Chicana feminism

(1940) Some Mexican American women were involved in the early women's suffrage movement. In the early twentieth century, this included women such as Adelina Otero-Warren and Maria de G.E. Lopez. Otero-Warren was born in an elite Hispano family.|left Prior to the late 1940s, Mexican American children often grew up in segregated colonias in company towns for the agricultural industry. Mexican children, especially of darker skin, were only allowed by the U.S. government to attend segregated "Mexican schools." While white schools taught academic preparation, girls at "Mexican schools" were only permitted to be taught homemaking and sewing, while boys were taught gardening and bootmaking. This maintained class and income divisions. Pachucas, who were the counterpart to Pachucos in the 1940s, have sometimes been reframed through a feminist lens because of their challenge to gender norms, especially during World War II. The Pachuca was treated as "dangerously masculine [and] monstrously feminine." Unlike women of color, white women rarely had to deal with racism. European-American or white women combated sexism in the white community through waves of feminism; the first wave addressing women's suffrage, and the second wave addressing issues of sexuality, public vs. private spheres, reproductive rights, and marital rape. However, women of color were largely excluded from these movements. This urged Chicanas who were feminists and sought to empower women to offer critiques and responses to their exclusion from both the mainstream Chicano nationalist movement and the second wave feminist movement, which formed the basis of Chicana feminism by the 1960s. == Timeline ==

Chicanas in the Chicano Movement (1960s–1970s) , El Paso (1971) Although the Chicano Movement was organized toward empowering the greater Mexican American community, the narratives and focus of the Movement largely ignored the women that were involved with organizing during this period of civil disobedience. Throughout these events, Chicana feminists collectively realized the importance of connecting issues of gender with the other liberatory aims of the Chicano Movement. Chicanas also renounced the mainstream second-wave feminist movement for its inability to include racism and classism in their politics. Chicanas during this time felt excluded from mainstream feminist movements because they had different needs, concerns, and demands. Through persistent objections to their exclusions, women have gone from being called Chicano women to Chicanas to introducing the adoption of a/o or o/a as a way of acknowledging both genders when discussing the community. The Chicana feminist movement influenced many Chicanas to be more active and to defend their rights not just as single women, but as women in solidarity who come together forming a society with equal contribution. Students organized over shared complaints about racism, inadequate funding, and the neglect of Mexican history and culture within current education systems. Later in the mid-1990s, Dolores Delgado Bernal interviewed eight significant female walkout participants or leaders, bringing attention to the women the media had ignored: Celeste Baca, Vickie Castro, Paula Crisostomo, Mita Cuaron, Tanya Luna Mount, Rosalinda M. González, Rachael Ochoa Cervera, and Cassandra Zacarías. At the conference, a workshop was arranged to discuss the role of women in the movement and to address feminist concerns. However, the workshop concluded that, "It was the consensus of the group that the Chicana woman does not want to be liberated." Many scholars such as Anna Nieto-Gómez, find this statement to be one of the decisive actions that sparked the Chicana Feminist Movement. Following this statement, the first National Chicana Conference was held in Houston, Texas in May 1971. The conference attracted over 600 women from all over the United States to discuss issues regarding equal access to education, reproductive justice, formation of childcare centers, and more. The conference was organized into nine different workshops: "Sex and the Chicana: Noun and Verb," "Choices for Chicanas: Education and Occupation," "Marriage: Chicana-Style," "Religion," "Feminist Movement - Do We Have a Place in It?," "Exploitation of Women - The Chicana Perspective," "Women in Politics - Is Anyone There," "Militancy/Conservatism: Which Way Is Forward," and "De Colores y Clases: Class and Ethnic Differences." According to Anna Nieto-Gómez, "the walkout distinguished the conflict between Chicana feminists and loyalists." Chicana labor organizing (1942) Emma Tenayuca was an early Mexican American labor organizer and Dolores Huerta was a major force in the labor organization of farmworkers. The testimony of the migrant farm worker activist Maria Elena Lucas reveals the enormous difficulties of organizing farmworkers. The Farah Strike, 1972–1974, labeled the "strike of the century," was organized and led by Mexican American women predominantly in