The Women’s Resource Center is hosting “Traditional Medicine Without Borders: Curanderismo in the Southwest and Mexico” for the program’s 10th year this summer, lending insight into traditional and modern medicine.
Student Affairs vice president Cheo Torres, who is teaching the course, said curanderismo is Mexican folk medicine that fuses Spanish and native health practices. Torres said this type of healing is not isolated to Mexico.
“It’s all over the world,” Torres said. “This is the first medicine for many cultures — using plants, self healing and prevention.”
The two-week course includes a variety of speakers, including healers and health practitioners, doctors of Asian medicine, herbalists, practicing curanderas, a medical anthropologist and a registered nurse.
During the second week, between 25 and 30 practicing curanderos will arrive from Mexico, stay on campus and lead talks in the class.
“You’ll talk to Mexican curanderos that know the botanical names of hundreds of plants,” Torres said. “They don’t learn that overnight.”
Curanderismo has been a tradition in New Mexico for generations, Torres said, but is not as prevalent as it once was.
“People have access to allopathic or modern medicine now, and the need is not here,” he said. “But people still have fond memories of grandfathers and grandmothers practicing curanderismo … and people still take herbs and teas and things,” Torres said.
Student Dorene DiNaro originally helped with administrative duties for the course for three years and said that students who take the course enjoy the hands-on application of traditional medicine techniques.
She said she was looking forward to learning how curanderismo traditions are used today, especially protection against mal de ojo, or “the evil eye.”
“With a 1-year-old son, I am interested in learning more about how to ward it off,” she said.
Ronda Brulotte, assistant professor of Anthropology, said she saw a revival of curanderismo in New Mexico. She said modern institutionalized medicine may not be fulfilling certain health care needs, resulting in a greater turn toward non-Western practices.
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“I think it goes hand in hand with a greater turn to holistic health,” Brulotte said. “You could think about yoga. You could think about the whole organic food movement. I think this is all tied together.”
The course has drawn students from all over the country, and one from England, Torres said, and he expects the class to comprise about 150 students.
