reviews
New & Noteworthy
The Chicano Movement of
the 1960s and 1970s gained national
prominence fighting discrimination
against Mexican Americans, but
women’s contribution to the cause is
frequently downplayed. In ¡Chicana
Power! Contested Histories of Feminism
in the Chicano Movement, Chicano
studies professor Maylei Blackwell
shines light on Mexican American
women’s fight for equality. For the book,
¡ chicana power! Blackwell drew on documents written
by Chicana activists and oral histories
contested
gathered over the past 20 years to
histories of
feminism in the
create the “first book-length study of
chicano
women in the Chicano movement.”
movement
The book focuses on Anna
by Maylei Blackwell,
NietoGomez, a Chicana theorist and
University of Texas Press founder of Hijas de Cuauhtémoc, a
2011, 304 pp., $24.95
feminist newspaper and organiza(paperback)
tion from Long Beach, California, that
opposed male domination, racism,
and classism. Blackwell notes that Chicana activists faced numerous hurdles to social equality, foremost among them the “chauvinism, discrimination, and sexual harassment” of male Chicano
movement leaders. Tracing the role of women in the movement’s
development, the book paints an illuminating picture of Chicano
movement history from a feminist perspective.
mythohistorical
interventions­: the chicano
movement and its legacies
by Lee Bebout, University of Minnesota
Press, 2011, 248 pp., $25 (paperback)
­What impact have stories and
mythology had in the Chicano movement? Author Lee Bebout, a professor
of Chicano studies at Arizona State
University, explores “mythohistorical
intervention” as a strategy that social movements use to foster
dialogue, to unify, and to mobilize. He focuses in particular on
the myth of Aztlán—the fabled land from Oregon to Texas from
which the Aztecs migrated to establish their empire in presentday central Mexico. According to Bebout, the idea of Aztlán, as
perpetuated in Chicano literature, formed “the narrative founda-
82 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS VOL. 45, NO. 2
First coined by feminist
theorist and author Gloria Anzaldúa
in 1987, the term spiritual mestizaje refers to “the transformative
renewal of one’s relationship to
the sacred,” according to Theresa
Delgadillo, a literary specialist and
author of this study of the concept’s
significance in Chicana literature.
In short, spiritual mestizaje is the
alteration of one’s consciousness to
resist oppression—wherever it may
spiritual
come
from—to discover “alternative
mestizaje:
religion, gender, visions of spirituality.” The concept
race, and nation of spiritual mestizaje originated in
in contemporary the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, a rechicana
gion of colonial and neocolonial colnarrative
lisions between disparate cultures,
by Theresa Delgadillo,
religions, peoples, and more.
Duke University Press
Delgadillo’s book analyzes the
2011, 274 pp., $23.95
impact of spiritual mestizaje on
(paperback)
eight nonfiction and fiction Chicana
texts. According to Delgadillo, the
texts highlight the transformative effect that spiritual mestizaje
has on individuals, communities, and societies. The book concludes with a reflection on the polarizing effect of religion in the
United States and a call to study alternative texts that demystify
religion and critically evaluate theological teachings.
tion of Chicano nationalism,” uniting diverse communities in the
common fight for land rights, fair wages, educational equality,
and political rights.
Relying on archival documents, scholarly texts, plays,
speeches, music, and protest poetry, Bebout examines the use
of imagery and mythology in Chicano narratives. The use of
these narratives, he argues, helped solidify and legitimize the
Chicano movement throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and also
created common ground for Chicanos to unite, organize, and
contest Anglo-American cultural hegemony. Bebout particularly
highlights United Farm Workers organizer César Chávez’s use of
Chicano mythohistorical narratives, images, and culture to promote solidarity among Mexican American farmworkers and how
Corky Gonzales’s poem “I Am Joaquín / Yo Soy Joaquín” helped
construct identity in the Chicano movement. He concludes with
reflections on the use of myths in the Chicano movement today.