El Paso, Texas. Employees of the Farah Manufacturing Company went on strike to stand for job security and their right to establish and join a union. Chicana Feminist Organizations (1960s–1970s) One of the first Chicana organizations was the East Los Angeles Chicana Welfare Rights Organization, founded by Alicia Escalante in 1967. She became a vocal representative of East Los Angeles at campaign meetings where no one else from the neighborhood was present. She spoke out against the dehumanization of welfare recipients, particularly of Chicana and Black women. In a 1968 article for La Raza newspaper, she wrote that the state believed that welfare recipients "should be ashamed of yourselves for living." They heavily valued strong bonds between women, stating that women Berets must acknowledge other women in the organization as hermanas en la lucha and encouraging them to stand together. Membership in the Brown Berets helped to give Chicanas autonomy, and the ability to express their own political views without fear. An important Chicana in the Brown Berets was Gloria Arellanes, the only female minister of the Brown Berets. The Hijas de Cuauhtémoc began as an activist rap group and would later become a feminist newspaper by 1971. There was a focus on Mexican feminism that would stand for people on either side of the border. The newspaper included topics such as: "gender equality and liberatory ethics to relationships, sexuality, power, women's status, labor and leadership, familial bonds, and organizational structures." The concept for the CFMN originated during the National Chicano Issues Conference when a group of attending Chicanas noticed that their concerns were not adequately addressed at the Chicano conference. The women met outside of the conference and drafted a framework for the CFMN that established them as active and knowledgeable community leaders of a people's movement. (pictured) established the Chicana Rights Project in 1974. The Chicana Rights Project was created in 1974 as a Chicana feminist legal organization to defend the legal rights of Mexican American women. It was initiated by Vilma Martinez and addressed issues of employment, health, education, and housing rights for Chicanas. The X in Xicanisma refers to this colonial encounter between the Spanish and Indigenous peoples by reclaiming the X as a literal symbol of being at a crossroads or otherwise embodying hybridity. Castillo argued that using this X as a symbol of a crossroads was important because "language is the vehicle by which we perceive ourselves in relation to the world." The implication is that if we change the language we use to understand ourselves, we can change how we view and act in the world. The goal of Xicanisma for Castillo is not to replace patriarchy with matriarchy, but to create "a nonmaterialistic and nonexploitative society in which feminine principles of nurturing and community prevail" and where the feminine is recovered from its current place of subordination enforced through the coloniality of gender. == Themes ==

have been explored in Latin American feminism more broadly. There are many central themes of Chicana feminism that have been developed by Chicanas. Chicana feminism serves to highlight a much greater movement than generally perceived; a variety of minority groups are given a platform to confront their oppressors whether that be racism, homophobia, and multiple other forms of social injustice. Resilience is an overarching theme of Chicana feminism: the strength it takes to not only divide but bring forth a new mindset of equality. These archetypes have prevented Chicanas from achieving sexual and bodily agency due to the ways they have been historically constructed as negative categories through the lenses of patriarchy and colonialism. Shifting the discourse from a traditional (patriarchal) representation of these archetypes to a decolonial feminist understanding of them is a crucial element of contemporary Chicana feminism, and represents the starting point for a reclamation of Chicana female power, sexuality, and spirituality. Gloria Anzaldúa's canonical text Borderlands/La Frontera addresses the subversive power of reclaiming Indigenous spirituality to unlearn colonial and patriarchal constructions and restrictions on women, their sexuality, and their understandings of motherhood: "I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white." Figure of La Virgen de Guadalupe has been upheld in Chicano and Mexican communities as a symbol of chastity and virtuous motherhood, which are construed as defining characteristics of a woman's worth or status. The figure of La Virgen de Guadalupe is often contrasted with La Malinche, which suppresses Chicana women's sexuality through the patriarchal dichotomy of puta/virgin: the positive role model and the negative one. These figures are historically and continuously held up before Mexican women and Chicanas as icons and mirrors in which to examine their own self-image and define their self-esteem. She bore Cortés a son, Martín, who is considered to be the first mestizo and the beginning of the "Mexican" race. La Malinche is a victim of centuries of patriarchal myths that permeate the Mexican woman's consciousness, often without her awareness. Duality and "The New Mestiza" 's (September 26, 1942 – May 15, 2004) works and theories were foundational to a resurgence in Chicana feminism.|213x213pxThe concept of "The New Mestiza" comes from feminist author Gloria Anzaldúa. In her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she writes: "In a constant state of mental nepantilism, an Aztec word meaning torn between ways, la mestiza is a product of the transfer of the cultural and spiritual values of one group to another. Being tricultural, monolingual, bilingual or multilingual, speaking a patois, and in a state of perpetual transition, the mestiza faces the dilemma of the mixed breed: which collectivity does the daughter of a dark-skinned mother listen to? [...] Within us and within la Cultura Chicana, commonly held beliefs of the white culture attack commonly held beliefs of the Mexican culture, and both attack commonly held beliefs of the indigenous culture. Subconsciously, we see an attack on ourselves and our beliefs as a threat and we attempt to block with a counterstance." Being solely reactionary means nothing is being created, revived, or renewed in place of the dominant culture and that the dominant culture must remain dominant for counterstance to exist. For Anzaldua and this theory of embodiment, there must be space to create something new. Mujerismo is rooted in the relationships built with the community and emphasizes individual experiences in relation to "communal struggles" to redefine the Latina/o identity. Mujerismo represents the body of knowledge while Mujerista refers to the individual who identifies with these beliefs. The origins of these terms began with Gloria Anzaldúa's This Bridge We Call Home (1987), Ana Castillo's Massacre of the Dreamer: Essays in Xicanisma (1994), and Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga's This Bridge Called My Back (1984). Mujerista is a Latina-oriented "womanist" approach to everyday life and relationships. It emphasizes the need to connect the formal, public life of work and education with the private life of culture and the home by privileging cultural experiences. "Nepantleras are threshold people; they move within and among multiple, often conflicting, worlds and refuse to align themselves exclusively with any single individual, group, or belief system." Nepantla is a mode of being for the Chicana and informs the way she experiences the world and various systems of oppression. It now looks beyond just race, and incorporates intersectionality, and how mobility, accessibility, ability, caregivers and their roles in lives, work with the body of Chicanas. Examples of Frida Kahlo and her abilities are discussed, as well as Gloria Anzaldúa's diabetes, to illustrated how ability must be discussed when talking about identity. Bost writes that "Since there is no single or constant locus of identification, our analyses must adapt to different cultural frameworks, shifting feelings, and matter that is fluid.[...] our thinking about bodies, identities, and politics must keep moving." This intervention centers queerness as a focal part of liberation, a lived experience that cannot be ignored or excluded. Moraga also discusses Aztlán, the metaphysical land and nation that belongs to Chicano ideologies, as well as how the ideas within the communidad need to move forward into making new forms of culture and community in order to survive. Carla Trujillo discusses how being a Chicana lesbian is incredibly difficult due to their culture's expectations on family and heteronormativity. Chicana lesbians who become mothers break this expectation and become liberated from the social norms of their culture. Trujillo argues that the lesbian existence itself disrupts an established norm of patriarchal oppression. In 1991, Carla Trujillo edited and compiled, the anthology Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About (1991), published by Third Woman Press.'' This anthology included poetry and essays by Chicana women creating new understandings of self through their sexuality and race. == Chicana art ==

during an interview (2012) Art gives Chicana women a platform to voice their unique challenges and experiences, such as artists Ester Hernandez and Judite Hernandez. During the 1970s, Chicana feminist artists differed from their Anglo-feminist counterparts in the way they collaborated. Chicana feminist artists often utilized artistic collaborations and collectives that included men, while Anglo-feminist artists generally utilized women-only participants. Through different art mediums both past and contemporary, Chicana artists have continued to push the boundaries of traditional Mexican-American values. Chicana collectives Mujeres Muralistas (2015) formed out of inspiration from Mujeres Muralistas. Mujeres Muralistas was a women's art collective in the Mission District of San Francisco. Members included Patricia Rodriguez, Graciela Carrillo, Consuelo Mendez, Irene Perez, Susan Cervantes, Ester Hernandez, and Miriam Olivo. Las Chicanas Las Chicanas' members were women only and included artists Judy Baca, Judithe Hernández, Olga Muñiz, and Josefina Quesada. In 1976, the group exhibited Venas de la Mujer in the Woman's Building. The collective was active from the 1970s through the early 1980s. An exhibition curated by LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes and the California Historical Society featuring previously mistreated or censored murals chose Barbara Carrasco's L.A. History: A Mexican Perspective in addition to others. Beginning in 1981 and taking about eight months to finish, the mural consisted of 43 eight-foot panels which tell the history of Los Angeles up to 1981. Carrasco researched the history of Los Angeles and met with historians as she originally planned out the mural. The mural was halted after Carrasco refused alterations demanded from City Hall due to her depictions of formerly enslaved entrepreneur and philanthropist Biddy Mason, the internment of Japanese American citizens during World War II, and the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots. Film The short film Chicana, produced in 1979 by Sylvia Morales, was archived in National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2021. The film was noted for its artistic approach to documentary, incorporating a "collage of artworks, stills, documentary footage, narration, and testimonies" through a Chicana feminist lens. Performance art is a prominent Chicana performance artist. Performance art was not as popularly utilized among Chicana artists but it still had its supporters. Patssi Valdez was a member of the performance group Asco from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. Asco's art spoke about the problems that arise from Chicanas/os unique experience residing at the intersection of racial, gender, and sexual oppression. Archivists In 2015, Guadalupe Rosales began the Instagram account which would become Veterans and Rucas (@veterans_and_rucas). What started as a way for Rosales family to connect over their shared culture through posting images of Chicana/o history and nostalgia soon grew to an archive dedicated to not only '90 Chicana/o youth culture but also as far back as the 1940s. Additionally, Rosales has created art installations to display the archive away from its original digital format and exhibited solo shows Echoes of a Collective Memory and Legends Never Die, A Collective Memory. The idea of sharing the erased history of Chicanas/os has been popular among Chicana artists beginning in the 1970s until present day. Judy Baca and Judithe Hernández have both utilized the theme or correcting history in reference to their mural works. In contemporary art, Guadalupe Rosales uses the theme of collective memory to share Chicana/o history and nostalgia. La Virgen Yolanda López and Ester Hernandez are two Chicana feminist artists who used reinterpretations of La Virgen de Guadalupe to empower Chicanas. La Virgen is a symbol of the challenges Chicanas face as a result of the unique oppression they experience religiously, culturally, and through their gender. • Ester Hernández references the sacred Virgen de Guadalupe in her painting, La Ofrenda (1988). Painting recognizes lesbian love and challenges the traditional role of la familia. It defied the reverence and holiness of La Virgen by being depicted as a tattoo on a lesbian's back. La Virgen de Guadalupe Defendiendo los Derechos de Los Xicanos (1975) • Alma Lopez – Our Lady of Controversy "Irreverent Apparition" (2001). This image is mixed media and is a sacrilegious depiction of La Virgen. See L.A. Times article == Chicana literature ==

(2017) is one of the most influential Chicana feminist poets. Since the 1970s, many Chicana writers (such as Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa and Ana Castillo) have expressed their own definitions of Chicana feminism through their books. Moraga and Anzaldúa edited an anthology of writing by women of color titled This Bridge Called My Back (published by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press) in the early 1980s. Cherríe Moraga, along with Ana Castillo and Norma Alarcón, adapted this anthology into a Spanish-language text titled Esta Puente, Mi Espalda: Voces de Mujeres Tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos. Anzaldúa also published the bilingual (Spanish/English) anthology, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Mariana Roma-Carmona, Alma Gómez, and Cherríe Moraga published a collection of stories titled Cuentos: Stories by Latinas, also published by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. The Spanish language has been referred to as a vital component to the preservation of Chicana culture. One of the first Chicana lesbian novels was Sheila Ortiz Taylor's Faultline, published in 1982. and many oral histories of Latina lesbians called Compañeras: Latina Lesbians (1987). Since the 1990s, there has been a rise in Chicana literature embracing transnational feminism and transcultural themes, particularly bridging Chicana experiences with the Latin American context. For instance, this is demonstrated in Graciela Limón's works In Search of Bernabe (1997) and Erased Faces (2001). == Chicana music ==

, Chicana punk artist (1980s) Continually left absent from Chicano music history, many Chicana musical artists, such as Rita Vidaurri and María de Luz Flores Aceves, more commonly known as Lucha Reyes, from the 1940s and 50s, can be credited with many of strides that Chicana Feminist movements have made in the past century. For example, Vidaurri and Aceves were among the first mexicana women to wear charro pants while performing rancheras. By challenging their own conflicting backgrounds and ideologies, Chicana musicians have continually broken the gender norms of their culture, and therefore created a space for conversation and change in the Latino communities. Other Chicana musicians and musical groups: • Chelo Silva – Tejana Singer • Eva Ybarra – Tejana Accordionist (1945–) • Ventura Alonzo – Chicana Accordionist (1904–2000) • Eva Garza – Tejana Singer • Selena Quintanilla-Pérez – Tejana Singer (1971–1995) • Gloria Ríos – Hispanic Singer • Girl in a Coma – Tejana indie rock band from San Antonio • Quetzal – East Los Angeles Chicano alternative rock band • Bags – Los Angeles punk rock band, led by Alice Bag. ==Notable people==

• Alma M. Garcia - Professor of Sociology at Santa Clara University. • Ana Castillo - Writer, Novelist, Poet, Editor, Essayist and Playwright who is recognized for depicting the true realities of the Chicana feminist experience. • Anna Nieto-Gómez – Key organizer of the Chicana Movement and founder of Hijas de Cuauhtémoc. • Carla Trujillo - Writer, editor, and lecturer. • Chela Sandoval – Associate Professor in the Chicano and Chicana Studies Department at University of California, Santa Barbara. • Cherríe Moraga – Essayist, poet, activist educator, and artist in residence at Stanford University. • Adriana Yadira Gallego - Painter, public artist, art administrator, for example at the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona. • Dolores Huerta - Launched the National Farm Worker's Association with César Chavez in 1962 • Ester Hernandez - Through the use of art, using different mediums such as pastels, prints, and illustrations, she is able to depict the Latina/ Native women experience. • Gloria Anzaldúa – Scholar of Chicana cultural theory and author of Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, among other influential Chicana literature. • Judithe Hernandez - Los Angeles based muralist who worked alongside Cesar Chavez to paint murals that broke the mainstream barrier in order to promote the Chicana movement. • Martha Gonzalez (musician) - Chicana artivist and co-leader of Grammy Award-winning Quetzal (band). • Martha P. Cotera – Activist and writer during the Chicana Feminist Movement and the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. • Norma Alarcón – Influential Chicana feminist author. • Sandra Cisneros – Key contributor to Chicana literature. • Vicki L. Ruiz - American historian with a focus on Mexican-American women in the twentieth century. • Elizabeth Martinez- longtime social justice activist and author. • Francisca Flores - Early Chicana activist. Cofounded the Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional. == Notable organizations ==

• Alianza Hispano-Americana - Founded in 1894, the Alianza members promoted civic virtues and acculturation, provided social activities and various health benefits and insurance for its members. • Chicas Rockeras South East Los Angeles – Promotes healing, growth, and confidence for girls through music education • California Latinas for Reproductive Justice – Promotes social justice and human rights of Latina women and girls through a reproductive justice framework • Las Fotos Project – Empowers Latina youth, helping young girls to build self-esteem and confidence through photography and self-expression • Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) – Located in Long Beach, CA this museum expands knowledge and appreciation of modern and contemporary Latin American art. • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) - Civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 by W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, and Moorfield Storey and Ida B. Wells in order to advance justice for African Americans. • National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference - Organized by the Crusade for Justice, the event came from El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, which sought to organize the Chicano people around a nationalist program. ==See also==