The Chicana Feminist Analysis

Chica da Silva was a freed slave living in Brazil during the eighteen century. While there are many false myths and stereotypes connected to Chica, Furtado’s biography’s goal was to find out the truth. To not only discover what Chica Da Silva was really like, but to also defend her people from the stereotypes that have followed them for many years. Furtado took a different approach to researching the famous freed slave. Instead of using popular beliefs and myths to make assumptions on what Chica must have been like based on her race and family background. She uses old official documents to learn what her lifestyle consisted of, who her family was, and what social class she associated with.

Cindy Cruz’s “Toward an epistemology of a brown body” addresses the absence of educational research regarding the “brown body” and sexual orientation of Latinx. Cruz discusses her experience as a lesbiana and not knowing there was a possibility that anyone else in her family shared her orientation. She reflects on her grandmother’s funeral and how she became aware of the “generations of queers” that surrounded her (Cruz 2001, 658). Knowledge of the brown body, Cruz claims, comes from mothers and grandmothers and from the actions of past women of color. Stories about the brown body experiences are often dismissed due to the fact that they are performed rather than explained, and the theoretical aspect of these accounts exists outside of our present reality (Cruz 2001, 659). There are many ways to view the world and the human experience, including those of the oppressed such as women of color, mestizas, and LGBTQA+. Cruz uses the writings of Chicana theorist Gloria Anzaldúa as a base for her own analyses. From Anzaldúa’s notions, Cruz concludes that mestizaje, or the consciousness of metizas, can change the way society interprets contrasting ideas of rationalism and positivism in a way that allows the mind and body to be one. Cruz then moves onto explaining how Chicana education researchers could reclaim their history and experience: (a) through recognizing the points of views of communities that actively participate in government and (b) through commitment

As black women always conform under patriarchal principles, women are generally silenced and deprived of rights because men are entitled to control everything. Women are silenced in a way that they lose their confidence and hesitate to speak up due to the norms present in the society they live in. Hence, even if women have the confidence to try to speak, men wouldn’t bother to listen since men ought to believe that they are superior to women. In addition to that, women often live in a life cycle of repetitions due to patriarchal principles since women are established to fulfill the roles the society had given them. It is evidenced by Celie as she struggles to survive and to define oneself apart from the controlling, manipulative, and abusive men in her life.

“The common denominator all Latinos have is that we want some respect. That 's what we 're all fighting for” - Cristina Saralegui. Judith Ortiz Cofer published the article, “The Myth of the Latin Woman,” where she expresses her anger towards stereotypes, inequality, and degradation of Latin Americans. Cofer explains the origins of these perceived views and proceeds to empower Latin American women to champion over them. Cofer establishes her credibility as a Latin American woman with personal anecdotes that emphasize her frustration of the unfair depiction of Latinos in society. Cofer addresses the cultural barriers and challenges that Latinos experience through emotional appeal, anecdotal imagery, parallelism and the use of effective periodic sentences.

In the 1960s, the Chicano movement started to gain momentum. Chicanos began banding together to protect others while discovering their own self-identity. One source says that, a newfound gratitude for Chicano culture was detected. It goes on to state that, a “cultural rebirth was proclaimed” which had been provoked by “rediscovery” and an acknowledgement of their collective indigenous roots. The author adds that, it was a chance to uncover “a positive self-definition” (Rodriguez, "Building Aztlan: Chicano Movement Springs Back to Life"). Furthermore, in the 1960s, nothing could slow down the Chicano movement once it had sparked. So much so, that Rodriguez claims that it “led to colleges and universities becoming targets of protest” and the

A tongue is one of the most important body parts, if that’s what we shall call it, that a human being has. If it was not for the tongue, it would be a very quiet world. Gloria Anzaldúa, born in 1942, near the large Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, was bound to make a difference in lives before she ever knew it. When Gloria turned eleven she started to work in the fields as a migrant worker and then started on her family’s land after the passing of her father. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s the short story, How to Tame a Wild Tongue, she describes her upbringing and growing up in a dual culture society split in two. One being her academic culture, where she is expected to speak clearly and adhere and know to the English language. Another being her Spanish Chicano culture, certain expectations and different regulations are required of her starting at a very young age, and throughout her life growing up in a Mexican-American family. Gloria’s Latino culture has brought along many challenging beliefs, even

Latin American women face challenges every single day and moment of their lives. They are strongly discriminated against in all sectors of employment, in public places, and even while just walking down the street. In her essay, "The Myth of the Latin Woman," Judith Ortiz Cofer describes her own experiences using illuminating vignettes, negative connotation, and cultural allusion to exemplify how she used the struggles in her day to day life as a Latin woman to make herself stronger.

