Intersectional Chicana Feminisms: Sitios y Lenguas

Mexican American Experience

by Aída Hurtado

Chicana feminisms are living theory deriving value and purpose by affecting social change. Advocating for and demonstrating the importance of an intersectional, multidisciplinary, activist understanding of Chicanas, Intersectional Chicana Feminisms provides a much-needed overview of the key theories, thinkers, and activists that have contributed to Chicana feminist thought.

Aída Hurtado, a leading Chicana feminist and scholar, traces the origins of Chicanas’ efforts to bring attention to the effects of gender in Chicana and Chicano studies. Highlighting the innovative and pathbreaking methodologies developed within the field of Chicana feminisms—such as testimonio, conocimiento, and autohistoria—this book offers an accessible introduction to Chicana theory, methodology, art, and activism. Hurtado also looks at the newest developments in the field and the future of Chicana feminisms.

The book includes short biographies of key Chicana feminists, additional suggested readings, and exercises with each chapter to extend opportunities for engagement in classroom and workshop settings.
 

232 pages, Paperback

Published April 14, 2020

Reviews

[Clarissa Hom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Literally ch 1-2... so meta. Reading these chapter is less like studying Chicana Feminisms and more like studying Chicana Feminist Studies. Hurtado is very focused on how Chicana Feminism appears in the academy; how Chicana scholars use all of her methods - how scholars write, how scholars use language, how scholars collaborate, how scholars share their testimonios. What these chapters lack is a view outside of theorizing and studying. Chicanas do all of these things too! Write, reclaim Spanglish and indigenous languages, collaborate, and share their stories. As personal expression and political movement! What she shares is interesting - for example, Chicana scholars had to resist the idea that combining English and Spanish is unscholarly. It would be amazing to have this alongside other reclamations in other spheres, the way that she shows organizers collaborating in the Women's March. Unfortunately you have to wait a good 100 pages for that. All theory, no flesh. Honestly, as a reader, I should not read the word "testimonio" and instead should be reading a testimonio.

Ch 3 was really enjoyable - think of how in school you hear that literary works can form meaningful critiques and social change. You don't read more work that just says that, you look at examples like Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451. Ch 1-2 was like a summary of the syllabus while ch 3 put it in the flesh. Plus, the art that Chicanas make is *spoiler* actually really cool to look at and even cooler to break down and analyze. La Virgen forever in my heart, in all of her forms.

Ch 4 stands on it's own. Playing with the form, splicing in interviews, current events that put methodologies into practice, all very interesting stuff. We get to see all of the methods that Hurtado outlines in concrete, in action! I'm conflicted on whether ch 1-3 are even necessary. In ch 4 they could have honestly been headings. Sure, telling your cuento has a name, but even if it didn't, Chicana Feminists would still be sharing their testimonios, regardless of whether or not they knew that they were using a "method." (A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Ch 4 sweet as hell.) Genuinely ch 1-3 felt like a PAPAs square for the entire Chicana Feminist movement. You see Shakespeare including a rhetorical analysis in the Prologue? Anyways, in ch 4, speeches and poems felt like they had a place, showing the work of Chicanas in exercising their feminism, their political voice. Rather than Hurtado including a poem to simply demonstrate that Chicana scholars do in fact write, do in fact use language, collaborate, and share their stories, this chapter uses the creative products, the speeches, the art pieces to actually teach the reader the Chicana Feminist messages behind these products and demonstrate the power they have to really impact the movement and the social standing of Chicanas.

Less theory, more flesh, baby!

[Heather Montes Ireland · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Intersectional Chicana Feminisms: Sitios y Lenguas, Aída Hurtado offers a critical contribution to the field of Chicana/Latina studies. She covers a broad history of the field of Chicana feminism as it has developed through decades of academic, cultural, and artistic interventions. The book highlights the profound interdisciplinarity of the field and traces its intersectional lineages.

It is a fantastic resource for professors and instructors in Latina studies, and it is likewise a wonderful introduction for students to the depth and breadth of the field. It provides an overview of this rich and dynamic body of knowledge, akin to a textbook, though it doesn't simply summarize the field--it offers frameworks anew to understand Chicana feminisms more deeply.

"Intellectual and political border crossings have shaped the intersectional insights foundational to Chicana feminist thought from its inception, as Aída Hurtado illuminates in Intersectional Chicana Feminisms: Sitios y Lenguas. The book highlights how Chicana feminism has developed from “the interstices of multiple social, economic, and cultural systems” rooted in the experiences of Mexican and Mexican American women (10). Critical features, distinct from and yet connected to other feminist and anti-racist traditions, comprise Chicana feminism, and Chicana feminists have theorized gender and sexual marginalization in ways that make the “complexities of cross-border existence . . . fully legible” (62). Hurtado capably explains how, as a vibrant and intersectional “living theory” (Trujillo) in pursuit of collective liberation, Chicana feminism continues to evolve in its analyses of the intricate webs of power embedded in the lives of gender and sexual minorities of color. [...] Covering the distinctive components of Chicana feminism in interdisciplinary and thought-provoking ways, Intersectional Chicana Feminisms is quite an achievement."

Read my full review in Diálogo, Volume 24, Number 2, Fall 2021.

[Nicolas Lontel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une très bonne introduction au féminisme Chicana qui couvre les premiers écrits , les figures féminines qui servent de modèles, de contre-modèles et d'outils de réappropriations au mouvement (La Virgen de Guadalupe, La Malinche,...), des courtes biographies de théoriciennes et artistes importantes (Gloria Anzaldúa, Emma Pérez, Elba Rosario Sánchez, Yolanda M. López, etc.) en plus d'une présentation plus larges de leurs travaux, comment elles communiquent entre elles, des courtes analyses parfois (poèmes, essais, peintures, ...).

Définitivement un bon premier ouvrage sur le sujet puisqu'il ouvre beaucoup plus les portes en présentant un univers de possible, à travers 4 chapitres qui s'intéressent à différents thèmes et lieux du fémisme chicana (réappropriation, l'importance de la langue, l'autohistoria, les méthodologies, l'art, etc.). Avec quand même beaucoup de production du 21ème siècle parfois très récentes!!!!

Ma seule grande surprise est le chapitre complet consacré à la Women's March de 2017 (surtout celle à Washington), je comprends définitivement son insertion comme mise en pratique concrète de la méthodologie, des pratiques artistiques, sociales, etc. Comme moment intersectionnel, mais on s'attarde quand même beaucoup aux discours de Janelle Monae et Angela Davis, parties très intéressantes, mais simplement étonnantes dans un livre sur les formes du féminisme chicana (peut-être est-ce pour souligner cette importance du dialogue, de l'échange, des luttes communes, etc.). Pas un mauvais chapitre du tout, simplement inattendu!

Bref, excellente introduction, pas trop lourde, bien vulgarisé, un bon portrait d'ensemble qui balance un large corpus et un grand ensemble de pratiques expliquées, mais une attention aussi à l'analyser.

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many words I wish I could write that could encompass my feelings about this book. I’m reading this for a Latina Feminist Thought and Culture class and I had to keep reading. The third chapter “Mi Luche es Mi Arte” was my favorite. Hurtado does a beautiful job in validating how Chicana feminism arise in ways mainstream academia deems as subjective. She has radicalized my ideas about myself as a living theory and how I resist just by existence. Highly suggest to any gender studies/Latino studies student!