Born and raised in Altadena, on Tongva land, Lex Palomino is an Indigenous woman with ancestral roots in Puebla, Mexico, and the daughter of an immigrant mother who taught her the power of tradition, cultural memory, and legacy.

She is a PhD candidate in Sociology specializing in qualitative research methods that aims to build radical kinship and collective care. She has been published in academic-journals and was awarded fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

For the past five years, she has taught and learned alongside university students, and her dissertation work has focused on youth in Los Angeles, advocating for their right to imagine and shape their own futures. She has researched everything from Latino voting patterns and U.S. Census data to the stories of Indigenous migrant workers affected by the Santa Barbara fires.

As an organizer, she has worked with transnational women’s groups that center Indigenous and Third World women. Every project she is part of begins from a belief—echoing bell hooks—that we can build community wherever we are. We belong to each other, so we take care of each other.