The Chicana Feminist Movement
When searching up “Chicana movement” on Google, it asks if you meant “Chicano movement.” Although the difference between these two words is simply one letter, the influence of these two movements is a lot more than that. The Chicano movement focused on racial and civil advocacy for the Mexican-American community, whereas The Chicana Movement opened the spectrum to intersectional feminism.
A Chicana is a Mexican-American woman who embraces her Mexican heritage and uses her platform as an American to combat racial and gender expectations. She is a woman who works to defy the cultural and gender stereotypes of Mexican-American women in a patriarchal society. Often described as “Chicana feminism” and/or “Xicanism,” this philosophy aims to resist the cultural expectation to be the typical Mexican housewife, and instead shine a light on intersectional topics such as race, gender, sexuality, and class. Chicanas embody the Chicanos’ goal of racial equality, and the women’s liberation movement’s focus on feminism.
As the Chicano Movement began to grow after the 1960s with Cesar Chavez’s Farm Workers Movement and partnerships with the African-American Civil Rights Movement, it became an inspiration for Chicanas to begin their own movement, focusing on challenging sexism, as well. They felt motivated to expand on their wishes to not only advocate against the discrimination they faced as an ethnic community but also within it. At a Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in 1969, which focused on combating racist issues, a large number of Chicanas joined together and also brought awareness to the sexism they encountered within their own community and homes.
That conference served as a seed for the powerful and impactful movement to follow. At the peak of the Chicano movement, the Chicanas’ mission began to grow popular and expand nationally. This gave Mexican-American women a platform in which they could use their determination and voice to invoke change. They spoke out against topics such as colonialism, toxic borders, machismo, working towards breaking the barriers that hinder other people like them from achieving equality in a biased world.
If Chicanas had chosen not to rise up, they would have continued to be silenced and conformed to roles deemed appropriate for their gender, sexuality, and/or other identities. This is why a Chicana is incredibly unique; she decides to look at the entire picture, all the roots to her community’s oppression. She has perspective. She has courage. She has power.