You might have imagined that at this point, there is more robust diversity in medicine, but the old truth that doctors skew white and male still holds. Only 5 percent of American physicians today are African American — and just 2 percent are Black women. Unpacking this statistic is complex. Part of the problem is pipeline — at American Medical Schools, only 7% of the student body identify as Black. Other components of this grim reality lie in the alleyways of racism, both implicit and explicit. The women of color who do make it through the system to become physicians have to reckon with a medical care landscape that often leaves them, as Black women, vulnerable to more significant injury.

Research shows that implicit racial bias may cause doctors to spend less time with Black patients and that African Americans receive less effective care. Healthcare providers are more likely to underestimate their Black patients’ pain, dismiss their complaints, and ignore their symptoms. The sad truth is that racism disproportionately affects the quality of care that birthing mothers receive.

The birth story of tennis supernova Serena Williams is a stark warning of how the system can fail even the most privileged Black women.

The day after giving birth to her daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Williams felt short of breath and alerted her healthcare providers that she was having trouble breathing. Keenly aware of her body and history of developing blood clots in her lungs, she was particularly concerned. But they ignored her concerns, chalking it up to the medication Williams was on: “it’s making her confused,” they said. But Serena Williams persisted and was eventually able to press her providers to give her the care she needed. It saved her life. For so many Black women, however, when a doctor’s initial reaction is not to take their symptoms or pain seriously, they don’t get the care they need — and often suffer greatly for it. The sad thing is that Serena William’s story is all too common. African American maternal mortality rates are a whopping three to four times higher than for white women — and these deaths are often preventable.

All of this makes the success of Dr. Antonette Whitehead even more notable — she is a doctor, despite being a member of a group for whom medicine is not equal. Being a Black woman who delivers babies is social justice in action. And for her POC patients, she offers the opportunity to lay some thorny fears to rest. But Dr. Antonette Whitehead is not just a bringer of babies — she is a bringer of change. Let’s step inside her world to learn more.

What is your background?

I am part Cherokee and Seminole on my Mom’s side and Choctaw on my Dad’s side. Also, my paternal grandmother is from the Bahamas, so there’s Caribbean too, mixed with African American, of course.

When did you know you wanted to be a doctor?

My desire to be a doctor started at 7. My mom had high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and suffered a pretty significant heart attack early on. She loves to tell a story about me dissecting turkey for Thanksgiving and having an iron stomach. At first, my draw to medicine was heart-focused because I saw my mom in pain — I wanted to heal the heart. But then in college, I took a lot of Women’s Studies courses and began to learn about the health care women were receiving. It was the beginning of my segue to Obstetrics and Gynecology. I did a research project based on women’s experiences with their first and second labors and genuinely enjoyed the research. I kept moving towards the birth part of the human experience. By the time I got to medical school, that’s all I wanted to do — make sure women had good and safe deliveries, solid healthcare, stellar prenatal, and health maintenance.

You mentioned your mother as part of what inspired you to become a doctor, what kind of work did your family do?

If you look at our family history in terms of life callings, it’s all over the place — a lot of teachers. A lot of people who work on the line — I’m from Detroit, aka Motor City. A lot of blue-collar. My sister got her Master’s and Ph.D. in nursing; she researches heart health and women of color.

My uncle is an anesthesiologist. Other than that, no lineage of people who went to medical school, which highlights a prevalent disparity between majority and minority. My dad has a business background; he worked with automotive companies and then went back to school and got a Master’s; he now teaches history. My mother finished high school but never went to college. She jokes that all our degrees are her degrees because she was the bedrock that got us through.

Where did you go to medical school?

I went to Wayne State University in downtown Detroit, about a mile away from where I grew up. I tried my hardest to get to NYC but didn’t land here till I was 30. I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and moved home after. Wayne State was a great place to go to school. The hospital attached to the school cares for a very inner-city population. The patients didn’t have a lot of resources and were often very sick, but I learned a great deal from them and felt privileged to be able to help. The beautiful thing about my training was that it was so hands-on and intense. By the time I did my residency in Chicago, I felt I had far more experience taking care of very sick and complicated patients than someone coming from a more advantaged medical school climate.

The cool thing about going to medical school in Detroit was that it allowed me to see more people like me, which felt very empowering. Because it is in downtown Detroit, many of the people who go to school there are from Detroit and are African American and Latino. People of color tend to stay there, so my medical school experience was, perhaps, unique.

How did diversity impact your medical school experience?

At Wayne State University, I was part of a diverse student body, being taught by diverse faculty, and treating diverse patients. I loved that and felt like that was very encouraging. In contrast, when I did my residency at Northwestern in Chicago, I was among the first African American residents to be part of their program in 15 years! Hard to believe but true: a peer of mine and I were the first two people of color in 15 years. At Northwestern University, the people I was learning from were mostly majority, not people of color as they had been at Wayne State. It was a definite shift. There were two African American doctors that I tried to model myself after, and some of the majority teachers too, but it was definitely a different experience. But I have to say that I’m so proud of them as a program. We were trailblazers, and since then, Northwestern has kept up diversity in the program!

Did you experience any challenges related to race or gender when you were in residency?

While I don’t think that I encountered attending physicians who were awkward around me or made me uncomfortable, I sometimes sensed that with the patients. “Are you part of building services, are you a nurse, are you housekeeping?”

Has bias impacted you professionally and personally as a doctor in New York?

I’m very patient-focused and patient-centered, it’s part of why I think I get along so well with the team at NYU. I am all about letting women labor and helping them have a safe and awesome birthing experience. But sometimes, I am taking care of a woman during her labor journey and make a recommendation about what we should do next — and they just don’t hear or accept what I’m saying at all. Then someone comes behind me and suggests the very same thing, and they say yes. I wonder if it’s racism? Sexism? Ageism? All three — none? Is it about seniority, or is it because I’m a woman of color? I’m not sure. I can’t figure out which it is. My medical assistants (who like to make good-natured fun of me for spending so much time with patients) say: “I don’t understand why people are not listening to you. They’d listen to this doctor and that doctor.”

What about interfacing with other doctors?

At NYU, there’s one person I can think of that I had to “prove” myself to: an older male doctor in a position of power. I worked with him for almost eight years, and in all that time, he had never complimented me and continually questioned my management and patient care. One day, however, after a particularly tricky Cesarean section, he walked out of the operating room and said to the patient’s family, “Dr. Whitehead did an excellent job today…” You have to really prove yourself to him before you earn his respect — more for some than for others. The realm of Ob/Gyn was once very male-dominated but has changed considerably over the last two decades. He’s older, so I’ve wondered if this was an issue of seniority, but I suspect sexism was at play. I also wonder if it has to do with me being a woman of color.

As a high-achieving BIPOC female Ob/Gyn, do you face obstacles regularly?

I honestly don’t. However, I like to let my patients get to know me, and feel that my hurdle is that I have some fears that there may be judgment around me being queer — so I don’t let everyone into that side of me.

How has the social justice awakening sparked by George Floyd’s death affected you professionally?

The last few months have been a little difficult with unrest around social justice issues, pandemic challenges, people at home. I have been talking to my daughter about racial injustice, and that has carried over to work.

My colleagues and I have been discussing the protests and social justice awakening — and I’ve shared that I want us as a practice to take a stance on what’s happening. I think it has helped open their eyes. I feel they have begun to recognize me more as a woman of color. Until these last few months, I never talked about race. I don’t think that there was un-recognition in a negative way; they simply saw me as their talented, competent medical partner. One nurse that I am close to at NYU said: “Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’ve always thought that you were awesome, but I didn’t even think about the fact that you’re African American until now.” But now, as a queer woman of color, I have become more vocal about wanting to establish our practice as one that cares for ALL women. Happy to say that my colleagues have become a little more woke.

My wife, Candace, jokes that I’m having a re-awakening that I’m a Black woman (laughs). Becoming a mother, raising a woman of color, makes me feel I have to have something more to say about things. The silver lining of this pandemic and social unrest is that people have been part of the change. Now my question is, what am I going to do about that?

What is it that you are drawn to do about social justice?

I have several patients that teach in Harlem and in Brooklyn, who have invited me to come to talk to children in their schools and be a mentor. I started mentoring just before COVID-19 hit. Thinking back to college and even high school, it would have been good to see more women who look like me — or men, people of color in general. I want to show that you can be a person of color and achieve your dreams.

Now that I am a mother, doctor, and wife, I am ready to give back more fully to the community. I would love to do something for women in terms of talking about health, how to take care of our bodies. I am thinking about partnering with Cumbe, a center for diaspora dance and music in Brooklyn.

Can you share your insights into the crisis of African American maternal health in the USA?

I have to tell you from a personal perspective when I was pregnant; I was deathly afraid. Even as a privileged woman — with a good income and insurance, and some of my best colleagues taking care of me — I was still very, very worried about developing blood pressure issues or gestational diabetes or any of the other comorbidities that we know are higher for moms of color. I’ll be transparent: I was terrified I could die because my delivery became complicated.

Is this part of why you feel diversity in medicine matters?

Absolutely. My POC patients are sometimes extremely concerned about making sure I am on call for their deliveries because they are afraid that a majority doctor may not be as attuned to what they need for pain management or in the face of complications. “How can I make sure you’re on call when I’m in labor because I’m scared no one will listen to me about my pain control or how I’m feeling. Am I going to be listened to? Will I be heard?”

The great thing about NYU is that we have not seen that discrepancy in maternal health outcomes — and we want to keep it that way. Our nurses have spearheaded a committee called Black Mothers Matter, a group focused on keeping the level of care high for moms of color (and all mothers) by taking a close look at how we manage care for women who come in with possible warning signs like high blood pressure.

Initially, there was some pushback. When we first started talking about this, some doctors and nurses said: “Everyone matters. All moms matter. Why do we have to have a committee about this?” It’s been interesting to see that over the past several months, there has been more and more interest and understanding of why we feel this committee needs to be present. It’s been a cool thing to watch this awareness bloom. And now, I’m so proud to tell my POC patients about the committee and share NYU’s dedication and success in ensuring the health of Black mothers truly matters.

What advice would you give young Black or POC girls who might be thinking about pursuing medicine?

“You’ll never be able to be a mother and have a career.” That was the messaging from some people in my family. Not from majority people — my own family. Believe in yourself and your ability. We tend to beat ourselves up on our journey as women. It will take time, but you can do it, it’s not unattainable. I think that finding mentorship earlier is helpful; I didn’t have that until I got to medical school.

Be positive. Find a mentor. Grab on their coattails — and just GO. Find someone who looks like you who’s doing it who can help show you the way.

Dr. Antonette Whitehead joined the Downtown Women OB/GYN team in August 2011. Moving her practice from the Midwest, she enjoys delivering gynecologic and obstetric care to the women of New York City. Dr. Whitehead received her BS from the University of Michigan in 2003 and her MD in 2007 from Wayne State University. She completed her residency training in Chicago at Northwestern University’s Prentice Women’s Hospital in 2011. Dr. Whitehead completed her board certification in November 2013.

About the author.
An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist — Karina writes, edits, and produces compelling content across multiple platforms — including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties.

José Martí is commonly thought of as the patron saint of Cuba. He is almost a deity, the most universally beloved and revered figure in the island’s post-colonial history.* A teacher, journalist, poet, philosopher, and revolutionary, Martí relentlessly co-conspired to free Cuba from Spanish rule. His death at the beginning of the Cuban War of Independence branded him as a martyr and inspired his countrymen to fight for their freedom.

Born in Havana in 1853, he came of age during the Ten Years War, Cuba’s first attempt to rid themselves of Spanish sovereign rule. At 16, he was already a promising writer, academic, and staunch proponent of liberty for his island nation. During the conflict, he was incarcerated, sentenced to hard labor, and eventually deported to Spain.

“Saber leer es saber andar. Saber escribir es saber ascender”
Knowing how to read is knowing how to walk. Knowing how to write is knowing how to fly.

After attending university and continuing his writing career, Marti moved to Mexico, where he met his wife and later spent time teaching in Guatemala. He made attempts to return to Cuba, but after having a request to practice law denied, he eventually left for the United States. During that time, he worked as a journalist (even founding newspapers and magazines himself), professor, and writer. He taught Afro-Cuban exiles how to read and write, earning the nickname “El Maestro,” and was considered a renewer of Spanish poetry. Martí is renowned as one of the most important writers of the 19th century.

As he spent more time in the United States, he connected with the community of Cuban exiles. While making plans for the Cuban War of Independence, he eventually tapped into this network to raise money for the war effort and sent weapons to Cuba. In 1892 he was elected “delegate” of the Partido Revolucionario Cubano. As a writer and philosopher, he managed to bring together various factions of rebels Including Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gomez, who were leaders during the Ten Years War, forming a unified alliance against Spanish occupation.

No hay hombre sin Patria, ni Patria sin libertad”
There is no man without his country, nor a country without liberty

On April 11, 1895, Marti, Gomez, and others landed in Cuba and met with the Cuban rebels lead by Maceo. It soon became clear while he was an excellent communicator and strategist, Marti was not a soldier. One month later, on May 19, he was killed during the Battle of Dos Rios.

According to scholars, when he galloped on horseback in Dos Rios it was “basically suicide.” Some note that it was “the best possible death for him,” not because he longed for death, but rather he would have chosen to die on the battlefield in pursuit of liberty. In his poetry he deems dying in the light of the sun as the death of a good man.

My great-grandmother’s personal favorite:
“Ser culto para ser libre.”
Be educated to be free

While he was only 42 at the time of his death, Martí left behind an incredible legacy as a politician, journalist, and writer, shaping Cuba’s liberation not only through his ideology, but also his martyrdom. The start of the Cuban War of Independence failed to appeal to the common man as it was organized by the intellectual elite rather than the masses, but Martí’s death provided a source of inspiration that permeated the rest of Cuban culture, as well as much of Latin-America and the subsequent migrants of the Cuban diaspora.

