ChicanaDiasporic: A Nomadic Journey of the Activist Exiled

Action in the fourth dimension.

Chicana, born of the labor movement, bilingual education movement, is Rosie the Riveter and la senorita bella de la quincenera. She is the secretary that types 100 words a minute, takes flawless dictation, runs the office but can’t be the manager because, “well white sales men are not going to listen a Spanish woman telling them what to do.” She runs an import/export company, learning to swear, drink beer and slam her hand on the table in meetings where she is the only woman, to get her point across.

Chicana, goes to school, gets a higher education, develops coursework to introduce young Chicanas to themselves, gets fired and blacklisted by the Chicanos for moving the study of Chicanos away from a study of the whole and towards self-serving issues.

Chicanas march, organize, pamphlet, demonstrate, make calls, coffee, open free health clinics, create strategies for events and conferences, cook for pot lucks, stuff envelopes, manage logisitics, even remembering to buy enough toilet paper for the meeting. Chicanas live in dreams deferred because only men have visions and strategies for the new world order—for the good of all.

Chicanas march, organize, pamphlet, demonstrate, make calls, coffee, establish caucuses, workshops, conferences, educate and encourage women to run for office, starting organizations across the country to empower Chicanas/Latinas to do more. Chicanas live in dreams deferred because a movement of women is not equipped to accept political veteranas as equals. 

Chicana, born of the flourishing feminine cosmic age, yet low hermana on the Sandovalian totem pole. We have to consider how Chela views the hierarchy of oppression in order to see how Chicanas must create their own space to function within both the Women’s and Chicano movement. How we are posited in those origins and how does this determine the choices each Chicana (of the Caucus and the Movement) makes at each point where decision-making has to happen? 

Chicana, must journey to a place where exile will allow her movement in both the women’s and chicano movement—space where her ideology, rejected by both can flourish. Where the dream(s) deferred, can become active and productive. A diaspora to six years of cultural production that will produce the Latina, the Latinx, the Chicanx, the Chicana Feminist of today, whether it is realized or not. “I’m not really a feminist,” my feminist cousin says to me, “I never could get into all that white women feminism—it just seemed too selfish” I agree with her and tell her to read Evey Chapa’s writing on how Chicana’s carry culture.

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