STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Diana Arias’ journey of healing and liberation

Diana Arias had long dreamed of becoming a therapist. Yet even as her freshly conferred master’s degree from San Diego State University’s Marriage and Family Therapy program qualifies her to do just that, she now has a slightly different goal in mind.

“I see myself as more of a healer,” she said. “To me, being a healer means including other knowledge into therapy — knowledge that was maybe silenced before.”

Arias’ perspective was shaped by the Spanglish Decolonial Healing advanced certificate, for which she was part of the inaugural graduating cohort in May. 

Launched in 2023, the program mixes Spanish and English and explores alternative, culturally-responsive ways of healing beyond the dominant Eurocentric forms of therapy.  

For Arias, the program was everything she hoped it would be.

"During this program, I have not grown just professionally but personally,” she said. “These classes have helped me find other ways to gain knowledge and understand other ways of existence. This certificate opened doors to things that I never thought possible."

Being berraca

Arias was born in Colombia and raised in a low-income community in the coffee-growing city of Armenia. She proudly identifies as Latina and mestiza, a term that indicates mixed racial ancestry.

Seeking opportunities to access higher education, Arias immigrated to the U.S. and began her college journey at Southwestern College early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting during lockdown turned out to be beneficial, as asynchronous learning allowed Arias to keep pace as she honed her skills in English. After transferring to SDSU, she pushed through both the language barrier and self-doubt to earn a bachelor’s degree in psychology with minors in counseling and social change and women’s studies. 

It wasn’t always easy. But looking back, Arias believes it was her own culture that empowered her to persevere.

By way of explanation, Arias brings up the term berraco/a/e — a word in Colombian slang that loosely translates to “tough” or “badass.”

“I had to be berraca,” she said, smiling. “I had to bring my Colombian resilience and continue. I learned that from my family and my ancestors. They are all present in this story."

Healing as liberation


In the Spanglish Decolonial Healing program, Arias said she found a strong sense of community with her cohort full of fellow first-language Spanish speakers. She also took strength from Professor and program founder marcela polanco, a fellow Colombian. 

“For me, (polanco) was an example of how things are possible,” Arias said. “She is challenging dominant discourses and making us think about how it's not about people, but about the system that put them in this position. These systems were carried out from that time of colonialization and we have that legacy."

One of Arias’ biggest takeaways was that true healing is a complex process, deeply interwoven with culture, language and individual life paths. And, particularly in Latinx communities, those paths are shaped by the legacy of colonialism. 

Decolonial healing is about undoing the internalized damage that legacy has wrought.

Instead of traditional western therapy, which often seeks one-size-fits-all solutions and pathologizes individuals, Arias has connected with the idea of healing as an act of liberation. And she’s eager to use a decolonial approach to meet clients where they are — to learn their stories and speak to them in their mother tongue.

Not as a therapist, but as a healer.

"We are not the experts in our clients' lives, we're facilitating a space in which they can grow and maybe challenge those dominant discourses, as well,” Arias said. “My plan is to just offer that space for my clients. To be here for them, to see them, to empower them."