By Candy Wheeler, Cultural Coalition – Executive Administrative Assistant
The Cultural Coalition is thrilled to welcome Dr. Jesús Cuauhtémoc Villa, known to our community as Dr. Chuy, to our Board of Directors. A scholar, healer, and longtime community partner, Dr. Chuy brings a rare combination of academic rigor and grassroots cultural knowledge to our organization. Honestly, our community already knows him well.
A Life Rooted in Two Homes
Dr. Chuy is a third-generation Chicano, originally from Las Cruces and La Villita, New Mexico. He’s called the Phoenix Valley home since 2007, when he arrived to begin his undergraduate studies at Arizona State University. Since then, he’s built an impressive academic career right here in the Valley: a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology (2011), a Master’s in Religious Studies (2016), and, as of this year, a Doctorate in Transborder Chicana/o Studies (2026).
Today, he works as a Postdoctoral Research Scholar with ASU’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, where his research explores how communities, nonprofits, municipalities, and industry can collaborate on sustainable, nature-based water reuse systems and wetland restoration. He also teaches as an adjunct professor of Anthropology and Archaeology for the Maricopa County Community College District, and of Political Ecology and Transborder Studies for ASU. His scholarly focus on applied activist anthropology and thanatology, the cross-cultural study of death and dying, informs the deep, human-centered lens he brings to community work.
A Curandero at Heart
Above all, Dr. Chuy describes himself first as a curandero: a practitioner of Chicano and Mexican traditional medicine and ancestral healing arts. He learned these practices from his family and from his maestra of 18 years, Doña Patricia Federico-Ruiz of South Phoenix. In 2021, after completing his 13-year formal apprenticeship, he was ceremonially recognized as a full curandero by a council of local healing elders, including Maestra Cármen Guerrero and Maestro Zarco Guerrero.
Since then, he has taught and offered healing services to hundreds of clients and community members across Arizona and New Mexico, and his classes for the University of New Mexico’s online Curanderismo Course have reached thousands of learners worldwide since 2023.
A Familiar Face at Our Festivals
If you’ve attended the Mikiztli Festival, Indígena, or Mask Alive!, there’s a good chance you’ve already crossed paths with Dr. Chuy. In 2018, he co-founded the Patiloni Collective alongside Maestra Patricia and a group of multicultural healing arts practitioners representing traditions from around the world. The Collective has offered limpias (traditional energetic cleansings) and other ancestral healing and educational services at Cultural Coalition events ever since, making him a true long-standing partner of our mission long before he joined the Board.
He is also the co-founder and Director of Programming for the Sonoran Desert Cultural Preservation Society, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and celebrating the cultural plurality of the Sonoran Desert and empowering community members to reconnect with ancestral arts, crafts, foodways, and traditional medicines.
Why He Joined Our Board
In his letter to our Board, Dr. Chuy shared that the Cultural Coalition’s mission “aligns beautifully” with his own passions, research, and community advocacy, work that has also included time with Puente Human Rights Movement, Chicanos Por La Causa, the Sagrado Galleria, and the Arizona Democracy Resource Center. He joins us as a research scholar, a healer, a connector of resources and organizations, and a dedicated community organizer.
Beyond the Work
Outside of his professional and healing work, Dr. Chuy serves his community as a death doula (a caregiver who specializes in the non-medical aspects of the end-of-life process), mentors curanderismo apprentices, makes art and music, and spends time in the desert searching for bones and talking with plants. He also enjoys walking his two dogs and, by his own admission, trying (with mixed success) to keep his garden and houseplants alive.
Please join us in giving Dr. Chuy a warm welcome to The Cultural Coalition Board of Directors. We’re honored to have his wisdom, experience, and heart guiding our work forward.