Cuba’s signature song, “Guantanamera,” draws its best known lyrics (there are many versions of it, as folk songs lend themselves to adlibbing the verses) from one of Martí’s poetry collections, Versos Sencillos or “Simple Verses.” The excerpted stanzas are highlighted below (with fairly literal translations by yours truly).

I:1

Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crece la palma,
Y antes de morirme quiero
Echar mis versos del alma.

I am an honest man
From where the palm grows,
And before I die I want to
Throw my verses from my soul.

V:3

Mi verso es de un verde claro
Y de un carmín encendido:
Mi verso es un ciervo herido
Que busca en el monte amparo.

My verse is of a soft green
And of a flaming carmine:
My verse is of a wounded deer
That searches for shelter in the hills.

XXXIX:1

Cultivo una rosa blanca
En julio como en enero,
Para el amigo sincero
Que me da su mano franca.

I cultivate a white rose
In July just as in January,
For the honest friend
That gives me their open hand.

III:2

Con los pobres de la tierra
Quiero yo mi suerte echar:
El arroyo de la sierra
Me complace más que el mar.

To the earth’s poor
I’d like to cast my luck:
The streams of the mountains
Please me more than the sea.=

*Meanwhile, the most revered indigenous (or pre-colonial) figure would be Hatuey, a Taino chief who led the first fighters against the Spaniards and was burned at the stake. He is known as Cuba’s First National Hero. The most generally beloved and revered figure might be Fidel Castro or Che Guevara, but the love is very much not universal, especially among Cuban-Americans.

Note: Parts of this article without linked citations take their evidence from The Cuba Libre Story: Episode 1 Breaking Chains

About the author.
Alessandra is the mentor, educator, and writer behind Boneseed, a private practice devoted to deep self-inquiry through a range of physical, energetic, and mental modalities. She has over 500 hours of yoga, mentorship, and facilitation training and can be found slinging knowledge on her website, newsletter, and @bone.seed.

Shirley Chisholm personifies the triumph of the marginalized becoming center stage in the American political story.

The first African American woman elected to Congress, she served a newly reapportioned Congressional district centered in Brooklyn, New York, for seven terms, starting in 1969. The daughter of immigrants from Guyana and Barbados, Chisholm was a tireless advocate for poor, inner-city residents and was elected in part due to her deep community roots in her Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Catapulted into the national limelight due to her race, gender, and larger-than-life personality — Chisholm was also the first Black woman to campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1972. Her slogan — “Unbought and Unbossed,” captures her fierce self-determination and independent spirit. But she was plagued by sexist and racist opposition from within and without, and failed to win her party’s nomination, losing to anti-Vietnam War crusader Senator George McGovern.

Born in Brooklyn, November 30, 1924, Shirley Anita St. Hill was the eldest of her four sisters. Her mother, Ruby Seale St. Hill, was a seamstress from Barbados, her father, Charles St. Hill, a factory laborer from Guyana. For part of her childhood, Chisholm lived on her maternal grandparents’ farm in Barbados, receiving a British education, while her parents toiled to make a living during the Great Depression. Her time in the West Indies gifted Chisholm with a slight, clipped British accent, which she kept her whole life. Chisholm graduated with high marks from public schools in Brooklyn and was accepted to Vassar and Oberlin colleges — but attended Brooklyn College on scholarship and graduated cum laude, with a Bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1946. In 1949, she married Conrad Q. Chisholm, a private eye (whom she later divorced, in 1977), and went on to earn a Master’s degree from Columbia University in early childhood education in 1951.

After working for several years as a nursery school teacher, and later as an educational consultant for New York City’s Division of Daycare, Chisholm pivoted into a career in politics. In the 1960s, she joined her local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, to join the growing fight against racism. But as it turned out, racism was not her only enemy. “I have certainly met much more discrimination in terms of being a woman than being black.” Eager for change, Chisholm also joined her local League of Women Voters group, the Urban League, and the Democratic Party club of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Her involvement with the NAACP and these other groups spurred Chisholm to run for New York State Legislature in 1964. She won — becoming just the second African American in New York to do so. And only four years later, Chisholm became the first African American woman to win a seat in Congress. In 1968, after a court-mandated redistricting created a new, heavily democratic district in her neighborhood, Chisholm seized the moment and made a historic run for Congress, kicking off what would be a seven-term tenure.

