Latinx Heritage Month Opening Ceremony - Celebrating Cultura, Ceremony & Resiliency!
The Center for Latinx Communities at Pepperdine University would like to invite you
to the Latinx Heritage Month Opening Ceremony with Maestra Grace Alvarez Sesma on
September 16, from 10:00 to 11:30 AM PST via Zoom. This is free to attend, and we welcome all members of our communities.
We are all related across this continent known as the Americas. Our history is one of shared values of interconnectedness, respect for the earth, love of family, and walking a path of healing to break intergenerational wounds. We are way-showers, seed-keepers, activists, and knowledge-keepers. Today, we are reclaiming our identity, language, culture, and sacred connections. Join us as we celebrate Latinx Heritage Month, our roots, and the resiliency of ancestors, their descendants, and our vibrant community with prayer, ceremony, and sharing by Maestra Grace Alvarez Sesma.
Grace Alvarez Sesma, of Yaqui/Mexican heritage, is a cultural practitioner, educator, and activist whose calling to walk the path of the Curanderismo began in childhood. Her consulting and private healing practice draws on her family’s knowledge and from Yaqui, Zapotec, and Mexika healing traditions. Her aunt was a curandera, and her uncle was a well-known traditional huesero (bonesetter).
As a cultural educator, she works with Chicane/Latinx/ Indigenous mental health therapists and other healthcare providers to promote understanding of Mexican and Indigenous culture-specific health interventions and to encourage mutually respectful collaboration.
In 1993, she was the recipient of the prestigious leadership fellowship award by the National Hispana Leadership Institute in collaboration with Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. In 2019, she contributed to the book Voices of the Ancestors: Xicanx and Latinx Spiritual Expressions and Healing Practices.
She serves in various committees and is a member of the Kanap Kuahan (Tell the Truth) Coalition, advisor to the House of the Moon (Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women) and the Yaquis of Southern California Tribal Council.
Please register for the event by Friday, September 15, 2023.