Delores “Lola” Mondragón is a Chicana and enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation. She is also a U.S. Navy veteran and member of the Chickasaw Warrior Society. She met her husband while serving and became a military spouse for 19 years, until he retired. They are both disabled veterans.

Lola is also a mother, grandmother, and ceremonial practitioner, especially as a drum keeper of a veteran women and Two-Spirit medicine drum. She is the organizer of the Veteran Women’s Indigenous Healing Circle (VWIHC), since 2015, and is a doctoral student at UC Santa Barbara in Religious Studies, where she studies Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions.