La Chola Conference

Chola’s have long understood their identities as political praxis. The 2021 and 2022 La Chola Conference has shown us that Chola political subjectivity occurs through kinship and social networks, community and cultural practices, through political proclamation in oppressive and institutional spaces, through art, through political teachings in classrooms, through Chola community activism and community making. Much of the refinement of La Chola’s political understandings has happened through the teachings produced via the legacies of Chicano movement history, the Chicana feminist movement, and multiple critical explorations by older and contemporary scholars complicating cultural histories and understandings of self and community practices. Within these dynamic sites of Chola political praxis is also the Chola’s indigenous understandings of self.

Many older and contemporary Cholas work toward decolonizing indigenous concepts of self via acknowledging and embracing indigenous identities and practices as a form of resistance. There are Chola brujas, Chola danzantes, Chola artists, and activists that weave indigenous narratives, teachings, images, and practices into their work as Cholas. La Chola Conference and the Homegirl Association invite you to submit panels, workshops, and individual presentations that unpack how La Chola establishes political praxis through indigenous concepts as a form of reclamation and resistance. How does La Chola work toward creating sacred spaces via homegirl community? What is Chola ceremonia? How are Chola spiritualities embracing, claiming/reclaiming Brujeria and curanderismo practices to heal communities through art, music, and more?