Perla Hernandez Podcast Final

The conversation discusses the negative impact of the Chicano movement on Chicana women and their work in activism. It explains the history of Chicano identity and the struggles faced by Mexican immigrants. The exclusion of Mexican migrants from the Chicano movement marginalized Chicana women and their contributions. The interview with Irene Tovar highlights the importance of recognizing and uplifting Chicana women's voices. Ana Nieto Gomez discusses the marginalization of women within the Chicano movement and the challenges faced by Chicana students in higher education. The conversation also explores the intersection of Chicano and white women's liberation movements and the impact on Chicana feminists. It emphasizes the need for a more inclusive and supportive environment for Chicana women in activism and education. Welcome to a conversation about the negative impact of the Chicano movement in regards to machismo and a lack of attention on Chicana women and their work in Chicana activism. I am Perla Hernandez and today we're talking about the importance of emphasizing and uplifting Chicana women's voices with my two interviewees, Irene Tovar and Ana Nieto Gomez. But before getting into that, I want to explain what Chicane means. Chicano, Chicana, or Chicane is a term that primarily refers to those that identify as Mexican-American. The word Chicane was first used as a derogatory term against less cultured Mexican-Americans and recent immigrants in the early 18th century. And though the term had evolved and had become intersected with the Mexican-Americans that were involved in the civil rights movement, this is deeply rooted in the impact of Mexican immigration. As explained in Ana Raquel Mignan's Undocumented Lives, The Untold Story of Mexican Migrants, Mexican immigrants struggled with being offered low-wage jobs with no benefits, criminalization and dehumanizing, the lack of support and aid from their own communities, such as the Bracero Program, and the constant silencing of their needs and well-being in both the United States and in Mexico. For historical context, Mexicans who wished to stay on land given to the U.S. after the Mexican-American War was declared over in 1848, were guaranteed citizenship as well as the right to their property, language and culture under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. However, Mexicans, both those who'd initially immigrated and those who resided in areas where the U.S. boundary changed, found themselves living as second-class citizens in the majority of cases. Numerous land-grant descendants in the area were impoverished as a result of the U.S. government's denial of land-grants that were promised following the Mexican-American War. Thus came the creation of Chicanos and the Chicano Movement. The Chicano Movement, a pivoting time for Chicano folk, promoted cultural nationalism or chicanismo as a means of achieving social and political strength. Chicano people have faced discrimination in the U.S. for decades prior to the 1960s with combating institutional racism, increasing cultural hegemony, and guaranteeing equal labor and political rights. Though there was a huge disconnect between those who immigrated from Mexico to the U.S. and those who identified as Chicane, Miñan mentions the exclusion of Mexican migrants from the Chicano Movement, even though the sole reason why Chicanidad exists in the first place is due to the same struggles faced by both marginalized groups. With the exclusion of Mexican migrants in the Chicano Movement, this allowed for the opportunity to shine a spotlight on Chicano men, excluding and dismissing Chicana women and their importance in the movement that often goes unheard of. And that's exactly what we're going to focus on today. In the upcoming interview with Irene Tovar, she reflects on the cultivation of the new Chicana term and what it means to newer generations, along with how it affects them. She'll first go into detail about the impact of a young Ana Nieto Gomez and her work in developing confidence in Latina students at the Cal State University of Northridge. She explains that her knowledge and skills affected Chicana students by shining the spotlight on them and recognizing that they exist, first and foremost. She'll then go into detail about the impact of Chicanas in general and the role that they've played in history, along with their hard work that is often romanticized. And I think Ana, whether she knows it or not, or whether we even understood it that well, did have that impact on the Chicanas because here they were able to go to a woman in the department and they could see that here was a competent woman who knew her subject, who had self-pride in who she was, and she was a feminist. And that, I think, was very uplifting in the classroom situation, okay, and even outside of that. My role was not in the classroom situation. Mine was outside, you know, trying to connect the university with the community. And that's where I would see the effects of her on it. And so we were very pleased when she came. We wanted to let it be known. But at that time, it was not that supportive of the Chicanos in the Chicano Studies Department toward women, okay? And for some it might have, and I can't say might have been that they truly didn't or hustled for women. I can't say that, but it might have been indirectly, okay? But the effects was not that they encouraged it that much. And it wasn't because some of them were mean people, anti-women, but I think they misrepresented or misunderstood, maybe that's a better word, misunderstood our culture, our own culture. Because if you're a historian, a true historian and a true researcher, you have to be aware of the role that women, Latinas, have played in our whole history, in the Latino world, okay? Our first poet woman was, you know, Santines in terms of her role that she played, you know, and many other women, those that we romanticized, but really their lives were very hard. We romanticized them, but they were tough ladies, okay? They went right into the war, right in the front lines, I mean, on the front lines, and sometimes even with their children, you know? Circling back, the Chicano movement arose from community-based political and civil rights struggles. It addressed issues such as agricultural and industrial labor, educational access, representation in politics, racism, discrimination, resistance to law enforcement and state repression, land grant claims, and local control of community