A Workshop with Alberto López Pulido
Founding Chair, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of San Diego

To be broadcast live via Zoom on Tuesday, August 11th, 2020
1:00 – 4:00 pm EDT
30% of proceeds from this event will go towards the Black Womxn Deserve Mutual Aid Fund

A recording has been emailed to registrants.

Alberto draws from his teaching and writings that call for our contemplative practices to be understood as occurring within a social context that he refers to as situated contemplation. Situated contemplation recognizes that contemplation must be practiced, understood and situated in a social and political context. Contemplative practices must grow from out of the community, where all forms of practices and expressions are recognized and validated, and where contemplative practices are imbued with meaning that arises from within these communities.

This workshop is calling for a reimagining of the contemplative practice of breathing in our lives. It recognizes that the ability to breathe is deeply situated and political because not everyone has access to the right to breathe, as others with more power than you can determine if you will breathe or not.

Therefore, you are invited to engage, contemplate, and reimagine the following:

• How can we bring forth resistance and social change by the simple act of breathing?
• How can I embrace mindfulness meditation practices such as breathing while at the same time standing one with George Floyd and others who have suffocated at the hands of state-sanctioned violence?
• How might I modify and situate my practice of mindfulness meditation in community by adopting situated practices, and what might this practice look like?

This workshop strives to provide a safe and brave space where such critical reflection and analysis will take place and provide hands-on and applied practices to address these issues.

Alberto Pulido is the founding chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of San Diego. He works in the areas of Chicanx Religions and Chicanx material culture and practices. He encountered the world of contemplative educational practices when he met Dr. Laura Rendón who recognized and affirmed his work in Cajitas Pedagogy that is featured in Dr. Rendón’s groundbreaking work entitled Sentipensante (sensing/thinking) Pedagogy. Alberto is currently at work on expanding and developing his work on Cajitas as a contemplative practice and continues to serve the Logan Heights community as an activist and writer wishing to tell the history of this historic neighborhood and the sacred space known to all as Chicano Park. In addition to serving the community with his mobile classroom project known as Turning Wheel, he is a proud and active member of the Chicano Park Steering Committee (CPSC) and Vice Chair of the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center.