Community Post 2 - Austin

Muwekma Tah-Ruk Native Alumni Speaker Series: Javier Stell-Fresquez

Javier is a recent Earth Systems alumni who came to talk about their recent work with Two-Spirits Powwow and Dancing Earth Indigenous Contemporary Dance creations. We had the pleasure of watching some of her recent work on Mother the Verb produced this year, and she touched on the introduction of more fluid gender roles in native performance through her work with Two-Spirits Powwow.

The talk became much more of a conversation as Javier wanted to understand what was going through our heads when it came to our communities, our engagement, and our activism at this university. I appreciated how they explained their thoughts as they navigated their identity at Stanford and how there is still a lot to figure out. The way we choose to engage with our communities might change from time to time, and I appreciate how Javier presented this as an ongoing conversation, not something that we should figure out before we leave Stanford or something that should be developed shortly after.