{"id":561,"date":"2018-12-10T14:16:12","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T19:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=561"},"modified":"2018-12-13T15:23:19","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T20:23:19","slug":"emergence-of-the-chicana-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/dominguez\/emergence-of-the-chicana-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Emergence of the Chicana Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"During the late sixties, Mexican- Americans, Chicanos, began mobilizing against the treatment they received in institutional facilities, such as public education and workplaces (\u201cChicano Movement\u201d). In 1968, there were several high school walkouts in Los Angeles to protest the substandard education these young Chicanos were receiving (Sahagun, \u201cEast L.A., 1968\u201c).<\/i>\u00a0 During the 1969 First National Chicano Youth Conference in Denver, there was a workshop concerning the status of Chicanas within the movement, and it \u201d \u2018was the consensus of the group that the Chicana woman does not want to be liberated\u2019 \u201d (Vidal 22).This was one of the actions that spurred Chicanas into action. Chicanismo\u2013ethnic pride\u2013was a predominantly masculine ideology. This is apparent in short films, such as \u201cI am Joaquin\u201d and \u201cYo Soy Chicano\u201d where women were portrayed as abstractions of Mother Earth or symbols of fertility while the men were portrayed as embodiments of revolutionary warriors (Fregoso 12). Chicanas were excluded from the early beginnings of the Chicano and the Second Wave Feminist Movements. It became apparent that Chicanas needed to create a space to air their unique grievances. This space was found in the poetry and other writings produced during the era.<\/p>\n

In 1975, Lorna Dee Cervantes wrote \u201cPara un Revolucionario,\u201d highlighting the disconn\"\"ect within the Chicano Movement and its actions towards Chicanas. Cervantes at first describes the language and rhetoric of the Chicano Movement in a positive tone. Words such as sun, soft, warmth, and love all have positive connotations. Cervantes is mesmerized\u00a0 by the Chicanos\u2019 proclamation of liberation for la Raza* as she proclaims, \u201cWhen you speak like this \/ I could listen forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, however, the poem takes a drastic shift in tone regarding its subject, El Chicano. Cervantes begins this stanza by stating \u201cPero your voice is lost to me, carnal.\u201d It was typical of Chicana poets to smoothly transition between English and Spanish as it illustrated the bilingual and bicultural aspect of their identity. The use of carnal is significant because i\"\"t signals the recognition of the masculine undertones within the movement. Carnal, blood in Spanish, was frequently used among Chicanos to mean brother\/brotherhood. Cervantes then proceeds by listing the attributes of the domestic sphere\u2013cooking, cleaning, child tending\u2013 to highlight the Chicana\u2019s position in the household, as well as to indicate her isolation in the movement. The Chicana wants liberation, as well, but she is trapped within the confines of her traditional gender role. She can listen to the Chicanos talk about the revolution in la sala**, but she is prohibited from joining. This portion of the poem highlights the exclusion and sexism present in the Chicano Movement.<\/p>\n

Cervantes re-emphasizes the prevalence of sexism within th\"\"e movement in the following excerpt. Cervantes states that she \u201ccan only touch [him] with [her] body.\u201d Chicanas were seen as sexual objects, not respectable equals. The last stanza is meant to be read as a warning. The Chicano Movement will fail if it continues to exclude Chicanas from the conversation. It is clear that Cervantes does not want the movement to fail with lines such as \u201cmy hands will be left groping \/ for you and your dream,\u201d but the dream of the revolution will be lost if Chicanas are not adequately represented. How can these men, these Chicanos, proclaim to fight for the liberation of la Raza when they exclude half of it?<\/p>\n

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*the race<\/p>\n

**the living room<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

Cervantes, Lorna D. \u201cPara un Revolucionario.\u201d Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana <\/i>Literature. <\/i>Edited by Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana S. Rivero, University of\u00a0 ArizonaPress, 1993.<\/p>\n

\u201cChicano Movement.\u201d Educating Change, <\/i>22 June 2005, http:\/\/www.brown.edu\/Research\/Coachella\/chicano.html<\/a>. Accessed 26 November 2018.<\/p>\n

Fregoso, Rosa Linda. The Bronze Screen: Chicana and Chicano Film Culture. <\/i>University of Minnesota Press. 2003.<\/p>\n

Sahagun, Louis. \u201cEast L.A., 1968: \u2018Walkout!\u2019 The day that high school students help ignite the Chicano power movement.\u201d Los Angeles Times, <\/i>01 March 2018.<\/p>\n

Vidal, Mirta. \u201cNew Voice of La Raza: Chicanas Speak Out*.\u201d Chicana Feminist Thought: The <\/i>Basic Historical Writings. <\/i>Edited by Alma M. Garc\u00eda, Routledge, 1997.<\/p>\n

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During the late sixties, Mexican- Americans, Chicanos, began mobilizing against the treatment they received in institutional facilities, such as public education and workplaces (\u201cChicano Movement\u201d). In 1968, there were several high school walkouts in Los Angeles to protest the substandard … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2047,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dominguez"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2047"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":790,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions\/790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}