up the table. We discuss how centuries of colonization in the Americas and white supremacists ways have acculturated, assimilated, and sought to destroy our people, cultures, and our relationship to food.
Resources mentioned in today’s episode:
- Documentary: Primer plano - Salmón y aguacate - La otra cara de los alimentos de moda by DW. https://www.dw.com/es/primer-plano-salm%C3%B3n-y-aguacate-la-otra-cara-de-los-alimentos-de-moda/av-50172718
In this week’s episode, la comadre Jennifer sets up the table. We discuss the role of storytelling in our lives and how stories can be filled with both wisdom and harmful messages.
In this week’s episode, the comadres come together to pause and reflect on this season’s first theme: Latinidad. We unpack how our conversations in the past three episodes intersect our sacred text and faith-based communities. We encourage you to have a piece of paper and pen or other writing utensils available to participate in the práctica.
- Isasi-Díaz Ada M. En La Lucha: Elaborating a Mujerista Theology: A Hispanic Women's Liberation Theology = in the Struggle. Minneapolis u.a.: Fortress Press, 1993.
In this week’s episode, la comadre Jennifer sets up the table. We dive into language used for ethnic and racial identification. We have all heard terms like hispanic, latina, latinos, latinx, latinidad, mestiza, mestizo, latine and other terms. We have all heard these terms and have different relationships with the terms, do we reimagine, reclaim or abandon?
Resources mentioned in today’s episode:
- https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/15/who-is-hispanic/
- Martinez-Echazabal, L. (1998). Mestizaje and the Discourse of National/Cultural Identity in Latin America, 1845-1959. Latin American Perspectives, 25(3), 21-42. Retrieved February 8, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2634165
In this week’s episode, la comadre Karen sets up the table. We discuss race, latinidad, and the anti-blackness that runs deep in our communities. We also talk about the dreaded “C” word--that’s right: colorism in Latinx communities.
Resources mentioned in today’s episode:
- Bad Hair Does Not Exist / Pelo Malo No Existe by Sulma Arzu Brown, illustrations by Isidra Sabio
- The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color in a New Millennium by Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall
In this week’s episode, la comadre Sandy sets up the table. We talk about the tension between the bond that exists in Latinx communities and the diversity within them. We will revisit a few 2020 moments where this tension was particularly evident and share how we saw it lived out in the public sphere and how we ourselves experienced it within us.
Resources mentioned in today’s episode:
- Margolis, Jason. “Every 30 Seconds a Latino in the US Turns 18. The Challenge Is Getting Them to Vote.” The World from PRX. Accessed September 9, 2021. https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-01-05/every-30-seconds-latino-us-turns-18-challenge-getting-them-vote.
- Igielnik, Ruth, Scott Keeter, and Hannah Hartig. “Behind Biden's 2020 Victory.” Pew Research Center - U.S. Politics & Policy. Pew Research Center, August 19, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/.