Mythohistorical Interventions: The Chicano Movement and Its Legacies

3. Of Mothers and Revolucionarias: Movement Chicanas Fashioning a Feminism of Their Own

· 105 ·· CHAPTER 3 · Of Mothers and Revolucionarias Movement Chicanas Fashioning a Feminism of Their Own If anyone challenges the diversity of activities by Mexicanas and Chicanas throughout history, they are going to have to wipe out a lot of history. —Martha Cotera, The Chicana Feminist There’s no doubt that the familia is important. But, a woman doesn’t have to be forced to love her family; force only prevents her from expressing herself. She should be given the freedom to tie her role as a mother-wife to that role of la revolucionaria. There shouldn’t be any contradictions in those roles; and if there are, she should be given the opportunity to iron these out. —Irene Rodarte, “Machismo vs. Revolution” Two women of the New Mexico land grant movement, and assuredly many others, challenged the gendered scripts of the Chicano nationalist imaginary. On June 5, 1967, Rosa Tijerina, along with other members of the Alianza Federal de Mercedes, took part in the infamous courthouse raid in Tierra Amarilla. She was eighteen years old at the time.1 Two years later, Patricia “Patsy” Tijerina, Rosa’s stepmother, threw a firebomb and burned a U.S. Forest Service sign. The incident eventually led to the imprisonment of Rosa’s father and Patsy’s husband, Reies López Tijerina. Throughout the efforts in New Mexico and the Chicano movement more broadly, Chicanas were at the center of the struggle. However, for many Chicanas who were active in the movement, their participation was, and has often continued to be, marginalized. Indeed, their presence was often recognized only when it furthered a male-centered nationalist vision. For example, as the previous chapter noted, Patricia’s rape was 106 OF MOTHERS AND REVOLUCIONARIAS abstracted to a symbolic cultural and psychic violation of La Raza. In part this circumscribing of Chicana participation stemmed from the effort to imagine and mobilize a national and nationalist Chicano community. As common to many nationalist efforts, the nation and its fully participating citizens were gendered male: ideal citizen subjects who could and must protect their family, culture, and land. Notably, this gendering of the ideal citizen subject was undergirded through mythohistorical deployments such as the revolutionary/bandido trope and later the bronze brotherhood of Aztlán. Together, the activism and erasure of Chicanas expose tension between female participation and the limitations of the Chicano imaginary. During the late 1960s, this tension, this contradiction between Chicana activism and the movement’s androcentric—or male-centered— vision, brought to the fore a question that would take hold within popular movement discourse: what was the role of la Chicana in el movimiento? This question, articulated in various manifestations, permeated movement discourse from California to Texas. The question, however, was not solely how would women participate within the movement. Chicanas had been central to the movement since its emergence in the mid-1960s. Rather, the question became how such participation would be conceptualized . Here, an example may be useful. In a 1970 editorial published in El Despertador de Tejas, Amalia Rodriguez urged Chicanas to participate fully within the movement. For Rodriguez, the fight for “self-determination of the Chicano people” is linked to the commitment of la Chicana, for “Historically and culturally she has been a giant column in the structure of la familia chicana.”2 Notably, revolutionary rhetoric and a nationalist vision underpin Rodriguez’s writing: “And now that Chicanos are in the forefront initiating radical change in North American society, the Chicana can continue to be the leader in the movement for the liberation of man in the revolution that will free our people from unjust cultural imposition, economic and political oppression.”3 Even as “the liberation of man” invokes an androcentric model of liberation, Rodriguez’s vision diverges from the patriarchal nationalist imaginary, for here Chicanas can be—and need to be—leaders. Perhaps most important, according to Rodriguez, Chicanas can contribute through a variety of roles: We, as Chicanas, in 1970, as students, as wives, as mothers can gear our roles toward involvement that is more relevant to the Chicano movement. To distinguish our roles as women and as Chicanas, OF MOTHERS AND REVOLUCIONARIAS 107 to create leadership among ourselves and to participate in the decision-making processes that affect all Chicanos can be our expressions of commitment to La Causa.4 Nearly forty years later, this declaration that Chicanas as students, wives, and mothers can be...