Thesis Series Part 1: Survival Before Scholarship

Send us Fan MailBefore there was a thesis, there was survival. In this opening episode, Fira shares the story of how she arrived at graduate school—not through a carefully planned academic path, but through years of navigating broken systems, community responsibility, loss, and improvisation. From teaching on the reservation, to moving to Las Cruces after her mother’s passing, to entering a graduate program without Indigenous mentorship, this episode traces the conditions that made the thesis necessary. This conversation is not about individuals or institutions, but about patterns, absence, and what it means to build your own container when support disappears. This is the beginning—before the language, before the defense, before the scholarship.Support the show