About Gloria
Gloria Lucas, who is the driving force behind Nalgona Positivity Pride, was born in Mexico-USA border city, San Diego, California. However, she spent most of her childhood in Riverside, which is situated in the Inland Empire (southern California) region. Her roots can be traced back to the Nahua people, who hail from the coast of Michoacan, and an unknown indigenous peoples from Western and Southern Jalisco. Gloria grew up in a bustling Mexican-immigrant household with three elder siblings. Her parents' tireless work ethic served as a shining example. Her mother worked tirelessly, dividing her time between family and occasional house cleaning, while her father worked as a grade checker construction worker. Gloria's first job was helping her mom clean houses, and she fondly recalls the valuable life lessons and moments of non-stop laughter from that time.
Growing up, Gloria found herself caught in the middle of a religious tug-of-war between her mother's unwavering devotion as Jehovah's Witness (JW) and her father's cultural ties to Catholicism, resulting in frequent quarrels at home. Despite this, Gloria remained a faithful member of the JW community until her teenage years, even attending a special school to devote more time to the cause and going door to door to spread the message. She describes her upbringing as socially sheltered but her atheist siblings exposed her to the outside world through anti-authoritarian punk culture and Black metal music. However, her door-to-door experiences ignited a passion for entrepreneurship and salesmanship, skills that would prove invaluable later on in her life's journey.
Despite facing difficulties both at home and within herself, Gloria discovered a sanctuary and a place of education in the public library. With a family of four children and her father being the main breadwinner, Gloria devoted most of her leisure time to visiting the public library, which ignited a lifelong love for books and continuous learning. Her father frequently took her and her siblings to the library, where Gloria would spend entire days reading, writing, and exploring the music and culture of the 1960s. She cherished library days, and her father always concluded the library trips with a stop at Krispy Kreme Donuts - one of her favorite childhood memories.
Before coming across the term "feminist," Gloria had always felt a natural inclination towards women's empowerment and feminist arts. During her time as a Jehovah's Witness, she made it her mission to seek out and document every woman mentioned in the Bible, in an attempt to connect with powerful female figures.
Gloria's upbringing in a strictly religious and cultured household took a toll on her mental health, leading her to battle an early onset of an eating disorder. She found it challenging to find any resources or representation that acknowledged her struggles, leaving her to grapple with the disorder alone. This lack of recognition of eating disorders in marginalized communities was a deep-rooted social injustice that Gloria experienced firsthand. As she distanced herself from the JW church, Gloria found solace in feminist organizing in the local Blood Orange Infoshop in Downtown Riverside. Through this community, she expanded her knowledge on various topics in anarchism, feminism, zines, and more. She started to make bigger connections including how her ED played into all of this newfound knowledge and perspectives of the world around her.
She led a series of groups and events, such as The Feminist Collective, Ladyfest in the IE & LA, Feminists Unite in the Riverside Community College, The IE Riot Grrls, and Women of Color For Decolonization during the Occupy Movement, among others. Her organizing experiences led her to her first full-time non-profit jobs and worked as a sexual health educator and HIV/AIDS counselor.
Through her events and organizing, Gloria highlighted the intersectional connections between eating abnormalities & systemic oppression. It was during this time that she slowly started forming her eating disorder activism and career in public speaking.
Gloria's passion for social justice and eating disorders led her to host talks and discussions in communities of color on eating disorder harm reduction and historical trauma. The demand for her work and knowledge was so high that in 2014 she founded Nalgona Positivity Pride (NPP), which quickly became a hub for BIPOC representation and social justice in the eating disorder community. As Instagram and the digital landscape changed, Gloria created the @nalgonapositivtypride IG page, which rapidly grew from a personal page to a mega-platform with tens of thousands of followers. With this newfound reach, Gloria decided to turn Nalgona into a business/organization and started sharing her message to multiple platforms including an online shop. Starting with just one t-shirt design and the backseat of a Corolla as business storage, Gloria's designs quickly sold out and led to over 200 pieces of clothing and accessories. Despite her aversion to capitalism, Gloria has been successful in maintaining NPP as an independent and self-sustaining effort.
Despite being a self-proclaimed community college drop-out, Gloria has had a tremendous impact on the eating disorder and mental health world. Her work has influenced the way people understand eating disorders, and it has been featured in books, academic spaces, articles, and various media outlets, including Razorcake fanzine, NPR, PBS, Time Magazine, MTV, Teen Vogue, Los Angeles Times, Telemundo, Univision, and many more.
Gloria is highly regarded as a dynamic public speaker, having shared her insights and perspectives at prestigious institutions such as Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia Universities. She has also presented at a range of conferences and events, including The Association for Size Diversity for Health Conference, NEDA, and The Fat Activism Conference, to name a few. Gloria has made it clear that she isn't interested in just having a place at the table, but rather wants to create a whole new table altogether.
Gloria also has a soft spot for cats and loves 1960s home decor. In addition to her entrepreneurial pursuits, she aspires to be a singer-songwriter that is not overcome by shyness. During her late-night bouts of insomnia, she enjoys creating existential crisis memes or sipping a cold Michelada somewhere in downtown Santa Ana.
According to Gloria, her sister and her Riverside community have had the biggest impact on her life and work. She remains deeply connected to her roots and continues to draw strength and motivation from her community.