Becoming Mujeres

In honor of Mother’s Day, OP Talks presents a mother-daughter conversation between sociologist and ethnographer Dr. María del Socorro Castañeda and Lupita Tonantzin Castañeda-Liles about keeping the lines of communication open so that we can heal intergenerational trauma. After Lupita faced some challenging times in middle school, they decided to start Becoming Mujeres, a training firm that provides workshops and seminars on mental health to Latina teens, young adults, and older women. Some of the silences that often come with intergenerational trauma are consistent, says Dr. Castañeda, who is Chief Education Officer. “That's why we need to be proactive in healing those silences…To talk about Catholicism is also to address the silences that come with growing up in that particular faith or devotion.” Together, Dr. Castañeda and Lupita—now in her first year of high school—model how to communicate across generational lines. They talk about how to break communication barriers between caregivers and teenagers so that they can understand the social context that influences the way each approaches a situation. Dr. Castañeda encourages “parents to be open, to acknowledge, to embrace, and to see as a gift the importance of being fully open with our children.”