A litany for survival in pandemic times – DisCrit mothering and radical love

Abstract

This is a critical autoethnography informed by Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Dis/ability Critical Race Studies (DisCrit) that explores the notion of DisCrit mothering in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. I use my experiences as a disabled Latina motherscholar and mindfulness practitioner to reflect on how I mother my two young children and foster radical love in educational spaces. I present the pandemic context and how it relates to compassion fatigue and a litany for survival but also offer the pandemic as an opportunity for personal and collective transformation. I use the narrative of sacrificio, a teacher’s note from school, and a “giftedness” program to discuss how I try to resist internal and external pressures to conform to ableist mindsets and practices by cultivating radical love, solidarity, and critical questioning in myself and in my children. I end this work with hope and love for the next generation of DisCrit, social justice warriors.

Keywords:

• DisCrit
• mothering
• mother
• race
• disability
• pandemic

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Valentina Migliarini, Maria Cioe Pena, and Maggie Beneke for inviting me to contribute to this special issue on DisCrit mothering. I also would like to thank my children, Bryson and Kiya, for challenging me, for reminding me why I do the work that I do, and for helping me live a life of integrity and love.

Disclosure statement

The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes

1 Sacrificio is a Spanish word meaning “sacrifice.”.

2 The definition is an adaption from Yoshino (2002), whose work is focused on people who identify as queer.

3 Traviesa linda is Spanish for “naughty cutie” or “cute troublemaker.”.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisette E. Torres

Dr. Lisette E. Torres is a trained scientist and disabled scholar-activist who is a Senior Researcher at TERC, a non-profit made up of teams of math and science education and research experts. She also serves as the Director of Operations and Communication for the Reimagining Equity and Values in Informal STEM Education (REVISE) Center, a collaborative agreement with the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program. Lisette has a doctorate in Education with a Certificate in Social Justice from the School of Education at Iowa State University and a M.S. in Zoology with a Certificate in Ecology from Miami University. Her academic research focuses on addressing racialized gender justice and disability in science and higher education. Lisette is an active member of Science for the People and a co-founder and former executive board member of the National Coalition for Latinxs with Disabilities (CNLD) as well as an advisory board member of Science Friday’s Breakthrough Dialogues Program and the Invisible Disability Project (IDP). Lastly, she is a co-founder of Sines of Disability, a website dedicated to sharing the lived experiences of disabled mathematicians and to disrupting and dismantling systemic ableism both in mathematics and in society.