And
the classic Chingonas....
During the 1930s, widespread unemployment,
deportation
of Mexican migrant workers, and anti-Mexican racism gave birth to
a vibrant resistance movement, much of it based in organized labor.
The Mexican labor movement of this period was characterized by increasing
numbers of Mexicana workers. Manuela Solis Sager, Emma
Tenayuca and Luisa Moreno led Mexican workers' movements in Texas
during the 1930's and beyond. These women were part of the historical
struggle to incorporate Mexican workers into progressive US trade
unions at a time when 88% of all Mexican workers were employed in
low-paying, low-status sectors of the economy. Each of these women
was instrumental in one of the most famous conflicts of Texas labor
history--the 1930 strike at the Southern Pecan Shelling Company. During
the strike, thousands of workers at over 130 plants protested a wage
reduction of one cent per pound of shelled pecans. Mexicana and Chicana
workers who picketed were gassed, arrested, and jailed. The workers
were victorious, though mechanization of the plant years later led
to large scale unemployment (by coauthors of Women
in the Global Economy) . Also, don't miss Lacy's
page for more on Emma Tenayuca.
Gloria Anzaldua, writer/activist
Gloria Anzaldua is a Chicana
tejana lesbian-feminist poet
and fiction writer. She is co-editor of of two of the most influential
publications in the emergence of Chicana feminisms: This
Bridge Called My Back:Writings by Radical Women of Color, editor
of Haciendo
Caras/Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Perspectives
by Feminists of Color, and Borderlands/La
Frontera: The New Mestiza. Gloria has been active in the
migrant farm workers movement; she has taught Chicano Studies, Feminist
Studies, and creative writing in various universities (SFSU, UT
Austin, Norwich Univ) and has conducted writing workshops around
the country.
Maxine Baca Zinn, professor
Maxine Baca Zinn, PhD is professor of sociology at Michigan State
University where she is also senior research associate at the Julian
Samoria Research Institute. Dr. Zinn is a specialist in family,
race and gender issues. Dr. Zinn's work examines the ways in which
structural factors shape gender relations and power dynamics in
Chicano families. Her work argues for a reconstruction of
family life through incorporating race as a dimension of social
structure rather than merely an expression of cultural difference.
She is the co-editor of Women of Color in U.S. Society, with Bonnie
Thornton Dill, eds., (Temple University Press, 1994), and Through
the Prism of Difference (Allyn and Bacon, 1997). Dr. Zinn holds
a PhD in sociology from the University of Oregon. Much of
Baca Zinn's research relates to the racial subtext of the national
debate about family values. According to Baca Zinn, racial and ethnic
preconceptions have created a hierarchy in which the same family
structure is more acceptable for some members of society than others.
For example, as more and more middle-class, white women enter the
labor force, female-headed households are gaining acceptance. On
the other hand, female-headed black families have been labeled deviant
and pathological, although 50 percent of black women have been in
the labor force since 1880. -from her bio
at the Radcliffe Institute
Rusty Barcelo, Associate
Vice President for Multicultural Affairs, University of Minnesota.
Dr. Barcelo's office has major leadership for important aspects
of UMN's various K-12 initiatives, diversity goals and community
outreach initiatives. Her office is responsible for administrative
and programmatic management of the Learning Resource Centers, the
Cultural Centers, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Program,
Disability Services, and the Office of University Women (previously
the Commission on Women and the Woman's Center). Dr. Barcelo
has a long record of research and activism in Chicana Studies and
the Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social.
Dr. Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez,
Professor of Chicana/o Studies.
Dr. Broyles-Gonzalez was invited to a White House ceremony by President
Bill Clinton and the First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on the 35th
anniversary of the signing of the Equal Pay Act: June 10, 1998.
The White House ceremony highlighted Professor Broyles-Gonzalez'
historic 1996 lawsuit which challenged the unequal pay of women
professors at the University of California, and was settled in October
of 1997. Her victory places UC discriminatory actions
within permanent court scrutiny and custody, and is an enduring
marker in the struggle for womens rights. (more)
Professor Broyles-Gonzlez is a Yaqui-Chicana native of the Arizona-Sonora
borderlands with a doctorate in German Studies from Stanford University.
In 1985 she became the first woman of color to receive tenure at
the University of California in Santa Barbara; she advanced to full
Professor in 1991. In 1996 she received the lifetime
Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Chicana/o
Studies. Her most recent book El
Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement
has received broad critical acclaim. (submitted by Dr. Antonia
Castaneda, St. Mary's University
Cecilia Preciado Burciaga, educator
Cecilia Burciaga is currently Advisor to the President at California
State Univerity at Monterey. Her long and distinguished record
in higher education includes twenty-three years in the offices of
Graduate Studies, Affirmative Action, and Development at Stanford
University. She also served as a much beloved Resident Fellow in
the Mexican-American Student Residence, Casa
Zapata, with her late husband, artist/muralist Antonio Burciaga
(d. Oct. 1996). She was most recently named to Clinton's Presidential
Committee on Latinos in Higher Education; she has addressed audiences
on issues and Chicanas and Chicanos in higher education all over
the country, and has received honors and awards too numerous to
mention here.