Roaming the new district in a sound truck that she would pull up outside housing projects, she called out to her community: “Ladies and Gentlemen … this is fighting Shirley Chisholm coming through.” She successfully capitalized on her ability to connect with people. “I have a way of talking that does something to people,” she said. “I have a theory about campaigning. You have to let them feel you.”

“Fighting Shirley” championed racial and gender equality, the plight of the poor, and was a staunch advocate for ending the Vietnam War, going on to introduce more than 50 pieces of legislation. Chisholm was a co-founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus — and in 1977, made herstory again by becoming the first Black woman (and second woman ever) to serve on the mighty House Rules Committee — a year that she also celebrated new love, marrying Arthur Hardwick Jr., a New York State legislator.

But it was her run for President, in 1972, that feels especially relevant today, as we continue to grapple with entrenched systemic racism and an avalanche of social justice activism. With Kamala Harris, our first-ever woman of color running as vice presidential candidate, we are closer than ever to realizing Chisholm’s vision. While her bid for President was ultimately unsuccessful, as an unwavering feminist with strong stances on civil and women’s rights, and support for the poor and working-class — Chisholm’s campaign captured hearts, minds, and vitriol. In her rousing speech in which she announced her candidacy, she exclaimed, “I am not the candidate of Black America, although I am Black and proud, I am not the candidate of the woman’s movement of this country, although I am a woman and I am equally proud of that.”

Her famous slogan, “Unbought and Unbossed,” personified a powerful and defiant campaign that sought to speak truth to power despite the Congressional Black Caucus’s unsupportive male members. Prominent African American politicians and activists Jesse Jackson, Carl Stokes, Julian Bond, and John Conyers Jr. each put the strength of their support behind her white, male opponent — George McGovern. Sexism and disbelief that a woman could actually win marked their flawed rationale behind their stance. Her response cuts deep to this day, “Black male politicians are no different from white male politicians. This ‘woman thing’ is so deep. I’ve found it out in this campaign if I never knew it before.” While she did not win the Democratic nomination, Chisholm gained national recognition, appearing on 12 national primary ballots, receiving 10% of the delegate vote, proving that her brave run had indeed won hearts and minds. During her campaign for President, she survived three assassination attempts, showing that she also scared people by boldly going where no Black woman had gone before.

Chisholm retired from Congress in 1983, going on to teach at Mount Holyoke College. In 1991, she made Florida her home, after declining to become US Ambassador to Jamaica due to poor health. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993. In January 2005, Chisholm suffered a series of strokes, dying at the age of 81. Forever a woman of firsts, even in death, she will be the first female ever to have a monument built in her honor in Brooklyn. Musing on her legacy, Chisholm said, “I want to be remembered as a woman … who dared to be a catalyst of change.

About the author.
An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist — Karina writes, edits, and produces compelling content across multiple platforms — including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties.

Backbreaking labor under an unforgiving sun, sleeping in dirt-floor shacks, dozens of men to a room, all for below-poverty wages — it was a brutal and hardscrabble life for farmworkers in the early 20th century, most of whom came from south of the Rio Grande. That is, until Dolores Huerta, and other crusaders like her, came along. In 1965, Huerta founded the United Farm Workers — an organization that, to this day, works tirelessly to safeguard and improve working conditions for migrant farm laborers. Despite immense adversity, facing rampant racism and sexism both outside and inside her organization, Huerta was instrumental in bringing about important legislation that protects vulnerable farmworkers through boycotts, picketing, protesting, and lobbying — taking power to the people and making real change happen.

Dolores Clara Fernandez was born on April 10, 1930, in Dawson, a small mining town in the semi-arid mountains of northern New Mexico, which is today an abandoned ghost town. Her father, Juan Ferånández, a farmworker and miner, was also a union activist who ran for political office, winning a seat in the New Mexico legislature in 1938. Her father’s political and labor activism inspired the path Dolores’ life would later take. But Huerta spent most of her childhood and early adult years in Stockton, California — where she and her two brothers moved with their mother, after their parents’ divorce when she was three.

Her mother, Alicia, became an active participant in Stockton’s community affairs — involved in various civic organizations and her church. Alicia’s community activism informed her daughter’s path. After high school, Dolores went to the University of Pacific’s Delta College in Stockton, earning a teaching degree. She married Ralph Head and had two daughters, Celeste and Lori (though she divorced soon after) and began to teach. Her students, however, would come to school with bare feet and empty stomachs, and it became too heartbreaking to bear witness to this extreme poverty without taking action — propelling her to become an activist for farmworkers’ rights.