The Myth of the Latina Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria by Judith Ortiz Cofer is a story covering Latina Women in America. Judith is from Puerto Rico and for much of the passage, discusses her life as a Latina and how she would be judged for doing common people activity. She would be ridiculed for her clothes and labeled illegal or a prostitute. Even after this, she would not let it get to her as she believes Latina women are works of God. Cofer’s purpose for writing this essay was to show that Latina women are victimized even though “they make good domestics” (Cofer). She also explicitly states that her “personal goal in [her] public life is to try to replace the old persuasive stereotypes and myths about Latinas with a much more interesting set of realities”

Throughout “The Mexican in Fact, Fiction, and Folkore” examines the term “Mexican” as it is applied in Southwest literature and argues the Anglo society has made a conscious effort to misrepresent Mexicans (Rios 60). He states the people of Mexican descent are viewed as un-American because they are perceived as filthy, lazy, and dumb. Ricatelli adds to the conversation of Mexican stereotypes by examining the literary expressions of Chicanas and Mexicanas in the literature of both the United States and Mexico. In “The Sexual Stereotypes of The Chicana in Literature” Ricatelli explains how in Yankee literature, the Chicana is referred to as the “fat breeder, who is a baby factory” meanwhile the Mexican is described as an “amoral, lusty hot tamale” (Ricatelli 51). He makes note of these stereotypes in order to highlight the ethnocentric and nativist points of view that dominated Anglo literature. Furthermore, he describes the multiple forms of control Chicana women face when he states, “The Chicana is first of all oppressed economically, socially, and politically by virtue of her being a woman. Secondly, the Chicana as a member of an oppressed ethnic and/ or racial group is limited to the same extent as the Chicano by the dominant Anglo society” (50). However, he fails to mention the experiences of queer women, which implies how the Chicano

Within societies, culture plays a huge role in shaping who a person becomes. What values they consent to and what would make them content and satisfied with life, otherwise said, happy. In a patriarchal racist community woman as a double minority suffer twice the burden of proving herself, defining her values, and finding what defines her. Some of these women choose to obey and submit and live life as given to them. Just a few stand up for themselves, speak up, fight toward their freedom and independence against all cultural norms and social constructions including race and patriarchy. Some people may suggest that in Zora Nelson Huston’s book Their Eyes Were Watching God the main character Janie is in a continuous search for a true love. However,

Like AnneMarie’s biracial identity many biracial Chicanos are overlooked and are told “you’re not chicana/o enough nor black enough.” The stigma of being biracial and pressuring biracial people to choose between cultures is unfair they should be able to love and embrace both cultures without any repercussions. The following research will highlight the importance of the what it means to identify as Afro-Chicana/os,Afro-latin@,Afro-Chican@, and Blaxican along with their struggles, and their shaped identity.

Stereotyping in the mass media was one of the most important concerns of Chicana/o media activists because they found that any kind of media will be useful in order to have a voice in the United States. For example in

Also, Blackwell develops several theoretical concepts, among which is her notion of “retrofitted memory,” which is her name for the historicizing strategies Las Hijas used to counter the erasure of Chicana political subjectivities from the movement. Chicana power is one of the best books to read because it is not only a book that invested in the story telling of Chicana activists, who have challenged racism, sexism, homophobia and the structures of segregation, inequality etc. She pushes readers beyond. Chicana feminism wasn’t merely a response to the sexism of Chicano nationalism or racism of women’s movement. Highlighting the many iterations of feminism and the “adoption of different strategies to be heard” . Blackwell brings many stories in effort to reimagine historical moments. Another strength in the book is that Blackwell held interviews from students that wanted they’re voice heard which made her research more

The Chicana Feminist movement was born as a reaction to the sexism of the Chicano Movement. Women were not seen as the real political subjects of the movement but as auxiliary members (Blackwell, 65). They were relegated to supporting roles in as cooks and secretaries and often their ideas were dismissed. Many women were told that “their responsibility is to love, work, pray, and help… the male is their leader, he is iron, not mush.” (Ruiz, 109) Women were also discouraged from taking leadership roles and were told to wait to fight for their cause at a later time for fear of dividing the Chicano movement. (Ruiz,

Society has a unique way of viewing women and labeling them as “submissive”. Even though there is a typical view of women, imagine having to deal with stereotypes for being a black woman in the time of slavery. The picture changes for a woman. First, she is no longer a woman but instead she is property in a man’s eye. Next, she is not assumed to be “weak” or “submissive” but she was told and taught that she and has no power or say so to change it. That is how Harriet Jacobs’s life was depicted in “A Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl’s Life”. Harriet Jacobs was the first black slave woman to stand and prove that she is not weak, submissive, or property. Jacobs did not do it just for the black women but as a black person