Ana Castillo, writer/scholar/activist
Ana
Castillo has made her life's work writing and educating about
Chicana feminist issues in the United States, and most recently,
Latina issues across the Americas (I Ask the Impossible,
new poetry). Through poetry, fiction, and personal narrative,
Ana's woman-centered work deftly portrays both the horrific nature
of misogynist violence against women at the same time that she describes
with respect and wonder the networks and institutions of love, support,
and friendship that sustain Chicanas in this crazed society we call
home. Ana's books are too numerous to list here, but the most
recent include your webjefa's all-time favorite, So Far From
God, as well as Loverboys, Massacre of the Dreamers,
and Goddess of the Americas. Here's
my short reviews of So Far and Massacre, and Ana's
own gorgeous website.
Lorna Dee Cervantes, poet/activist/artist
Lorna
Dee is an accomplished and award-winning poet. Her first book
Emplumada received an American Book award in 1982 for its
insightful portrayal of Chicana/o communities in San Jose's rapidly
changing urban environment in Northern California. One of the most
well-known poems from the book is Poem
for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, An Intelligent, Well-Read
Person, Could Believe In The War Between Races.. Her poems
include thoughts on growing up in Mexican-American communities in
the San Jose/Santa Clara Valley area of Northern California. Two
poems, "Freeway 280" and "Beneath the Shadow of a Freeway" document
the loss/destruction of historica Chicano neighborhoods for the
building of the 280 freeway in San Jose. Chicana/o literary critic
Jose David Saldivar wrote about her work, "No book has so successfully
made the California urban and rural worlds of unfinished freeways
and 'spinached specked shoes' of cannery workers come alive. No
book has so carefully elucidated what living as a Chicana in the
West means...." Here's a short
interview with Lorna Dee and a link to her
official website.
Sandra Cisneros, writer/poet
This gifted Chicana writer was recently awarded a MacArthur "Genius"
grant for her literary accomplishments which include House on
Mango Street, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories
as well as two books of poetry, My Wicked Wicked Ways and
Loose Woman.
Sandra currently resides in San Antonio where she is working
on a novel and occasionally offering her time for Latina/o Writer
Workshops with the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center.
Nadine and Patsy Cordova,
teachers at Vaughn High School.
Nadine and Patsy were threatened, and then lost their jobs for teaching
students about Chicano heroes like Cesar Chavez, and about the history
of people of Mexican descent in this country (with Elizabeth Martinez'
book, 500 Years of Chicano History). The teachers also
implemented a Racial Tolerance educational program in their classes
and sponsored students who organized the school's first chapter
of MEChA (Movimiento
Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan)--for this, Nadine Cordova was labelled
a 'racist', threatened, and finally fired. In November 1998,
the sisters were awarded a half-million dollar settlement by a federal
magistrate in a judgment against the Vaughn School Board.
Early details are in this recent
article about their struggle to retain their jobs. Since
then, the sisters have received the Multi-Cultural Educators of
the Year from the National Association of Multi-Cultural Education;
the Pilgrimmage for Peace Award from theArchdiocese of Santa Fe;
and the Guardian of Constitution Award from ACLU-NM. In September
of 1998, Nadine wrote this site "We actually got fired on July
7, 1997. Since then my sister and I have moved to Albuquerque,
NM. I removed my sons from the Vaughn school district
immediately and enrolled them in Albuquerque Public Schools.
My home and my husband still remain inVaughn and not having my family
together has been quite difficult. Patsy started teaching
at Mckinley Middle School here in Albuquerque this fall semester.
I am currently working as administrative assistant at University
of New Mexico Chicana/o Studies
Program since June. Both Patsy and I are very happy with
our new jobs and new friends.
Marta Cotera, professor/activist
Marta Cotera served as a Chicana feminist icon to the current generation
of Chicana feminists, activists, and scholars. Since the 1960s,
she was active both in the Chicano movement, and in documenting
the role of women within the movement. She is best known for her
book, Sol y Hembra, one of the first and best histories of
Mexican American women, and their contributions to civil rights
and Chicana/o history. Your webjefa was at a recent conference
(April 2000) at Southwest Texas University in which Professor/activist
Carmen Tafolla (otra chingona) recalled Cotera's Sol y Hembra
as "the book we carried everywhere, like a Bible..."