When she was 25, Huerta became the Community Service Organization’s political director, run by the prominent community organizer, Fred Ross. It was there that she met César Chávez, with whom she teamed up in 1962 to form what later became the United Farmworkers Association. The UFA worked primarily with Latino laborers, as most migrant farmworkers were Mexican by the mid-20th century due to the Bracero program — an initiative that brought 4.5 million Mexicans to the United States to compensate for labor shortages in the agricultural and railroad industries caused by World War II. Later described as a form of “legalized slavery” by the Department of Labor official who was in charge of the Bracero program, workers experienced inhumane living conditions, exploitative labor practices, and appalling racist and sexist violence. These workers, however, found an ally in Dolores Huerta.

In a 2017 interview with NPR, Huerta shared that migrant farmworkers “didn’t have toilets in the fields, they didn’t have cold drinking water. They didn’t have rest periods.” These farm laborers only earned about 70 cents an hour at the time — 90 cents was the maximum wage paid. The farm workers toiled from sunup to sundown, but lived in shacks with dirt floors despite how hard they worked, their furniture cast-off fruit crates and cardboard boxes. The children were ill-fed and ill-clothed, often suffering from malnutrition. It was an inhumane existence — the sheer brutality of which galvanized her work with César Chávez, and together, they fought for the rights of these dispossessed workers.

Chávez, however, often occupied the spotlight, receiving much of the credit for their joint work. Despite Huerta’s indomitable skills as an organizer and shrewd negotiator being essential to their success, she faced extensive sexism within the movement and disdain from those who believed she belonged at home with her children, rather than on the frontlines, fighting for justice.

In 1965, the grape pickers went on strike, and Huerta was the leading political organizer. But she faced violence on the picket lines and sexism from all sides: the growers she was railing against and their allies — and as well, from within her own organization. A politician derisively described her as Chávez’s “sidekick.” The feminist movement was in its nascent years and Huerta was an unconventional character — twice-divorced and the mother of 11 children. Huerta’s opponents weaponized this as inflammatory propaganda, asking who supported her children when she was “out on these adventures?” But in the words of Elizabeth Warren, she persisted. After five trying years, the United Farm Workers signed a historic agreement with 26 large grape growers. Huerta successfully turned a nationwide consumer boycott of grapes into better pay, healthcare, unemployment benefits, and labor protections for thousands of farmworkers.

While her role in the farmworkers movement has long been overshadowed by that of Chávez, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, and credited Huerta for coining the famed UFA battle cry Si se puede! — Spanish for “Yes, we can” that inspired Obama’s campaign slogan — which has so often been wrongly attributed to Chávez.

At age 90, Dolores Huerta continues to be outspoken and determined — a living labor and civil rights icon, a social justice activist for most her life, fighting for better protections and work conditions for the farmworkers that pick our food. To this day, through her Dolores Huerta Foundation, she continues to work with agricultural communities, helping organize people to run for office — a lifelong advocate for health, education, and economic development for all.

About the author.
An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist — Karina writes, edits, and produces compelling content across multiple platforms — including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties.

Illustration by Creative Circle candidate Jose Mora.

Indigenous rights can be a touchy subject for American* colonizers. Looking back at the messy history of rape, illness, slavery, and genocide over the ownership of massive swaths of land, as well as an array of treaties that have been broken again and again. Furthermore, independence for European colonies across the Americas did not usually mean independence for the native populations.

During Guatemala’s grueling decades-long Civil War (1960-1996), Rigoberta Menchú grew into a young activist, an intelligent organizer, and a fierce defender of her people in El Quché, as well as indigenous groups all over Guatemala. Born into a family of community leaders, her parents settled on mountain land after being unable to sustain themselves on the land left to them after the Spanish conquest of Guatemala. Her father was an activist in his own right and was killed in the 1980 Burning of the Spanish Embassy. Her mother was later kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the Guatemalan Army.

To add some context, Guatemala, along with Honduras, was known as a “banana republic.” The Civil War began as a result of a 1954 coup d’état that was supported by the CIA, a common occurrence in the Cold War era. The instated president Carlos Castillo Armas was assassinated three years later and replaced with slew of military leaders that committed suppression, assassination of opponents, and a range of war crimes. When guerrilla groups rose up against the military regime, extreme violence pervaded the country, particularly targeting indigenous populations who were harshly discriminated against in all facets of society.

Despite her tragic early life, Menchú rose up and became an international advocate for the indigenous resistance in Guatemala. She fled to Mexico, began advocating on behalf of her people to the international community, and joined the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations.

In 1982, she narrated a book about her life and the life of her people titled Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació la conciencia, which was translated to five language including I, Rigoberta Menchu, An Indian Woman in Guatemala in English. She opens the book with “I’d like to stress that it’s not only my life, it’s also the testimony of my people,” as not all the stories come from her personal and family experience, but the experience of other indigenous Guatemalans.

