This week’s Magnificent Mujer podcast features Berenice Badillo a Chicano Park muralist, community artist, and a Registered Art Therapist certified in EMDR, a recently minted PhD doctor and a self proclaimed, “lover, dreamer, and person who loves social justice”.  While a dreamer she might be, this Mujer is a fierce embodiment of “Love in Action”. From leading art making support groups for undocumented immigrant families to advocating for social justice for DACA recipients to her humble beginnings painting on a pillar at Chicano Park with house paint and cigarette butts, Berenice demonstrates that in our community bonds we can unveil our truest self and that all of us are creators in our core.  

Berenice painted her second painting ever with house wall paint from her home, because that’s all she could afford, on a pillar at Chicano Park at the young age of 17, a dream inspired at the age of 14. Berenice’s story is an inspiring testimony of the power of art, love and determination in the Chicano Movement crossing generations with a fierce will to express her unique reflection of hope and personal vulnerability.

Today, Berenice provides supervision to interns/trainees, individual, family and group therapy services. Berenice works as a mental health counselor at MiraCosta College, is a professor and researcher and provides art therapy workshops to veterans  at The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.  She is an immigrant from La Piedad, Michoacán, Mexico and has found herself straddling the many worlds of intertwined cultural and subcultural identities throughout her life. Berenice has worked in communities of socioeconomic need and has extensive experience in working with people on issues of depression, complex trauma, bereavement, drug and alcohol use.