Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings (review)

276 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies bibliographical support. There is no final concluding chapter to the volume, nor does the author provide a bibliography or an index . And finally, the author's use of parentheses as a means of including ancillary or marginal material produces a level of annoyance that detracts from the overall value of this very thoughtful and far-reaching meditative commentary on the powers of poetry at the end of the twentieth century. Margaret Persin Rutgers University Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings Roudedge, 1997 Edited by Alma M. Garcia Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera and Chicana feminist literature in general have been credited wirli inaugurating a genre of cultural analysis that takes borders, sexuality, and Chicana/o experiences as a point of departure. However, few know the historical context of Chicana feminism. Alma M. Garcia's Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings provides an important compilation of political writings by essayists, intellectuals, and activists, women who were speaking loudly and clearly about their exclusion from Chicano Movement and Women's Movement agendas in die late 1960s and early 1970s. The context of Chicanas in the 1960s was diat of people of Mexican descent in the U.S., and the preservationist and determinist configurations of cultural nationalism . This is what distinguished it from other feminisms. Many feministas were trained in organizing through their involvement in cultural nationalist student and community groups (3). Such involvement gave them a deeper understanding of their condition as working class students, single heads of household, and welfare mothers, subject to the state's racist, sexist, and classist public policies. As symbolized tragically by the case Madrigal V Quilligan, in which ten poor Chicanas/Mexicanas, who had been sterilized without dieir consent, sought justice and were denied it, "Chicanas posessed little control over their own bodies" (107). Divided into three parts, Part One, "Voices of Chicana Feminists" provides a montage of early writings. But it is PattTwo, "Core Themes" that offers the most substantial portion of the anthology. In five sections, Part Two addresses feminism and the Chicano Movement; analysis of Chicana oppression; debates regarding goals and selfdefinition ; critiques of Anglo-American feminism; and discussions that took place in the 1980s. This unit also lays bare internal debates such as the issue of separatism from Chicano men and "priority" issues exemplified in the painful and difficult analyses of the splits at the Houston Conference . It also examines affiliations with third world women. Heeding the calls for women to meet in groups, there was a flourishing of conferences and caucuses, which was accompanied by a spirit of rigorous selfcriticism that prevails in resolutions, platforms , and speeches. Throughout this history, Chicanas claimed equality by promoting humanism as "the doctrine that asserts the dignity and worth of both men and women via their innate capacity for fulfilling their in born abilities" (205). Often yoked to a call for "family unity" (133), this humanism rejected a simple reversal of terms that would reinstall women where men used to be. Instead , as they contended with cultural anxieties about undermining and threatening Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 277 Chicano masculinity, Chicanas engaged in a rich dialogue on the "culture"—rather than the "nature"—of gender roles. This was a discourse in which, for example, writer Bernice Rincón claims, the goal is to be "women people" but "not to so radically disturb the balance of the man-woman relationship that we become neuters" (24). Nevertheless, according to Linda Aquilar, "The Mexican American female has taken on some characteristics of what has been described as a Macho. She may be very vocal , aggressive, and an effective community organizer" (137). Such candid commentary on the ways racialized masculinity symbolized access to power invites careful reflection on the intersection of culture and gender in social movements. Indeed, the ungendering and deculturation implied by the link between feminism and whiteness or the masculinization implied by die link with power was contested through the transformation of racialized, working class femininity and through a change in the way power circulated in organizations. Activists called for the adoption of "The Philosophy of Hermani-dad" (169), a model of "women working...