Gabriel Pulido’s Legally Blond and Mean Girls are defiant spoken-word poems that repurpose pop culture references to confront transphobia, racism, and systemic oppression with biting wit and unapologetic clarity. Legally Blond reclaims the language and aesthetics of femme power to dismantle the gender binary and assert the visibility and resilience of trans people of color, especially in legal and historical contexts. Mean Girls satirically critiques white supremacy and performative allyship, exposing the violent absurdities of institutional racism while demanding collective accountability. Both poems wield humor, camp, and cultural parody not to soften the critique but to sharpen its edges, amplifying marginalized voices within a society that often erases them. Pulido’s work is a powerful invocation of community, memory, and resistance, offering both catharsis and a call to action.

Liala Zaray is always at risk of being labeled a dilettante. She holds an MFA from St. Mary’s College of California and is an incoming first-year medical student. She has won poetry prizes from Palette Poetry, Smartish Pace, and Tinderbox Poetry. Her work has received support from VCCA and Risk Press. Liala is currently working on her first collection of poems.

This special issue of the Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity (JCSCORE) is introduced through a deeply personal and reflective orientation by guest editor Gabriel Pulido. Drawing from his journey with poetry as a first-generation U.S. citizen, Pulido positions poetry not only as an accessible and transformative art form but as a method of healing, resistance, and liberation. Anchored in the work of visionaries such as Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Terisa Siagatonu, the introduction highlights poetry’s capacity to speak truth to power, foster community, and challenge capitalist values. Utilizing the six guiding principles—accessibility, capability, flexibility, reflexivity, temporality, and possibility—that shape the issue’s approach to poetry, Pulido invites readers to engage with the work not as observers but as co-dreamers. This issue uplifts poets who craft new modes of existence through their art and affirms poetry’s enduring role in collective healing and social transformation.

This poem speaks to the salt and the waters, the growth and the growing, the ebb and the flowing, and the endless aloha I have for myself and my lāhui who has transformed me. I come from the very Hawaiians who suffered at the disallowance of Hawaiian education. I had to actively choose to break that cycle in our immediate family and join our extended one in this reimagined present and future. Through education, I learned the importance of activism. So, in July of 2019, I joined a few dozen educators on the slopes of Mauna Kea, at a section of ʻāina between our sacred mountain and Puʻuhuluhulu to stand in protection of our beloved lands. Soon, thousands of others joined us in the movement of protection with the goal of stopping the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). These thousands of people had so much to teach and were so motivated to learn. This endeavor came to be known as Puʻuhuluhulu University, which served as “an actual place of Hawaiian learning” and an example of ancient wisdom in our contemporary lives. For this is education which liberates our people. Let it continue.

Assaults on ʻāina (land; that which feeds) are assaults on wāhine (women). Violence toward wāhine ʻōiwi (Native Hawaiian women/feminine people) and the ʻāina is discussed through the context of the Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women, Girls, Māhū (MMNHWGM) movement and its relation to militourism. Militourism is used to draw parallels between the violence experienced by wāhine ʻōiwi in Hawaiʻi and women in the Philippines and across Asia and the Pacific. The concept of “genuine security” is addressed as a step toward sovereignty and reducing violence against wāhine and ʻāina. Reflective solutions to the violent impacts of militourism are offered through the frame of radical healing.

The Institute for Native Pacific Education and Culture (INPEACE) has provided educational programs to Native Hawaiian communities since 1994, nurturing the growth and development of keiki through ‘ohana-focused models and empowering community members to become educators and active leaders in their own communities because they understand, live, and are invested in the community’s future. INPEACE Chief Executive Officer Maile Keliipio-Acoba and Chief Program Officer Sanoe Marfil, offer a personal glimpse into their work and reflect on how their organization is supporting the Native Hawaiian community through culture-based education and professional development.

As the U.S. and international multiracial populations have increased, so has research in this area. Despite a multitude of studies about the unique struggles of being multiracial, little empirical data has been published about specific strategies that multiracial individuals use to navigate a monoracial (single-race)-oriented society. In this article, I offer insights and suggestions to cope with discrimination involving family, friends, and others from 28 multiracial Americans with various racial backgrounds, although all participants have white ancestry. In advising their younger self and/or the next generation of multiracial people, participants suggested cultivating confidence, resilience, and assertiveness to withstand the onslaught of marginalization that multiracial people endure. Other respondents recommended creatively engaging with media to actualize affirmation, connection, and consciousness to generate space between themselves and others’ perceptions of them. White-presenting participants proposed being careful about sharing their backgrounds, considering they are frequently questioned. This article offers strategies to navigate being multiracial in a racially tumultuous society that was designed by and for monoracial citizens.

Research on attitudes within higher education toward undocumented students has overlooked the views of postdoctoral scholars (postdocs). With the number of postdocs in the United States on the rise, this highly trained group matters for future leadership inside and outside of higher education. Since previous research has shown that individuals of minoritized races/ethnicities and non-U.S. citizens exhibit greater support for undocumented students (Garibay et al., 2016; Jach & Gloeckner, 2020), this study conducted individual interviews with 10 postdocs who identified as White U.S. citizens. Findings indicated postdocs with a personal or professional connection to undocumented students exhibited greater levels of support toward undocumented students. Those lacking these connections exhibited greater levels of White immunity (Cabrera, 2017) and what this study terms citizenship immunity. Postdocs also expressed a need for adult education to better support undocumented students yet articulated possible strategies for engaging in allyship, suggesting postdocs have the power to counteract negative rhetoric and work toward a more inclusive policy for undocumented students.

The following piece, “Escondido”, came as a reflection after partaking in the 2022 Lavender Languages Institute after reading the article titled: The Complexity of the “x” in Latinx: How Latinx/a/o Students Relate to, Identify with, and Understand the Term Latinx (Salinas, 2020). I self-identify as Latinx and throughout the week at the 2022 Lavender Languages Institute, I reflected on what Latinx meant to me. My initial understanding of Latinx was that the term would allow me to express my non-binary gender identity and be more inclusive of gender divergence. I also learned about Latin* and how it unsettled superficial understanding of Latinx, and I realized the X meant more than showcasing gender inclusivity. To me, the X meant embracing my hometown situated in the San Diego-Tijuana borderlands. Escondido translates to “hidden” in Spanish and my hometown is often called the Hidden Valley. The X meant embracing the hidden quality of my home and the borderlands community as well as empowering me to no longer hide.

Using Critical Race Theory and sense of belonging, we examined the racialized experiences of 17 graduate Students of Color in hybrid higher education and student affairs (HESA) graduate preparation programs in the United States to understand how faculty members contribute to their sense of belonging. The experiences of graduate Students of Color in hybrid HESA programs are complex and multi-layered; therefore, this study used a critical phenomenological approach to examine how their racialized experiences influence their experiences in hybrid classrooms. Graduate Students' of Color racialized experiences were shaped by three factors, which are illustrated in the findings: faculty ability to discuss acts of racism, racialized experiences with faculty, and including diverse perspectives in the classroom. Participants’ experiences illuminate the importance of applying culturally conscious approaches to program development, curriculum, advising, and pedagogical practices, especially for graduate Students of Color. Implications and recommendations for hybrid HESA graduate programs coordinators and faculty are described in-depth, including recommendations for how higher education scholars can situate equity and inclusion into hybrid classroom conversations and everyday interactions with graduate Students of Color.