Live from Community Roots Garden in Oxnard, California, this joint RAMA Blueprints/Que Madre podcaast. Co-hosts Socorro and Ana Rosa-Rizo Centino reflect on a February 28 stakeholder meeting about the garden’s transition and future. Guests include Fatima Chavez Lopez, a first-generation Chicana doula and traditional Mexican medicine practitioner, and Angela Flores, a third-generation Chicana activist-artist and land steward. Angela shares how Zapatista women’s organizing shaped her understanding of rematriation and environmentalism; Fatima connects returning to land with returning to self, intuition, trauma healing, and birth sovereignty. They discuss partnerships, a proposal to the United Methodist Church, building a community land trust with Chumash Bear Circle, and hopes for future generations grounded in transparency, reciprocity, imagination, and collective care.

For more info visit Community Roots Oxnard's Instagram page.

Under the Avocado Tree is produced by RAMA Blueprints and Que Madre podcasts. This episode was engineered and edited by Darren J. de Leon.

Live from Community Roots Garden in Oxnard on unceded Chumash land, hosts Socorro Gamboa and Ana Rosa Rizo Centino (RAMA Blueprints x Qué Madre) convene Chumash leader Marianne Parra and UCSB professor-author Dr. Silvia Rodriguez-Vega to explore rematriation as land return, healing, radical mothering, and communal accountability. Marianne shares Indigenous sensitivity to environmental shifts, the power of ancestral knowledge, and the ongoing labor of challenging institutions while protecting sacred sites through her group Hi Ho Stokqosl Hi Xux (“Those Who Gather Around the Bear”). Silvia reflects on motherhood, an “insistence on joy,” and grassroots sanctuary built through mutual aid, artivism, and know-your-rights organizing shaped by anti-immigrant policy in Arizona. Together they discuss community care when institutions fail, sustaining spirit through rest, nature, ceremony, and connection with ancestors, and the seeds they hope future generations will inherit.

This episode was produced by Socorro Gamboa and Ana Rosa Rizo Centino. It was engineered and edited by Darren J. de Leon. It was recorded live at the Community Roots Garden in Oxnard, CA on September 3, 2026.

You can get more information by visiting Qué Madre on Instagram.

Welcome to the first episode of Under The Avocado Tree. Our podcast brims with joy and growth! In this episode, we’re celebrating the untold stories of 2 Community Roots gardeners—those tireless caretakers of earth and beauty. United by passion and persistence, they create bountiful havens for flora and fauna alike.

Gardeners are the unsung heroes transforming barren lands into blossoming sanctuaries, teaching us resilience and patience. Yet, their challenges are real—from battling climate change to nurturing biodiversity amidst urban sprawl. Now the Community Roots garden is under threat of closing down as the landowners ponder the future of the property.

Together, let's applaud their triumphs and stand in solidarity with Community Roots' struggles. In our shared quest for equality and environmental harmony, we recognize these green-thumb warriors as architects of a sustainable future. Join us in this jubilant celebration of growth, nurturing not just our gardens, but our global community. In this episode, we invite you to embrace the vibrant world where feminism and gardening unite, forging pathways to change and renewal. Dive into stories of resilience, connection, and the undying spirit of gardeners everywhere.

This episode is produced by Socorro Gamboa and Ana Rosa Rizo-Centino. Darren J. de Leon Engineered and edited this episode.

For additional information: https://www.communityrootsgarden.org/ or Instagram: @communityrootsoxnard or Facebook: www.facebook.com/CommunityRootsGarden.JardindeRaicesComunitarias