My Master’s thesis project explores the ways Chicanas negotiate an indigenous-based spiritual practice centering the experiential knowledges of women who participate in full moon healing circles. Specifically, this research focuses on Omecihuatl, from Orange County, California, and Coyolxauhqui Full Moon Circle from Los Angeles, California, to demonstrate how Chicanas understand their individual and collective healing. By conducting oral histories of six participants, I trace their healing journey as well as how they came to participate in the full moon circles. In this research, the questions I raise are: how do Chicanas’ spiritual and healing practices inform their journeys toward healing? What are the experiences of some Chicanas participating in healing circles? What are the relationships between these women with Indigenous and Native American peoples, practices, and knowledges within healing circles?

While some of the women I interviewed have a connection to indigenous ancestral knowledge, most women experience detribalization. Inspired by Gloria Anzald�a’s concept of Coyolxauqui Imperative, and Maria Josefina Salda�a Portillo and Maria Eugenia Cotera’s concept Mestizo Mourning, I use Coyolxauhqui mourning to articulate a detribalized Chicana experience. This works in two ways. The first, in attempting to put an indigenous-based spiritual practice, detribalized Chicanas are missing practices and links to indigenous ancestry. Like the pieces of Coyolxauhqui that are lost in her dis-memberment and cannot be recovered, Chicanas face the same dilemma—they can re-member pieces, but something will be lost in their re-connection. In the case of detribalized Chicanas, they must mourn those lost pieces. For some Chicanas, this means grieving the loss of a direct tie to an indigenous ancestry. Second, Coyolxauhqui mourning means a re-connection to an indigenous identity and practice through honoring native and indigenous ceremonies, disrupting indigenist iconography, and honoring elders’ and ancestors’ epistemologies to attain healing and wholeness. I argue that Coyolxauhqui mourning works to understand a possible path to re-connect an indigenous-based spirituality and healing of detribalized Chicanas.

Healing Justice in Chicana/x feminist organizing focuses on an unexplored healing justice tradition, specifically Chicana/x feminist interventions meant to engender whole and healthy communities. In this research, I bring into focus a long lineage of healing justice in Chicana/x movements that–while providing a rich foundation for the contemporary work happening in Chicana/o/x communities—have not been fully explored before now. I assert that Chicana/x healing justice, which I elaborate in this dissertation, includes intersectional wholeness, community care, and healing from historical trauma. I argue that healing justice is not a new phenomenon in Chicana/x feminist organizing. Instead, there is a wealth of examples from different Chicana/x feminist movements that show how Chicana/xs have merged community wellness, healing, and social justice in unique ways according to specific needs. Recognizing this legacy will help ensure that Chicana/o/x activism considers the needs of communities and the importance of addressing intersectional experiences going forward. This dissertation offers a glimpse of the collaborative research I participated in the last seven years with Mujeres de Ma�z and Full Moon Healing Circles, as well as intergenerational conversations with Chicana/x feminists. This research sets out to answer the following questions: What is healing justice in a Chicana/x context? What is the genealogy of healing justice in Chicana/x feminist organizing? How are contemporary Chicana/x activists and artivists practicing healing justice? I draw on ten oral histories and seven years of participant observation to better understand how Chicana/x feminist activists inform a Chicana/x healing justice framework. This dissertation is organized into three parts. The first begins by honoring the early work of Chicana feminist activists Gloria Arellanes and Celia Herrera Rodriguez. Specifically, I center the oral histories of Chicana maestras whose community activism spans about 40 years. Then, I discuss the women of color artivist collective Mujeres de Ma�z to demonstrate how organizing practices and holistic art practices can inform a Chicana/x healing justice politic. I end with a case study on full moon healing circles Omecihuatl from Orange County, CA and Coyolxauhqui Full Moon Circle from East Los Angeles, CA to highlight how self-care is a part of community care.