institutions, much like the struggles first tied to Mexican immigration, where they felt a sort of unbelonging for not acquiring these rights as people residing in the country. To comprehend the Chicano organizing framework and the conflictual nature of feminism within the movement, it's important to investigate both the Chicano and the white women's liberation movement concurrently and in contrast. The Chicano movement marginalized women while including them in its meetings and organizing structures. Chicana women were marginalized at three levels inside the organization. They were seen as merely just assistants, discouraged from leadership, and had to deal with the group's objectifying sexual politics. The Chicano movement saw white women striving for women's liberation as threatening unification and compromising communal aims by influencing Chicana feminists to become more radical and militant. The dynamic political context enabled Chicana speakers to express their identities as Mexican Americans and women despite the racism that existed in these systems. One of the ways that this affects Chicanas today is in higher education, and women in Chicano groups on campus often face isolation from male counterparts. In our next interview, Ananita Gomez explores how movement discussions shaped her perspective of masculinity. Masculinity on campus was about experimenting with idealized male roles. By 1969, Chicana students were having a voice as far as their role for equality, and each campus was having that debate and that struggle, and every Chicana, part of CHE, when I would go to the CHE meetings, we would talk about, you know, with our master plan in higher education and what's happening with the women in the organization, because as it began to be more nationalistic, the women were beginning to be, the view of women's role was beginning to be more hostile. And like I tell you, the men, what I'm saying, I wonder if it is, because when I say that they were treating the Chicanas, they spoke to them as if they were women in the street, that's the old Mexican conservative way of looking at women who walk around without chaperones, who are independent and function outside of their families, and I wonder if that's what that was all about. If it was, I understand that, because in the beginning, it wasn't that way, you know, and they were Chicanos, and they were the same Chicanos, and they didn't act that way, they didn't treat us that way. And then all of a sudden, this becomes the modality of how a man is supposed to act. So I often felt that it was a false, it was a false image that they were putting out there that they thought that they, and it was to their advantage, so they were assuming this false role, but it wasn't really who they were. While it's easy to assume that feminism is a movement that pushes for women's rights in all aspects, this is inaccurate given the knowledge of Chicana and migrant women. The Mexican migration changed the traditional Mexican women into a Chicana feminist. The change in identity and individualism of a minority in the 1980s resulted in political shifts and consequences. Migration, for example, consists of numerous changes that present challenges that cannot be predicted or anticipated. And with this, Mexican women experienced her own surprises, which included economic opportunities, changes in family dynamics, identity shift, Chicana feminism, discrimination, and much more. And this is to say that a Mexican migrant woman may turn into a Chicana feminist while her surroundings change dramatically in many ways, and she may develop her own identity, one that resists assimilation while accepting a new reality. As a result, the Chicana feminist was adaptable. She could be in a different environment than her own without being defined by it. The Chicana feminist foundation is her ability to build something unique while incorporating elements from both the past and the future while remaining true to herself. American politics has a history of sustaining unfair treatment of minorities, which is still visible today. Because the signing of legislation does not always result in instant change, instead of describing American politics as law in the 1980s, I believe it was more necessary to define politics in terms of discrimination. Discrimination can take various forms, but in this case, it relates to racism. And those who immigrated to the United States in the 1980s were victims of it. People who immigrated to the United States who did not look like the average American were often judged. With the lack of acceptance, the women began to question one another. Here we have Irene explaining her experience with knowing that she has the same rights as the average American, and the shock that came with that purely stemming off systemic racism, along with her explaining her identity and calling herself a Chicana rather than a Mexican-American. And let it happen since I had every right, every right that every other fellow Americans had. So I was identifying myself as a Chicana, who was an advocate for our community, but very assertive that I was an American. Which meant that I had the rights that every other American had. And it was an issue of my rights that I was fighting for, and an issue that I should not be denied those rights. And when I say me, I mean we as a group, okay? I think I can't tell you precisely how I remember her advocating, defining herself, but I know that she did have a sense of pride of being a woman, which I also had, okay? And definitely, without doubt, in my eyes, she was a strong advocate, okay? And that she had a lot of pride for who she was, and that she was a competent, able woman, which I think we could see that, okay? And we were proud of that, okay? By she, Irene is referring to Ana Nieto Gomez, whom we earlier spoke to. And thanks to both Irene and Ana, we are able to understand the struggle that came and still continues to come with being a Chicana woman in the midst of both the Chicana movement and merely living in the United States, and having to self-identify yourself. Chicana women have always had it difficult when it comes to representation, whether it be in social movements, in higher education, or in places where they feel a strong sense of unbelonging. Regardless, both interviewees make it explicitly clear that without representing these women's achievements and recognizing their hard work and Chicanidad, we wouldn't be here today. Once again, this is Perla Hernandez, and I thank you for listening in. Thank you.