Marivette Navarrete Is Amplifying Latina Stories With The Mujerista
There are nearly 30 million Latinas in the United States, yet less than 1 percent of stories in the mainstream media cover this demographic. In fact, many of the stories that are covered focus on illegal immigration and crime. Prompted by the disparaging rhetoric surrounding the Latinx community after the 2016 Presidential elections, Marivette Navarrete was called-to-action to create a platform to counter the negativity. In January of 2018, The Mujersita was born, a digital media platform highlighting the more substantial and valuable stories that live within the Latinx community. "When our stories are not visible, we feel invisible, as if our stories don’t matter. When there is storytelling representative of different communities, spaces, people, we come to identify with them and can see what is possible for ourselves,” explains Navarrete. Much like the catalyst for creating Modern Brown Girl, The Mujerista was built out of the need to illuminate the community’s resilience and strength. In the last two-and-a-half years, The Mujerista has grown significantly, and so does its need for funding. To further the platform’s mission to empower and celebrate Latinas, The Mujerista is taking on a fundraising campaign to expand operations. We spoke to Navarrete about growing The Mujersita, the obstacles she has faced along the way, and why letting go of fear is essential.
Name: Marivette Navarrete
Age: 31
Current Location: Miami, Florida
Title and Company: Founder and CEO of The Mujerista
Education: Florida State University, Media Communications
Did you always have a passion for writing and storytelling?
Being Latina and having parents that immigrated from a third world country (Nicaragua) and sacrificed a lot for me to live the life that I have today, I knew I had to do more to highlight the resilience and strength of our community than what was being presented in the media. I had an idea of how blogging works because I had written a fashion blog before. I’ve also done social media for different start-ups, so that helped out a lot in marketing The Mujerista. Now that we are more of a media publication, I’ve had to learn the ropes on how to be a writer and editor. I’ve been able to bring on two additional team members, so it’s been great delegating some responsibilities; however, I’m still learning.
Not only is The Mujerita a media publication but it is also a digital network. Tell us about that.
We used to have a physical space, called The M Space, but due to COVID, we have recently pivoted to online. We offer an online space to advance members’ professional and personal lives. We offer digital programming, resources, and job opportunities. It’s an inclusive space where relationships are created and cultivated for personal and professional advancement.
What obstacles, if any, have you encountered in positively changing the narrative for Latinas?
The community has been very receptive to The Mujerista. Overall, it’s been very positive. Everyone that I come into contact with wants to uplift and highlight our work and vice-versa. I’ve been blessed through this whole journey with all of the amazing people that I’ve met along the way.
As far as the storytelling, I do believe that a lot of the industry only looks for Latinx writers when it’s Hispanic Heritage Month, so it’s great for sites like yours and mine to exist so we can tell these stories all year long. A lot of our stories are centered around immigration, which is very important, but it’s not everyone’s existence or identity. It’s important to tell more diverse stories from a variety of perspectives. A lot of these more mainstream brands only focus on the same few people to feature over and over again, it can get one-dimensional after a while. It’s also the fact that Hollywood is not diverse as well, only centering on certain stories, so that’s why our work is important.
Where do you hope to see The Mujerista in five years?
I do hope that we get to a place where we ourselves can be an incubator for future Latina entrepreneurs. I would love to create scholarships for those wanting to continue their education. I would like to see The Mujerista be a publication where we can create and cultivate stories with professional stories highlighting how you can walk both sides of the line, personally and professionally. I would also love to have conferences, as well, where we feature Latina brands and entrepreneurs. I’d like for us to grow into an entire eco-system of empowerment.
If you could give your younger self advice, what would it be?
I would tell myself three things:
Don’t let fear hold you back. The summer of 2017 is when I had the idea to create The Mujerista but I didn’t launch the site until January of 2018. I look back and wonder why it took me so long. I realized it was because I was afraid. I was afraid to put myself out there and afraid of what people would say. Fear can sometimes hold us back.
Keep pushing forward. I would tell myself to keep pushing forward. I put myself down a lot because of it. I had many moments at the beginning of giving up and just keeping the site as a passion project, but I kept pushing forward. And because I have continued to push forward, a lot of good has come out of it.
3. Celebrate every little win. I’ve always been bad at recognizing my accomplishments and celebrating them. I really want to make it more of a focus. Someone recently asked me to name all of the different things that I’ve accomplished over the years, and as I started listing them I realized that there were so many little wins that I’ve never taken the time to celebrate. It keeps me motivated and focused and I really want to impart this onto others. Giving yourself little pats on the back every now and then can remind you of how much you’ve moved forward. Big things don’t happen overnight, it’s the little things that count.
Do you feel like women, particularly Latinas, feel like they don’t deserve to celebrate their wins?
Of course. I can’t speak for others, but I definitely feel like I suffer from imposter syndrome at times. I feel like I’m in a space that I don’t belong in. I’m not a trained writer or editor, so I often feel like I don’t belong in this space. Also, my upbringing has influenced my mindset. Growing up, any really great thing that I did, my parents would always ask: “Could you have done better?” I don’t know if that’s an immigrant parent thing or just my parents. I have this feeling that I have to constantly be doing better, doing more, trying harder.
Gabriela Garcia is the founder and editor of Modern Brown Girl.