In this volume, political
scientist Karen Kampwirth brings
together a wide range of experts—from feminist activists and
historians to sociologists and political
scientists—­to explore gender in
popular politics in Latin America.
According to Kampwirth, there
have been three waves of populism
over the last century: the classical
populists, such as Argentina’s Juan
gender and
Perón and Brazil’s Getúlio Vargas;
­p opulism in
neopopulists, like former Perulatin america
vian president Alberto Fujimori,
edited by Karen Kampwho promoted neoliberal poliwirth, Pennsylvania
cies; and present-day “radical”
State University Press,
populists, such as Venezuelan
2010, 254 pp., $34.95
president Hugo Chávez. Each of
(paperback)
these waves has interacted with
feminist movements in distinct
ways, sometimes clashing and other times encouraging
women’s organizing.
“Populism is potentially a deeply feminist movement, in that
women are typically the most excluded of the excluded,” writes
Kampwirth in her introduction, noting that the classical populists
encouraged women’s struggles for education and the right to
vote. However, “the downsides may outweigh the opportunities,” she notes, detailing how the “personalistic nature” and
masculine tendencies of many populist leaders can make populism “a risky gamble” for feminists. Gender and Populism in Latin
America concludes with an analysis of the opportunities and
the constraints that populism creates for gender issues in Latin
America, and a reflection on how to overcome these constraints.
terrorizing women:
­femi­nicide in the americas
edited by Rosa-Linda Fregoso and Cynthia Bejarano, Duke University Press,
2010, 382 pp., $26.95 (paperback)
In the past two decades, over
600 women and girls have been
killed and over 1,000 disappeared
in the Mexican state of Chihuahua
alone. Violence against women is
also increasing in Argentina, Costa
Rica, Guatemala, and Peru. This collection investigates the
troubling trend of gender violence in 21 essays and testimonies by human rights activists, attorneys, feminists, and
How have feminists
organized in Latin America over the
past 40 years? In this volume, a variety of women’s scholars, lawyers,
and activists analyze this question,
painting a vivid picture of feminist
cultural and political organizing. The
collection is divided into seven parts
and 20 chapters covering a variety of
issues, including poverty, movement
building, LGBT struggles, and religion.
Testimonies from activists—such as
women’s activArgentina’s Mothers and Grandmothism in latin
america and
ers of the Plaza de Mayo—give a
the caribbean:
firsthand account of the struggles that
engendering
have advanced women’s rights in
social justice,
the region. Morena Herrera, a former
democratizing
member of El Salvador’s Farabundo
citizenship
Martí National Liberation Front
edited by Elizabeth Maier
(FMLN), highlights the importance
and Nathalie Lebon, Rutof international institutions that
gers University Press,
“increase gender consciousness and
2010, 375 pp., $29.95
provide greater legitimacy to feminist
(paperback)
discourse and ideas in larger society.”
Although the editors, feminist
studies professor Elizabeth Maier and anthropologist Nathalie
Lebon, celebrate the achievements of feminist struggles, they
also examine the challenges ahead. Several chapters analyze
the consolidation of anti-choice movements in some countries,
including Nicaragua under the left-wing pro-life president
Daniel Ortega. The book offers insight into feminist movements
in the region, threats to weaken their radical politics, and the
backlash from conservative groups.
scholars. The editors, Latin American studies professor Rosa
Linda Fregoso and criminal justice professor Cynthia Bejarano,
argue that feminicide “is rooted in social, political, economic,
and cultural inequalities” and is therefore a symptom of failed
policies and institutions. “Both the state (directly or indirectly)
and individual perpetrators” should be held responsible for
the ongoing bloodshed, they write.
In particular, Terrorizing Women underlines the “inconsistencies, impunity, apathy, and corruption” of the Mexican
criminal justice system, which has allowed feminicide to
continue in Mexico unabated. The book also includes testimonies from relatives of women who were killed or disappeared, charts and graphs that provide quantitative analyses
of female homicides, and a photo essay on the movement for
justice in Chihuahua.
SUMMER 2012 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 83