Hear Me Roar
Chicanas Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era
edited by Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, and Maylei Blackwell
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018.
488 pp. $35.00 hardcover.
Reviewed by
Tori Villarreal
In Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era, activists and scholars give their accounts of their involvement in politics, education reform, reproductive rights, and challenges against heteronormativity; established and emerging scholars contribute to the memory and the analysis of the Movidas that also shaped that moment. During the Chicano Movement, Mexican Americans fought to change their political sphere. Undergoing racism, exclusion, segregation, poor housing, and education, people took to the streets to demand change. Through activist groups, sit-ins, and picket lines, Chicana/os raised awareness to the lack of representation for Mexican Americans. In creating groups such as La Raza Unida, United Farm Workers, and Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), Chicana/os created a platform to challenge the daily issues they faced and elected individuals to local political campaigns. Women proved to be the backbone of the movement as they organized meetings, cooked, opened medical clinics, and handled administration work. Although their efforts were crucial to maintain the movement, scholars and memory-keeprs consistently overlook their time and their work. This collection helps unsettle many entrenched memories of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.
Women in Mexican American communities have long been forming alliances with one another to make change. Beginning with cultural issues among Mexican American men who viewed women as inferior limiting their involvement in the public sphere, Chicanas began challenging limiting patriarchal norms. Demanding representation and equity with men within political groups allowed women a platform to express the issues they faced. Men were often the face of activist groups and those running for political offices, while women fulfilled household chores, cooking, secretary work, and did the behind-the-scenes administration. This environment, which excluded the achievements and hard work of women, motivated the separation from the term Chicano into Chicana. Chicanas participated in the International Woman’s Year Conference (IWY) that engaged women from different countries, cities, and states to build a shared collective agenda. Now, with a focus on women, discussions regarding education, reproductive rights, and the welfare system moved toward the front of the analysis in Chicanas Movidas.
Welfare became a key site of coalitional effort and struggle. In California, Mexican American and African American women created the Los Angeles Welfare Rights Organizations (LAWRO) that demanded fair treatment and opportunities from the Department of Social Services. Alejandra Marchevsky highlights how Social Services staff stymied women from moving up in society. As staff looked down on single mothers or families with multiple children, they provided little income; their services did not accommodate language, culture, or employ Mexican American social workers. Many families were above the poverty line but suffered immensely without government aid, “84 percent of women did not receive unemployment benefits and less than 28 percent received public assistance.” Their bodies were dictated by the government with no regard to privacy, often asked questions about their sexual lives by caseworkers, and often compelled to undergo sterilizations. With the lack of agency and individuality given to women they held no power over their own bodies or children at the hand of social workers who deemed them as unfit mothers and a burden to society. The money received from the government went towards housing rather than food and provided below the bare minimum for families who slept on couches, used broken kitchen appliances, dirty toilets, and lived with vermin. Social services held women responsible for their lack of success and income in the work force. Building from their experiences in the civil rights movement, Mexican American and Black activists forced Los Angeles social services to start including women in service provision.
In a discussion of the International Women of the Year Conference, Marta Cotera remembered how Chicanas like her outmaneuvered white feminists who focused on “preserving the privilege of their race, class, and heterosexual preferences outweighed liberation for ‘every woman.’” Rather than focus on preserving the nonexistent privileges given to marginalized women, Chicanas fought against racism, sexism, and classism. In addition to challenging the Vietnam War, these working class women pushed the agenda to include concrete measures to address racial inequality, the need for child care, civil rights and basic living standard for women calling for a change in the traditional family, the heterosexual institution of marriage that affected lesbians and proposed workshops and resources which were often rejected. Still, Chicanas helped shift the agenda at these IWY conference towards inclusion and a fuller liberation.
The contributors highlight the links between community movements and the creation of ethnic studies and Chicano studies programs in American universities. By pointing to the presence of founders of Chicano Studies at the University of Texas outside of the circle of faculty, the collection provides an important reminder of the community mooring of programs at universities. The Chicana Research and Learning Center (CRLC) researched and narrated the first histories of Chicanas in the United States, identified structural problems facing minority students and provided methods to overcome challenges through grassroots training ran by Mexican American women. The CRLC “challenged feminist movements narratives that erase women of color feminist’s roots, minimize their lived experiences and position their contributions to feminism.” The success of projects such as the CRLC provided a community scaffolding to projects invested in building out the presence and significance of Mexican American histories in the United States.
Chicana Movidas provides insight into the first-hand experiences of Chicana women mobilizing for change within their community. Their memories and activism extended into the ’80s, pushing scholars to extend their analysis of “the movement.” Chicanas Movidas offer insight into unrecorded narratives of women who challenged the system and the patriarchal upbringing in their families. The collection takes a different approach from the political focus of men in the movements and grants agency to women’s involvement as queer, single mothers, activists, and individuals. It approaches the movement emphasizing women’s liberation, workers’ rights, and LGBTQ+ identifies who lacked representation due to cultural limitations. Rather than exclude the stories of lesbian activists who are depicted in archival documents as “anti-feminist,” collections illustrate the impact of this misogyny on committed and involved Chicana leadership.
Overall, the authors do well in shedding light on the narratives left out in the re-telling of the Chicano Movement. The experiences often neglect the involvement and activism of women challenging patriarchal, heterosexual, cultural, and welfare issues. Women brought political change to the movement; the analysis emphasizes that the struggle for recognition of their labor and their leadership continues to this day. Chicanas Movidas furthers the conversation in Mexican American history, complicates easy assumptions about allies and advocates, points to what it means to be a woman in a male dominated narrative. The testimonios and analysis in Chicana Movidas point to a continuing need to understand the fullness of the impact of Chicanas on their many communities.
Tori Villarreal is a graduate student in the History Department at Texas State.