Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era

488 Pages·2018·17.84 MB·English

by  Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, and Maylei Blackwell (eds.)

CHICANA
MOVIDAS
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CHICANA
MOVIDAS
NEW NARRATIVES of ACTIVISM and
FEMINISM in the MOVEMENT ERA
edited by
Dionne Espinoza
María Eugenia Cotera
Maylei Blackwell
University of Texas Press Austin
Excerpts from the oral history interviews with Gloria Anzaldúa in chapter 5 are
copyright © Gloria E. Anzaldúa Literary Trust. Used with permission.
Copyright © 2018 by the University of Texas Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First edition, 2018
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Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to:
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Espinoza, Dionne, editor. | Cotera, María Eugenia, editor. | Blackwell,
Maylei, editor.
Title: Chicana movidas : new narratives of activism and feminism in the
movement era / edited by Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, and
Maylei Blackwell.
Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017048975
ISBN 978-1-4773-1558-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4773-1559-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4773-1682-5 (library e-book)
ISBN 978-1-4773-1683-2 (nonlibrary e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Mexican American women. | Women political activists—United
States—History—20th century. | Feminism—United States—History—20th
century.
Classification: LCC E184.M5 C395 2018 | DDC 305.48/86872073—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017048975
doi:10.7560/315583
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Movements, Movimientos, and Movidas 1
María Cotera, Maylei Blackwell, and Dionne Espinoza
Part I. Hallway MovIdas
1. Francisca Flores, the League of Mexican American Women, and the
Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional, 1958–1975 33
Anna NietoGomez
2. Mujeres Bravas: How Chicanas Shaped the Feminist Agenda at the
National IWY Conference in Houston, 1977 51
Martha P. Cotera
3. “Women Need to Find Their Voice”: Latinas Speak Out in the
Midwest, 1972 76
Leticia Wiggins
4. “It’s Not a Natural Order”: Religion and the Emergence of
Chicana Feminism in the Cursillo Movement in San Jose 91
Susana L. Gallardo
5. Many Roads, One Path: A Testimonio of Gloria E. Anzaldúa 110
Maylei Blackwell
Part II. HoMe-MakIng MovIdas
6. La Causa de los Pobres: Alicia Escalante’s Lived Experiences of Poverty
and the Struggle for Economic Justice 123
Rosie C. Bermudez
7. Women Who Make Their Own Worlds: The Life and Work of Ester
Hernández 138
Maylei Blackwell
s 8. Feminista Frequencies: Chicana Radio Activism in the
t
n Pacific Northwest 159
e
t
n Monica De La Torre
o
C
9. Excavating the Chicano Movement: Chicana Feminism, Mobilization,
and Leadership at El Centro de la Raza, 1972–1979 174
Michael D. Aguirre
10. The Space in Between: Exploring the Development of Chicana
Feminist Thought in Central Texas 189
Brenda Sendejo
11. Visions of Utopia while Living in Occupied Aztlán 207
Osa Hidalgo de la Riva and Maylei Blackwell
Part III. MovIdas of CrossIng
12. Forging a Brown-Black Movement: Chicana and African American
Women Organizing for Welfare Rights in Los Angeles 227
Alejandra Marchevsky
13. “Tu Reata Es Mi Espada”: Elizabeth Sutherland’s Chicana Formation 245
Annemarie Perez
14. “La Raza en Canada”: San Diego Chicana Activists, the Indochinese
Women’s Conference of 1971, and Third World Womanism 261
Dionne Espinoza
15. María Jiménez: Reflexiones on Traversing Multiple Fronteras
in the South 276
Samantha Rodriguez and Stalina Emmanuelle Villarreal
16. De Campesina a Internacionalista: A Journey of Encuentros
y Desencuentros 290
Olga Talamante
Part Iv. MeMory MovIdas
17. Unpacking Our Mothers’ Libraries: Practices of Chicana Memory
before and after the Digital Turn 299
María Cotera
18. Refocusing Chicana International Feminism: Photographs,
Postmemory, and Political Trauma 317
Marisela R. Chávez
19. La Mariposa de Oro: The Journey of an Advocate 327
Elena Gutiérrez and Virginia Martínez
vi
20. My Deliberate Pursuit of Freedom 344 C
o
Deanna Romero n
t
e
n
21. Manifesto de Memoria: (Re)Living the Movement without Blinking 355 t
s
Inés Hernández-Ávila
Notes 375
Contributors 432
Index 440
vii
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book represents both a long journey and a labor of love. It is the product of
over five years of collaboration, shared vision, and dialogue among three schol-
ars who have devoted their careers to visibilizing women of color, indigenous,
and Chicana/Latina lives and stories. The numerous virtual and in-person meet-
ings—often wedged into conferences or research trips—where we willed this
project into existence have become part of the ritmo de nuestras vidas. We stole
time from our individual research projects and institutional demands for daylong
work sessions, editorial meetings, and many phone conferences in places like
Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Ann Arbor, and Denver. In the years that it took
to bring this volume into being, each of us also experienced a number of personal
life changes, births, and deaths, but we still stayed with the vision of seeing this
collaboration through to the book you have in your hands. In the process we
made community. This community includes the authors who contributed to this
volume and many more who assisted in its creation. Linda Garcia-Merchant was
an early collaborator on the project. We reluctantly let her off the hook to begin a
doctoral program in English at the University of Nebraska.
When we first sat down to brainstorm our vision for the anthology, one of our
goals was to create an intergenerational dialogue among those who lived the sto-
ries—the activists who made this history possible—and the scholars who have
dedicated themselves to documenting and analyzing those histories. We wanted
to include community researchers and scholars at all levels of their journeys from
graduate students to new faculty and mid-career colleagues. We realized this goal
and feel our lives and the book itself are richer for it. We want to thank all of our
ix