She also spoke heavily of traditions and teachings from her Mayan mother from the interdependence of nature, to gender roles in Mayan culture, to the significance of the sun, as well as birth and death rites. Menchú noted how her mother encouraged her to speak out as an equal throughout the struggle for human rights:

“I don’t want to make you stop feeling a woman, but your participation in the struggle must be equal to that of your brothers. But you mustn’t join as just another number, you must carry out important tasks, analyze your position as a woman and demand a share. A child is only given food when he demands it. A child who makes no noise, gets nothing to eat.”

She attempted to return to Guatemala in 1988 but was threatened with jail time and instead has to stealthily visit for very short periods of time. In 1992, Menchú won the Nobel Peace Prize. She opened her lecture with the following:

“I consider this Prize, not as a reward to me personally, but rather as one of the greatest conquests in the struggle for peace, for Human Rights and for the rights of the indigenous people, who, for 500 years, have been split, fragmented, as well as the victims of genocides, repression and discrimination.”

She goes on to call for social justice and the implementation of human rights in Guatemala, outlining the struggles of the indigenous population — which include exile, poverty (and the malnutrition, infant mortality and lack of education that come with it), and persecution by the army — and women’s struggles in particular.

To paint the picture of context once more, this was a woman in her early 30s, who was living in exile of her home country after her immediate family were all killed, speaking with grace and poise about how to move forward and protect humanity’s most vulnerable populations from her home country to South Africa to the Middle East to Southeast Asia.

Menchú brought several heads of state to trial in Spain (and later in their homeland of Guatemala), including Efrain Rios Montt who despite being convicted of masterminding indigenous genocide and sentenced to 80 years in prison, never served any actual jail time. He was the first head of state tried for genocide in his home country.

Her international activism continues as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, president of Salud Para Todos (Health for All), Nobel Women’s Initiative, PeaceJam, and Foundation Chirac. In her positions, she has advocated for shortening the patent life of AIDS and cancer drugs to increase availability, advocated for women’s rights around the world alongside fellow Nobel Prize winners, mentored youth, and otherwise promoted world peace.

To this day, she continues to speak out against inequality, climate change, and injustice, most recently focusing on the turmoil in Venezuela. Her remarkable resilience, courage, and compassion remain an example to humanity of the potential of a single life.

May her legacy continue to inspire movements.

AWARDS + HONORS

1992 Nobel Peace Prize
1992 UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador position
1996 Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award
1998 Prince of Asturias Prize
1999 asteroid 9481 Menchú was named in her honor
2010 Order of the Azetex Eagle
2018 Spendlove Prize

*As in those who settled in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean

About the author.
Alessandra is the mentor, educator, and writer behind Boneseed, a private practice devoted to deep self-inquiry through a range of physical, energetic, and mental modalities. She has over 500 hours of yoga, mentorship, and facilitation training and can be found slinging knowledge on her website, newsletter, and @bone.seed.

A visionary Surrealist, Remedios Varo’s fantastical paintings of androgynous creatures engaged in alchemy, magic, and the occult arts continue to confound and inspire.

Her work often depicts her sitting at a desk, engaged in mystical work, going on a journey to reveal true meaning, or seemingly disappearing into the background environment that envelops her. Bodies merge with objects and animals to assume captivating new hybrid beings. In Creation of The Birds (1957), the central figure is a human-owl hybrid who is painting birds that animate and fly off the page, with paint from a nearby machine that resembles an insect that deposits colors onto her palette. These dreamlike creations became part of Varo’s modernist mythos — she, along with the rest of the Surrealists, invoked occult imagery to test viewers’ understanding of their reality. Weaving in themes of witchcraft, which has continued to make a comeback as a counterpoint to our tumultuous times, Varo’s magical paintings continue to resonate powerfully today.

Salvador Dalí. Man Ray. Marcel Duchamp. Rene Magritte. Max Ernst. Hans Arp. Yves Tanguy. The names most often associated with Surrealism are (surprise, surprise) all men — making the re-emergence of female Surrealist artists’ work all the more important. A learned naturalist, alchemist, and seeker of knowledge, Varo’s dreamscape paintings were introspective depictions of her reality. She created her profoundly intuitive and magical works in the hopes of inspiring more individual balance in an increasingly interconnected world. Varo was a deep admirer of Hiëronymus Bosch, whose mysterious surrealistic paintings pre-date Surrealism by about 500 years. While her work is steeped in depictions of spirituality, many of Varo’s figures are based on a subject close to the artist — her body. Many of her characters are approximations of herself, and when Varo painted women, they were typically strong and self-determined, depicted as heroines or mythical characters, in charge of their own mystical destinies. They populated symbolic worlds inhabited by machines, magical hybrid creatures, where objects come to life.

