My curatorial exhibit examines the historical development and significance of the early literature characterizing the Chicana feminist movement and focuses on the avenues through which Chicana women organizers and authors staked their claim for liberation. The diverse responses of the women operating at the front line of the Chicana feminist movement to the pressures of both the Chicano movement and the Second Wave Feminist Movement contributed to the establishment of a robust Chicana print culture. In this project, I first explore the early contributions of Chicana women to El Grito del Norte, a newspaper which featured decidedly feminist views on contemporary issues. Next, I trace the origins of student-run Chicana feminist publications, centering on the journal Imágenes de La Chicana, published by Stanford undergraduates. The previous publications imply support for a Chicana feminist movement defined outside of concurrent movements. Alternatively, I find that the poems in El Grito’s anthology Chicanas en la Literatura y el Arte favor solidarity, especially with the Chicano movement, as opposed to radical self-recognition. Finally, I analyze how the editors of the magazine Regeneración crafted a feminist perspective grounded in the Chicana woman’s experience of intersecting oppressions. Evident throughout the project is the idea that written expression, in its many forms, proved instrumental to the conception of the Chicana feminist movement and its ability to build a coalition during the early 1970s, years before the movement is commonly thought to have originated.

— Sam Bishop

A New Wake-Up Call: “¡Despierten Hermanos y Organizense Chicanas!”

“A New Discovered World:” Chicana Feminist Publications on Campus

A New Solidarity: The Potential for Chicano/Chicana Coalitions

A New Xóchitl Rising: Regenerating Chicana Feminisms for the Future