LAS MAESTRAS
Cherríe Moraga
Celia Herrera Rodríguez
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
Margaret 'Quica' Alarcón is a Xicanx indigenous-identified (Taíno-Otomí) artivist scholar, educator, and cultural worker who joins Las Maestras Center as Assistant Director. Born and raised in East Los Angeles, Alarcón brings nearly three decades of experience in arts education, community activism, and cultural preservation to this role.
As a professional artist whose work has been exhibited in prestigious venues including the Oakland Museum of Art and the Manetti Shrem Museum, Alarcón's creative practice explores the intersection of feminine identity, indigenous wisdom, and collective healing. Her innovative kinetic works with papel picado, printmaking, and mixed media installations - influenced by the writings and concepts of Cherrie Moraga and Celia Herrera Rodriguez on memory work and ancient materials - investigate what Gloria Anzaldúa terms "la facultad" - the cultivation of ancestral intuition and knowledge through artistic practice.
Alarcón holds an MFA in Studio Arts from California State University, Los Angeles, focusing on drawing, painting, printmaking, and muralism, complemented by an M.Ed. in Cross-Cultural Education. Her thesis work, "Urban Release: Identity and Ancient Instinct," established her signature approach to kinetic photo sculptural altar installations honoring ancestry. She received her BFA in Illustration from Art Center College of Design, where she developed strong formal and technical foundations in a wide range of artistic media.
STAFF
Mariela Aguilar Raya, Ph.D.
Publicist & Program Coordinator
Mariela Aguilar Raya (she/her) earned her Ph.D. in Hispanic Literatures and Languages from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Santa Barbara, where she currently serves as a Lecturer in Spanish language and cultural studies. Originally from Guanajuato, México, Mariela's research interests center on narratives written by and about Mexicana & Xicana women along the U.S.-Mexico border, with a focus on decolonial methodologies such as the épica invertida. Throughout her graduate studies, she volunteered and held a fellowship at Las Maestras Center for Xicana[x] Indigenous Thought, Art, and Social Praxis, where she mentored undergraduate researchers and helped organize the Poetry Talk Series, "Flor y Canto," featuring renowned Native American and Chicana[x] poets.
John Jairo Valencia
Community Liaison/Program Assistant
John Jairo Valencia (they/he) grew up in La Puente and Boyle Heights, CA (Tongva territory) and is a queer xicanx/colombian multidisciplinary artist and writer. Among other things, John Jairo’s creative work has centered around illustration, poetry, and performance. They have been an avid student of Maestra Celia Herrera Rodríguez since being an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. As a current graduate student in the Chicana/o/x Studies Department at UCSB, they are passionate about exploring themes of ancestral memory, storytelling, decolonization, and Indigenous-rooted teaching pedagogies. As the Community Liaison/Program Assistant, John is excited to support LMC’s work in building community conciencia through the arts, activism, and conocimiento.
Research Assistants
MariaCarolina Sintura
Graduate Research Assistant
Alondra B.
Undergraduate Research Assistant /
Student Liaison
MariaCarolina is an international Ph.D. student from Colombia in the English Department at UCSB. Her research brings together the Legal Humanities, Critical University Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Women of Color Feminisms as she studies the discourses constructed around the figure of international students and scholars.
She is involved in feminist activism in her home country where, as a blogger and digital content creator, she first experienced the power of personal narrative for the emergence of critical conciencia. She has furthered her exploration of the creative critical in Maestra Moraga’s creative writing workshops as well as in her work as a teaching assistant for the course Writings by Radical Women of Color in Fall 2021.
Her research, her writing, her pedagogies, and her work as a graduate research assistant at LMC aim to explore and embody the radical possibilities of inhabiting the university as an international student who strives to study beyond the credentializing impulses of the institution and move towards relationality and solidaridad.
Alondra B. (she/they) is a third year undergraduate student majoring in Chicana/x/o Studies. She is a first generation Chicana who grew up in Moreno Valley, CA. Her work with Las Maestras Center began in 2022 when she designed and created an altar as a student in Maestra Celia’s class, Xicana/x Visual Traditions. As a student in the Chicana/x/o Studies Departmental Honors program, her research focuses on queer Chicana art that utilizes la imagen de La Virgen de Guadalupe as a method of practicing spiritual activism. Las Maestras Center’s dedication to creating and encouraging the productionof multiple forms of art and knowledge, inspire Alondra to grow and develop her relationship with LMC. She is excited to support LMC in the cultivation and caring of the space, its events and community.