“It is hard to try to fit in, and those molds can break you sometimes. So instead of allowing a mold to break you, why don't we break them ourselves?” - Mariana Peña Mariana Peña is a learning designer for, as she likes to call them, revolutionary experts who want to change their industries and the world at large, one online program at a time. Every time Mariana works with a client, she infuses some anti-oppressive learning into the programs she helps create. Personally, she is a Mexican mama of two bicultural kids living in the Netherlands. And she is an enormously kind, poetic, intelligent, and funny person who opens up about her experiences of life. You can read about this conversation below, but if you can, have a listen to the podcast audio (with the player above or in your podcast app) to hear the laughs and tears, get hungry with us from the food references, and more. It’s hard to make that come across in the text. We write this article to make the podcast accessible for people who don’t process information through audio - as a way to be inclusive - but if you can, listening gives you the richest and most complete experience. The first thing Mariana wants you to know is that if you ever felt that you don't fit into any type of mold, you don't have to fit in. “If you think that you're a mold-breaker, you are. You can. And this is your permission slip to do so.” - Mariana Peña We're not going to get rid of molds, she believes. But we can bend them. We can break them. We can create our own. And in the quietness of not fitting in, we can find where we belong. Even though we try our best to turn it into a positive thing, like: I'm resilient, I'm a fighter, I'm a survivor… Yes we can do that, we can shift the narrative, for sure. But we should also take a pause and acknowledge that we're not making things up. Mariana is open about having battled depression all of her life. She is aware of what, for her, has been the most helpful support she’s ever received, which is holding space and just being with someone. “If anyone is listening and they have been through something like this and they feel, ‘I'm never gonna fit in, they're never gonna get me,’ I can sit there with you. I don't know how to fix that, but I can sit there with you. And know that you're not the only one.” - Mariana Peña What Mariana says reminds Vivian of Ava DuVernay’s words: “I’m not going to continue knocking on that old door that doesn’t open for me. I’m going to create my own door and walk through that.” Mariana’s never been part of corporate, DEI, or otherwise. She’s been in academia and is now running her own business. However, throughout her professional journey in developing learning programs, she has been very aware of diversity, equity, and inclusion (and the lack thereof). Data based on studies performed on white people, for example, run by white people and analyzed with a white lens. It didn’t sit well with her at all, and when she brought it up, she was accused of making things up. So, she incorporates this from her own learning about anti-racism and decoloniality. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion for me is directly connected to unpacking my own personal journey of discovering what has been the impact of colonialism in my life.” - Mariana Peña She educated herself on the way colonialism, racism, and colorism are entangled in the history, culture, and society of her native Mexico. When she moved to the Netherlands, she continued learning more about this from a more global perspective. “When I moved to the Netherlands and I started learning about Dutch history, which is a wild ride, I felt the need to really unpack: what is the impact of colonialism in the world at large? What have we done to populations? How is it that we have erased cultures in the name of what? Trade? Commerce? What? Why? So DEI for me goes directly to that place.” - Mariana Peña Her growing awareness led her to adopt an anti-oppressive lens in designing curriculum. She firmly believes that education can change the world, but it has to have an anti-oppressive lens because otherwise, we’re just replicating systems of oppression, and she does not want to participate in that. Marjolijn appreciates how much Mariana sees about this. “We've started to develop and learn about racism, gender inequality and equity. And this decolonizing journey, I feel like we're just at the start of it. Mariana, you're seeing so much of what is actually here, what's actually happened, rather than all the shiny pink facade that is not the truth. Real history and the impact of it on today hasn't been explored and shared much yet.” - Marjolijn Vlug This brings Mariana to tell us about mole (pronounced as MO-lé (see recipe below)), a Mexican type of sauce, rich and thick, made with various chilies and with chocolate. It’s a polarizing dish that people either love or cannot stand. Kids usually don’t like it, but as you grow older and understand the love and care that goes into making it, That’s also the kind of person Mariana is. For some people, she’s a lot. ‘But on the flip side, if you're in for the ride, then we can do wonders together. We can explore. We can question. We can, you know, get creative. We can dare to say and think.’ An important moment in Mariana’s life was when she applied for a position that she knew was just right for her; she had all the academic and professional merits. She was rejected for the job because she was ‘a little bit too brown for it’, as it was a position that connected with external stakeholders. It was a humbling, crushing experience because it was the first time she was brought to question the meritocracy she was brought up to believe in. Her parents motto to ‘work hard and then you’ll reap the rewards’ turned out not to be true. The second impactful time was a conversation with her kid during the Black Lives Matter surge of 2020. It was the moment he asked her, ‘Why are your knuckles so dark?’ and said, ‘You have to wash your hands better,’ that led to their first conversation about race. She realized that this racialized world was not only impacting her; it was also going to impact her son. It led to a deep dive into raising multicultural families, racism, and an even bigger picture, which became a tipping point for her. “What is happening right now, what we're seeing in life is wrong. And I get to learn, I get to do something, I get to take action.” - Mariana Peña It led Mariana to decide that her work needed to be aligned with this, her clients needed to be aligned with this as well. And she’s still unpacking, deconstructing, and finding who she is. ‘Do I really like this or have I been taught to like this? Do I think this is right because I think this is right? Is this my own moral compass?’ She feels she is still on this journey. Meanwhile, her son reminds her that she’s also an easygoing person with a great sense of humor. “I also deserve to be fun and to create these moments of joy for the pure joy of it. That's something that I also remind myself when I am learning from others because these are such dense topics. We are humans, and we need joy. We deserve it.” - Mariana Peña Vivian wholeheartedly agrees: with the hardships and difficulties in the world and in the DEI space, we still deserve to choose joy and keep bringing in our sense of humor. “The topic of DEI can be very serious, very sensitive, very, very realistic, but that doesn't mean that we cannot have fun.” - Vivian Acquah Mariana feels alive and recharges when she cooks. When she’s in the kitchen, she lets go of rules, measurements, and restrictions. She experiments and plays around in the kitchen while listening to music. She loves it when her son comes in and is interested in helping out. It’s a cycle breaker for her because boys aren’t allowed in the kitchen in Mexico. Cooking with her kid is also a way to share her Mexican culture with him. All of this is part of her legacy, she deeply feels. Right now she’s working on being a safe space for her kids. On being a little less afraid and more happy each day, letting go of the Catholic concepts of sin and guilt. On appreciating the choices she gets to make and the privilege of living in a country with relatively safe streets. “Every day matters, in every sense of the word. Professionally, every single effort that we do compounds because I know that myself alone, I cannot change the world. But every single thing that I do is tied up to all of the other little efforts that everybody else is doing. And that's how we move mountains. That's how it happens. And on a personal note, I remind myself that everyday matters. Sometimes, depression is very difficult to live with, and that's okay. I have to focus on today, and that has to be enough. And when I manage to do that, it turns out great.” - Mariana Peña Mariana has huge hope for the Alpha generation being the cycle breakers. All we need to do is make sure we don’t do anything to stand in their way as they move around the world shifting narratives, shaking things up. We are committed, trying to change things and realizing our limitations. We want the generation of kids we are raising to be able to have joy, to experience life, to feel free and safe, but also to inquire after things and have the humility to rectify when they are wrong. As parents, we are cycle breakers, and unpacking colonialism is a part of that. “As parents, we understand the damage that we went through. We're trying to understand ourselves first and then we are trying to liberate those generations that are coming after us to be able to function.” - Mariana Peña As Mariana moves through her decolonial journey, the next milestone ahead of her is to appreciate the positive aspects of the culture of the Netherlands and other countries that were colonizers. She is
