CRS Redlands

Her grandparents never went to school. She just earned her PhD.

Meet Susi Bentzulul — her full name is Susana Mercedes Jiménez Pérez — an indigenous Tsotsil Maya woman from San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico. She just received her doctorate in gender studies from CESMECA, the Center for Higher Studies of Mexico and Central America at the University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas.

In her own words:

"My grandmother and grandfather never went to school. I am the first granddaughter and the first daughter in my family to complete Conacyt PhD studies. This achievement is not mine alone, but my bloodline, their efforts, struggles and resilience."

But the degree is just part of who she is.

Susi is also an award-winning poet who writes in Tsotsil — one of Mexico's indigenous Maya languages. As a child, her mother asked her to stop speaking Tsotsil so she wouldn't be bullied at school. She reclaimed her language years later at university, and turned it into literature.

Her poetry book, Tenbilal Antsetik / Mujeres Olvidadas (Forgotten Women), documents the violence faced by Tsotsil women — and was published by the Fondo de Cultura Económica, making her the first woman from Chiapas writing in Tsotsil to achieve international distribution.

She also received a creative writing fellowship at the University of Iowa in 2021, won the Chiapas State Youth Prize for Indigenous Cultural Strengthening, and earned a national FONCA arts grant.

A PhD. A published poet. A language revivalist. A first-generation scholar.

This is the Mexico that doesn't always make the headlines — but deserves to.

Share so her story reaches further. 🌿

Trust this. ✨

I had looked outside several times as we cleaned up after dinner and I was getting ready for bed, but there was almost no color. Ten minutes later my husband said, "You might want to come out and see the sky." So glad he looked! What a beautiful way to calm down my brain before going to sleep.