Patricia Contreras-Flores, Author at Oakland Voices

Oakland rally honors MLK’s radical legacy amid presidential inauguration

January 30, 2025 Patricia Contreras-Flores

Oakland’s Reclaim MLK rally honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s radical legacy with speeches, performances, and a march.

a dad and daughter take a selfie while eating paletas

What Remains is Ours: Remembering My Pops Before and After Alzheimers

June 10, 2024 Patricia Contreras-Flores

In the warmth of Tierra Caliente, Michoacan, my father, despite his Alzheimer’s, found joy in a swim that became a cherished memory.

A Latina mom wearing a red suit dress, a young girl, and her father stand in a photo outdoors

Mothering of Self and Others is Medicine

May 7, 2024 Patricia Contreras-Flores

Patricia Contreras-Flores’s Mother’s Day essay celebrates the legacy of maternal love and nurturing that transcends generations in her family.

A young indigenous woman with her hair in a bun speaks in a microphone at a well-lit room. A sign behind her says "What Does Wellness Feel Like?"

New East Oakland Grocery Co-op Looking for Founding Members

March 3, 2020 Patricia Contreras-Flores

A new grocery cooperative in East Oakland is recruiting up to eight founding cohort members by May, who will then go through a 12-week training over the summer to become the first group of worker-owners in

Flores flowering in gratitude

July 27, 2018 Patricia Contreras-Flores

Recently in the midst of so much heaviness on all fronts, I went looking for some hope. I returned to poetry, my first written love form. I stumbled upon a poem that my former student

Investing for East Oakland

July 26, 2018 Patricia Contreras-Flores

We all know the wave of development is pushing folks farther into East Oakland, the deeper parts. Parts that local folks call Deep East Oakland. Past the 70s into the 80s and 90s. An area

Food/Comida is medicine all the time everyday

July 18, 2018 Patricia Contreras-Flores

I was walking up from my house on Fruitvale towards E. 14th Street. About two blocks from my house, I found myself walking behind two womyn. One pushed a baby stroller; a baby was wrapped

Un bosque de mujeres/A forest of womyn

June 7, 2018 Patricia Contreras-Flores

I heard the music in my dreams first and woke to the familiar sound of an accordion playing. It was the third night of me sleeping on the land and in a tent, that in

We All Belong

April 10, 2018 Patricia Contreras-Flores

I am a dispatcher for Street Level Health Project for the ACILEP (Alameda County Immigration, Legal and Education Partnership) rapid response network. I believe all work is meaningful and has dignity, yet aside from the

Return of the land

March 6, 2018 Patricia Contreras-Flores

Me a costado escribir estas palabras. Contar este cuento. Como capturar y darle su justo honor a esta tierra. En medio de todo lo que esta pasando regreso a la medicina sagrada de la tierra.