Graduation Year

2018

Date of Submission

4-2018

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

History

Reader 1

Professor Lily Geismer

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Rebecca R Ayala

Abstract

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Chicanas gradually began to politically organize. Through a significant focus on the political life of Francisca Flores and the CFMN, this thesis analyzes the specific political organizing tools she and other Chicana feminist leaders used during the decade between 1970 and 1980. Rather than evaluate the success or failure of the organizations, it instead examines the political methods they used including individual leadership, coalition building, community engagement, and art. It attempts to demonstrate that prominent Chicana feminist activists such as Flores, NietoGomez of Las Hijas de Cuauhtémoc and later Encuentro Femenil, former Brown Beret Gloria Arellanes, and Los Angeles based artist Judy Baca all used these methods in specific ways in order to promote the visibility of Chicana feminism and their communities, which has had an enduring legacy for the movement. Through a comparative analysis of these methods, this thesis illustrates how each of these figures and organizations developed a Chicana feminist movement that balanced grassroots and national organizing with a conscious commitment to visibility of community, rooted in intersectional theory.

Comments

Best Senior Thesis in Gender Studies

Ayala

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