What My Abuelas Taught Me About This Moment

What My Abuelas Taught Me About This Moment Carina M. Buzo Tipton (bio) Two weeks before my defense, my dissertation was due. On May 1, 2023, I spent the morning basking in my final read through of this project that I had been working on for five years. This project that reflected generations worth of my family. When I hit send, I remember this release, this exhale, to finally have it out of my hands. I felt the closing of a chapter. That afternoon I found out that I was pregnant. In the span of a single workday, the distance of a single page of my life was made clear. One chapter of life, turning to the next. This flipping of chapters, led to many reflections of closings, endings, transition—wisdoms that I have mostly learned from my Abuelas, that I would like to share with you, sweet reader. Because this is also the year that I completed my time as part of the Feminist Formations editorial team, I offer this afterword as a reflection on moments of transition. I spent a lot of time as a student searching for reassurance on the internet. I would search questions like: What does a grad student wear to orientation? What is feminism? What if my students hate me? What happens if I can't finish my dissertation? The answers to the questions I typed into the abyss weren't as important as the ritual of externalizing my self-doubt. The entire PhD process feels like training hard to do a million small things for the first, then last time (e.g., writing a dissertation, presenting a public defense of said dissertation). I feel like I spent the entirety of my PhD journey drowning in imposter syndrome. Now that I am closing the threads of my time, I can see how un-alone I was. Because of my time at Feminist Formations, my searching of what a feminist looks like, sounds like, or writes like has greatly declined over the last five years. Through my work as an editorial assistant and managing editor, I was witness to the work of countless authors, artists, reviewers, editorial board members, and editorial team members, all of which taught me how feminism shows up in the world in all its iterations; I no longer need to Google what a feminist looks like, because I see you, and I see myself. Feminists look like nervous scholars, [End Page 261] and confident scholars, we look like supportive editors and reviewers, rigorous and creative artists, we are mamas, friends, co-conspirators, beloveds, artists, and mentors. Thank you to the Feminist Formations multiverse for showing me the range of feminist existence and resistance, I hope your own experience with this journal has introduced you to the of beauty, happiness, rigor, success, and joy that only feminists can elicit. As I close my time with the journal, and as a student, I feel myself stepping into a world that feels like its crashing—trading one chaotic unknown life for another. While reflecting during this transition period, stepping into this future, it feels especially important to consider the context of our present. Between the covers of every issue, we gather in feminist space and time. In every publication, download, read, we are blanketed under the history of feminist activism before us … those who fought for rights, those who fought for protection of our wrongs. We gather and write as poetic offering to those who fought for women and queers to be in the university, then to have academic programs that center our experiences and histories. We gather as we organize, lead, write, read, and edit feminist scholarship like this issue, like this journal. We gather in this issue during pride month where trans women of color fought rocks and bricks for our visibility, joy, expression, and freedom. We gather during the three-year anniversary of the national uprising against anti-Black racism triggered by the murder of George Floyd. We gather during a global pandemic that our country could not support us through. We write and read with chronic illness due to the pandemic and the many failures of this country's leadership...