La Lectura Obligatora Pa Todos: Chicana Feminists
In a world surrounded with Internet trolls and biased television news, sometimes the best source of social perspective and truth can be found in the written word, specifically books.
A novel, a book, a story — this respected literary form (a.k.a. books) has illuminated the “other” for centuries without catering to the majority’s interests and privileges.
A book’s couple hundred pages can transport the reader to a new world, a location with a hot bed of activity, or a character’s inner life. Either way, these literary aspects have a major influence over the reader; after seeing the intimate struggles of the other, one cannot come out the same.
For any Latino in the United States, being the “other” is a reality. Being a member of the minority, Latinos are inside with the outside, while still being consecutively positioned outside the majority. Yet, what makes up the majority is gradually changing in the United States. As of July 2015, the Census Bureau reported there are 56.6 million people of Hispanic origin in the United States and Hispanics constitute 17.6 percent of the nation’s total population. From those statistics, 63.4 percent of those people of Hispanic or Latino origin were of Mexican origin.
Even though it was not specified in this study, a percentage of those Hispanics of Mexican origin probably identify as Chicano (do we have any proof/links for this information?), also spelled as Xicano. Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity of members within the Mexican-American community, and these terms carry a range of meanings in the Southwest. This communal identity carries ethnic, political, social, and indigenous connotations that have influenced the political prowess of multiple movements, such as the Chicano Movement in the 1960s.
Multiple artists, political figures, and writers have emerged from this movement and left a significant imprint on the American consciousness. One specific sub-group are the Chicana feminists, a highly active community interested in challenging the lines of gender, ethnicity, class, race, and sexuality imposed on the stereotypes of Mexican-American women. Their critiques and responses resulted from their exclusion from both the recognized Chicano Movement and the Second Wave Feminist Movement.
Vocalized through a hybrid of various languages, their intersectional ideas and embraces of the ambiguous kickstarted the Chicana literary renaissance. These works illuminate the everyday struggles felt by Mexican-American women as well as men, such as multi-layered discrimination, inhibited human rights, and more.
Here are five books written by important Chicana feminists that reflect the theories of this prominent collective:
Massacre of the Dreamers by Ana Castillo
The “I” in these critical essays by novelist, poet, scholar, and activist/curandera Ana Castillo is that of the Mexic-Amerindian woman living in the United States. The essays are addressed to everyone interested in the roots of the colonized woman’s reality. Castillo introduces the term Xicanisma in a passionate call for a politically active, socially committed Chicana feminism.
A House of My Own by Sandra Cisneros
From the Chicago neighborhoods where she grew up and set her groundbreaking The House on Mango Street to her abode in Mexico, in a region where “my ancestors lived for centuries,” the places Sandra Cisneros has lived have provided inspiration for her now-classic works of fiction and poetry. But a house of her own, where she could truly take root, has eluded her. With this collection — spanning nearly three decades, and including never-before-published work — Cisneros has come home at last.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldua
Anzaldua, a Chicana native of Texas, explores in prose and poetry the murky, precarious existence of those living on the frontier between cultures and languages. Writing in a lyrical mixture of Spanish and English that is her unique heritage, she meditates on the condition of Chicanos in Anglo culture, women in Hispanic culture, and lesbians in the straight world. Her essays and poems range over broad territory, moving from the plight of undocumented migrant workers to memories of her grandmother, from Aztec religion to the agony of writing.
Loving in the War Years: Lo Que Nunca Paso por Sus Labios by Cherrie L. Moraga
Drawing on the Mexican legacy of Malinche, the symbolic mother of the first mestizo peoples, Moraga examines the collective sexual and cultural wounding suffered by women since the Conquest. Moraga examines her own mestiza parentage and the seemingly inescapable choice of assimilation into a passionless whiteness or uncritical acquiescence to the patriarchal Chicano culture she was raised to reproduce. By finding Chicana feminism and honoring her own sexuality and loyalty to other women of color, Moraga finds a way to claim both her family and her freedom.
Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood by Alice Bag
Violence Girl takes us from a violent upbringing to an aggressive punk sensibility; this time a difficult coming-of-age memoir culminates with a satisfying conclusion, complete with a happy marriage and children. Nearly a hundred excellent photographs energize the text in remarkable ways.
Bonus Title: This Bridge Called My Back, Edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua
This groundbreaking collection reflects an uncompromised definition of feminism by women of color. 65,000 copies in print.
