Cyndy is a mother, a poeta, an immigrant, and a first-generation Ph.D. candidate in Culture and Performance. Cyndy’s ancestral homeland is in San Juan Sayultepec Nochixtlán, Oaxaca, México. She was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa and she lived in El Tablón #1, Mexico City, Tijuana, and more recently in Tepic.

In WAC/D, Cyndy conducts active participatory and community-based research in Tepic, Mexico among urban Wixárika (Huichol) families. In Tepic, she collaborates with families to examine the ontological role of Our Mother Corn (“Native Seeds”) in the urban context. Each year she cultivates Native seeds among Wixárika families on the outskirts of Tepic and she documents the growth of plants to understand how people and Our Mother Corn coexist, interconnect, and communicate. In her research, she uses poetry and art as methods to understand her intersubjective position while conducting research. In Cyndy’s dissertation, she emphasizes the crucial role of Indigenous women, art and art-making in fostering community-based knowledge, resistance, and activism.

She is currently the Arts Initiative (Arts In) Program Coordinator at UCLA mentoring undergraduates students from diverse backgrounds. In her role as a program coordinator she mentors students who aspire to engage interdisciplinary research using art as a method of inquiry. In all of the classes and seminars, Cyndy examines the role of art in education and activism along with the commodification of Indigenous and Indigenous art (e.g. Yarn paintings, beading work, and textiles).

In 2015, she received her MA thesis in World Arts and Cultures/Dance entitled “Teachings From Within: Urban Wixárika Women Re-making Motherland.” In her M.A, Cyndy uses auto-ethnographic methods to interconnect her migration narrative to the United States with other women’s migration to cities. In her work, she incorporates poetry with academic writing to make visible her experiences in conducting research and expose her intersubjective position. Cyndy and her daughter Ixchel lived in Tepic for over a year where Cyndy co-founded and coordinated the Taniuki (“Our Language”) Project (https://proyectotaniuki.wordpress.com) in Zitakua, a Wixárika neighborhood in Tepic. Also, she taught Art in the “Casa de la Mujer” at Zitakua.

In 2012, Cyndy received her BA from UCLA in Linguistic Anthropology/Portuguese Language and Culture. She was part of the McNair Research Scholars Program, and she conducted research among Zapotec migrant speakers in Los Angeles. As part of her research in McNair, Cyndy tutored Zapotec adults and youth. She co-founded Grupo Estudiantil Oaxaqueño, formerly known as Naa Rinié Xcáanda (NRX-“I am a Dreamer”) to serve Oaxacan students and promote diversity among UCLA. In collaboration with NRX members, she organized the first Guelaguetza a Oaxacan festival at UCLA.

Since 2012 she has been collaborating with members of La Y+rata community, a Wixárika community on the outskirts of Tepic in the development of art workshops and documentation of agricultural practices. While the community facilitated the workshops for the young women to learn artistic Wixárika techniques, Cyndy documented current modes and trends of art production. The goal of the project was to restore traditional ways of beading and weaving among Wixárika teenage girls. The community launched ‘Iyari Y+rata (The Heart of Y+rata) a project to promote the arts of the community and finance the education of girls.