ABSTRACT
As the founding director of DeAlmas Women’s Institute, a community-based organization launched in 1998, I have been in conversation with Latinas in areas of mental health and wellness for twenty years. De Almas, meaning “of the soul,” is dedicated to providing women of color the spaces for reclaiming, honoring, and expressing their divine feminine gifts and human potential through spiritual and personal transformation. We have done this via workshops, retreats, conferences, collaborative community programming and keynote presentations to national and international audiences—in academic and community settings. My work as a tenured professor of psychology at Bronx Community College of The City University of New York, has also provided an opportunity for me to be of service to our young women in the Bronx. These resilient, goal-oriented women are exposed to social pollution from multiple highways in the borough. Stressors include trauma, poverty, overwork, racial and sexual discrimination, and ancestral impact of oppression and colonization. In this essay, I describe some of the work that I do, which is informed by a mujerista feminist psychology, as outlined by Dr. Lillian Comas-Diaz and other Latinx psychologists. Our strength-based approach grounded in diverse sisterhood, ancestral connection, and one-ness with nature is critical for Latinas and other women of color.
