Written by Carrie Hinton,
Photography by Andreia Claro Photography
Mayra Arreola is in a season she describes not with titles or roles, but with feeling.
She wakes up grateful. Grounded. At peace. A little scared, maybe, but curious in a way that feels expansive rather than anxious. “It feels like a world of possibilities,” she says, “like there are many paths I could take.” What excites her most is not certainty, but exploration. The rare gift of time and mental space to look inward and ask a question she has carried quietly for years: What does my puzzle actually look like when all the pieces are allowed to exist together?

For much of her life, those pieces lived in separate compartments. Professional self here. Mother, partner, friend over there. Creativity tucked away, acknowledged but postponed.
“Right now,” she says, “it finally feels whole. Like I can hold all of it at the same time.”
What feels most alive these days is not her résumé, but her relationships. Motherhood. Partnership with her wife, Emily. Friendship. And something newly reclaimed: her creative self. “I’ve always been creative, artistic even,” she says, “but growing up, that wasn’t an option. It wasn’t a viable life path.” Now, with space to breathe, she’s leaning into that part of herself with curiosity rather than pressure. “I don’t know what it looks like yet. I just know it’s there.”
That instinct to trust her inner world has always been with her.
Mayra was born and raised in Mexico, first in Mexicali, later in Morelia. Her earliest memories live not as stories, but as sensations. Her grandmother at the kitchen table late at night, feeding her simple meals after long days when her mother worked late. Wonder bread, refried beans, American cheese, a glass of milk. Falling asleep at the table while her grandmother smoked a cigarette and drank coffee nearby. “I remember the feeling,” she says. “I was cared for. I was safe.”

There were other sensations too. Heat radiating off desert pavement. Ant bites on her legs after long days playing outside. The relief of air conditioning after sunset. And fear. The house she grew up in was haunted, she insists calmly, as if stating a fact rather than a curiosity. Shadows. Voices. Dolls moving. No one believed her until years later, when a new family moved in and their children reported seeing the same things.
“By then it was too late,” she laughs. “But it shaped me. I learned early what it feels like to have your reality dismissed.”
That feeling followed her.
She grew up on the outskirts of belonging. In a conservative Presbyterian church in a predominantly Catholic community. In school systems that never quite fit. In rooms where she sensed she was expected to assimilate rather than arrive fully as herself. “I’ve never been mainstream,” she says. “And I’m comfortable with that now. I’m not going to deny my reality just to fit in.”
That refusal became formative when she moved to the United States in 2007. Suddenly, identities she hadn’t had to navigate before were projected onto her. She noticed expectations lowering. Doors narrowing. People subtly guiding her toward what they thought someone like her should do. “And I remember thinking, why?” she says. “Why shouldn’t I go for the thing I know I can do?”

She didn’t internalize those limits. She kept pushing. But it was in her second job in the U.S., working across large systems, that something crystallized.
“I was navigating who I was inside organizations that didn’t know what to do with me,” she says. “I felt lonely in a way I’d never felt before.”
It wasn’t until an older Chicana nun, wise and direct, gave her language for what she was experiencing that something shifted. “She gave me vocabulary,” Mayra says. “She helped me understand this wasn’t personal. It was systemic.”
That moment quietly redirected her life.
Wherever she went next, whatever role she held, she made herself a promise: No one should have to feel the way I felt in that moment. That commitment led her into work at the intersection of culture, equity, and systems. Work that is often misunderstood, even by well-meaning people. “Organizations want you to change culture,” she says, “but without disrupting anything. And that’s impossible.”

She’s clear-eyed about the reality of the work. It is long-term. Abstract. Uncomfortable. There are no neat reports that capture when people begin to feel safer, more open, more willing to examine their beliefs. “You know it’s working when people start talking differently,” she says. “When they say, ‘Something feels different here.’ That’s the metric.”
It’s also work that requires emotional endurance. Especially now.
As someone whose life bridges borders, Mayra moves through the current political climate with a combination of vigilance and care. She stays informed without letting herself drown. She holds tight to community, especially others who share her background. She talks honestly with her children when they ask hard questions.
“My son once asked me if I was going to be deported,” she says quietly. “That kind of fear stays with you.”
What keeps her from hardening is joy.
Fun, she insists, is not frivolous. It’s essential. So is rest. So is cocooning. Long stretches of solitude. Friday night pizza and movies. Hiking alone. Reading. Time in water. Sauna, cold plunges, heat again. “It resets me,” she says. “It brings me back to my body.”
And then there’s singing.
When no one is watching, Mayra sings her heart out. Loud. Unselfconscious. Joyful. She sings with her children, hijacking their songs much to their amusement and occasional annoyance. She is goofy. Irreverent. Deeply herself. “That side of me was hidden for a long time,” she says. “Now I’m letting her live.”

As she looks toward the year ahead, she resists defining it too tightly. “Everything feels expansive,” she says. “I’m open. Energetically open.” She trusts her intuition. She listens for alignment between head and chest. She wants to move her body, get stronger, feel powerful physically. She wants to find a singing teacher. She wants to make more room for presence with her family. And she wants to practice something that doesn’t always come easily: sharing her inner world out loud.
“If someone met me without knowing anything about my background,” she says, “I’d want them to feel safe. Like they can be themselves. Like they won’t be judged.”
It’s a presence that draws people in. And perhaps that’s the throughline. Across borders, systems, identities, and seasons of life, Mayra Arreola has been quietly creating space. For others. And now, finally, for herself.
Follow Mayra on Instagram at @maykararr