Born Maria de los Remedios Alicia Rodriga Varo y Uranga in 1908, in Spain, Varo played a vital role in the Mexico City-based Surrealist movement. Her enigmatic paintings of androgynous creatures and strange humans engaged in alchemy, magic, and occult arts also included architectural features that show off her expert drafting skills, which she learned from her engineer father.

Varo was raised in a well-educated family — her father, a hydraulics engineer, recognized her artistic talent early on and taught her technical drawing when she was young. Because of her father’s work, the family moved to different locations across Spain and North Africa before finally settling down in Madrid in 1917, where she attended Catholic school and later pursued art at the Royal Academy de Finas Artes de San Fernando, graduating in 1930 with a degree to teach art and drawing.

It was in the mid-1930s, when living in Barcelona, that Varo became involved in Surrealism, joining the avant-garde artists’ group Logicophobista. In 1936, she met the Surrealist poet Benjamin Péret. Together, they fled Spain for Paris and married in 1937. They were soon drawn into the Surrealist world there, and Varo exhibited her art at shows with the group and published work in French Surrealist publications.

The couple fled again, in late 1941, to escape Nazi-occupied France — this time to Mexico City, where they connected with local writers like Octavio Paz, along with other exiled artists, among them Gordon Onslow Ford, Wolfgang Paalen, and Leonora Carrington, who became Varo’s best friend. Her first pursuits in Mexico City were in commercial art, costume design, and pre-Colombian pottery restoration. She only began to devote her time wholly to painting in 1953, after she had separated from Péret and became romantically entwined with Austrian businessman Walter Gruen, who supported her art-making.

The close friendship with Leonora Carrington, another Surrealist, was a deeply important one. They were tuned into a shared ancestral and evolutionary feminine consciousness that informed their desire to free women from repressive patriarchal systems, often depicted in Varo’s work through the repeated motifs of a cage and tower, or figures bound to machines or contraptions. Their work is rich in similarities, though Carrington was the better-known of the two. Both relished themes steeped in the occult, mystical worlds, and anthropomorphosis (humanization of animals) — and their artworks have even been misattributed to one another. The two wrote fairytales, invented Surrealistic potions and recipes, and influenced one another’s work. They sometimes engaged in elaborate pranks, like putting ink in tapioca pearls to serve as caviar at soirees, to guests like the renowned poet, Octavio Paz.

Carrington’s friendship provided security for Varo — who was often uneasy and superstitious — and reflects an inherent desire in female artists to create supportive networks. Reflecting Varo’s popularity beyond the art world and among the general public (at least in Mexico), her work has taken on an extensive cultural life.

Even the iconic Madonna is inspired by Varos. Her Surrealist paintings are the inspiration for the pop star’s legendary 1995 Bedtime Story video. Madonna says the following about the video (the second most expensive ever produced after Scream by Janet and Michael Jackson):

My “Bedtime Story” video was completely inspired by all the female Surrealist painters like Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington. There’s that one shot where my hands are up in the air, and stars are spinning around me. And me flying through the hallway with my hair trailing behind me, the birds flying out of my open robe — all of those images were an homage to female Surrealists.

The Bedtime Story music video director, Mark Romanek, recounts his first encounter with Madonna. At the time, she was redecorating her home and living in a hotel. The only thing that she had taken from her house to the hotel was a single piece of surrealist art by a female painter. He didn’t mention which artist or painting, only that it was purple — but from that moment, he knew that he and Madonna had to create a music video that paid homage to the artistic influence of the female Surrealists.

Remedios Varo created the bulk of her work in the last ten years of her life, which was cut short by a heart attack at 54. It was not until the last 13 years of her life — after having fled war-torn Europe, finding a home in Mexico with other displaced Surrealists — that she finally became free of the financial yoke that had previously kept her from painting full-time. Varo had a well-received solo exhibition premiere in Mexico City in 1956, continuing to exhibit after that.

Varo and her art became legendary in Mexico following her death. Mexican art critics of the publication Novedades called her “one of the most individual and extraordinary painters of Mexican art.” A major art book, Obras de Remedios Varo, was published following the first retrospective of Varo’s work and sold all of its three subsequent printings, becoming a highly coveted collector’s item. Her haunting and iconographic work is now in the collections of major museums like the Museum of Modern Art in New York and collected by the likes of Madonna. Remedios Varo is now considered among the most eminent and influential Surrealist artists of the 20th century — her haunting and mystical work continuing to strike a powerful chord.

About the author.
An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist — Karina writes, edits, and produces compelling content across multiple platforms — including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties.