The Mexican-American Women's National Association was formed in 1974 by Blandina Cardenas Ramírez, Gloria Hernandez, Bettie Baca, and Sharleen Maldonado over a series of weekend brunches in Washington, D.C. There are no longer presidents of the organization. The position is now called board of chair. MANA also advocated frequently for
Labor rights,
Equal pay for women, support for survivors of
Violence against women, and
Female education for Chicana girls. MANA members testified for these issues in the Supreme Court as early as 1974. Many of the civil rights movements they contributed to resulted in legislature or policies protecting equality and
human rights, such as Affirmative Action, equal voting rights, and Census accuracy.
15th anniversary and name change In 1989, as the Mexican-American Women's National Association celebrated its fifteenth anniversary, MANA's leaders and activists began discussing the organization's original mission statement and name. The Mexican-American Women's National Association always welcomed women of all Hispanic backgrounds, and by 1989 there were many non-Mexican Latina women involved in MANA. Some members suggested MANA officially acknowledge Latina contributions and issues by including all Latinas in its name, mission statement, and guiding principles. This was a controversial suggestion, and discussions on the topic lasted for five years. Many members believed the name change represented a positive step toward the future because MANA's former name represented social exclusion, and some members supported the name change because they believed Chicana and Latina issues were the same to American society. Older activists disagreed with the suggestion, fearing that the voices, experiences, and contributions from the organization's first fifteen years would be discounted. They claimed that this inclusion would combine all Latina ethnicities and erase Mexican American women's unique community, which was MANA's original purpose. MANA leadership held a vote in 1994, at which point the Mexican-American Women's National Association officially became MANA, A National Latina Organization. "MANA" was originally an acronym for the Mexican American Women's National Association that was frequently used to refer to the organization. Beginning in 1994, MANA was now a part of the official name, MANA represents the organization's history and is shorthand for the Spanish word
hermana, or sister. == Current activism ==