Nancy de los Santos
Nancy de los Santos is the associate producer of the motion pictures
Mi Familia and Selena, A fifteen-year veteran of the
Hollywood film industry, Nancy began her career as the producer
for the Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel television series At the
Movies, and worked on a number of feature films including A
Time for Destiny, The Abyss and Alien Nation.
De los Santos directed a short film from her own script for the
Universal Television Film Project, Breaking Pan With Sol,
which received the "Best Short Film" award from the Chicago International
Latino Film Festival. Her teleplay, Mothers Against Gangs
is in development with Olmos Productions. She is co-producer of
The Bronze Screen: The History of Latinos in Hollywood, currently
in development. Nancy has spent the past three years focusing on
major film projects with director Gregory Nava as the associate
producer of the films Mi Familia and Selena. De Los
Santos was named one of the Ten To Watch in Hispanic
Magazine's issue on Hispanics in Hollywood. (written by
Sandra Fernandez).
Josefina Fierro de
Bright, organizer/activist
Josefina Fierro de Bright was born in Mexico in 1920. She
grew up in farm labor camps as the daughter of a bordera who served
meals to migrant workers in Maderna, California . Josefina
gave up her studies at UCLA to become an organizer, and her style
was described by veteran longshoremen's leader Bert Corona as gutsy,
flamboyant, and tough. As executive secretary of El Congreso
(the first national Latino civil rights org) from 1939 to the mid-1940s,
she organized protests against racism in the LA Schools, against
the exclusion of Mexican-American youths from public swimming pools,
and against police brutality. In 1942, she was a key figure
in organizing the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, to support the
seventeen Chicano youths held without bail on little evidence for
the alleged killing of one youth. With Moreno, she helped
to coordinate El Congreso's support for Spanish-speaking workers
in the furniture, shoe manufacturing, electrical, garment, and longshoremen's
unions. --from Dolores Hayden, "Reinterpreting Latina History
at the Embassy Auditorium," The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes
as Public History.
Alana Flores, Live Oak High
School ('98), Morgan Hill, CA
Alana
led the fight for the right of gay and lesbian students to
attend Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California without pervasive
and degrading harassment. Alana says "After I graduated,
I was no longer afraid: I was angry! I realized I was treated so
unjustly that I had to do something about the corruption at Live
Oak. I couldn't let this happen to anyone else. I wanted to get
involved in making policy changes to help queer youth at Live Oak.
I wanted to make sure that other gay students at that school had
equal rights in terms of sexual harassment. Read more of Alana's
story at the Education
Week archives or the ACLU
background.
Francisca Flores, writer/activist
Francisca Flores was active in the struggle for Raza rights from
the 1940s through the 1990s. She worked on the defense committee
for the Sleepy Lagoon case, helped Carey McWilliams with his landmark
book, North From Mexico, and edited Carta Editorial. She
was often red-baited during the McCarthy era but helped to hide
and organize underground screenings of "Salt of the Earth." She
was a co-founder of the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA),
served as the editor and publisher of Regeneracion, was a
founder of the Comision Femenil Mexicana, and she also co-founded
and served as the first director of the Chicana Social Service Center
in Los Angeles. Francisca passed away April 27, 1996, at the age
of 82. (--William V. Flores, Dean of Social & Behavioral Sciences,
CSU Northridge)
Anna Nieto Gomez, activist/scholar
Anna Nieto Gomez was one of the most articulate and outspoken Chicana
feministas since the early days of the movimiento chicano.
Nieto Gomez launched an early and enduring critique of the Chicano
movement for ignoring women's issues. She founded an early feminist
journal, Encuentro Femenil, in which she and other Chicanas
spelled out an inclusive Chicana/o agenda, including issues around
childcare, reproductive rights, and the feminization of poverty.
Laura Gonzalez, editor-in-chief of the Gilroy
High School newspaper Free Press
Laura led her staff in fighting the censorship of the Gilroy Unified
School District (California). The Free Press won the right
to run a paid ad for counseling and support services for gay and
lesbian youth at the Billy
DeFrank Center in San Jose despite the complaints of a former
superintendent of schools, church leaders, and parents. The
(new) District superintendent told school board trustees that the
students were granted freedom of expression under California state
law, so they grudgingly agreed that the item could not be banned
from the paper. Some of them said they would still rather
the students didn't run the ad, although at least one recognized
that services like the DeFrank Center's can make a difference in
the high risk of suicide among gay and lesbian youth.
Dolores
Guerrero-Cruz, artist/activist
A painter, graphic artist, and muralist, Guerrero-Cruz has also
taught these art mediums to the young. A resident of Los Angeles,
Guerrero-Cruz has been very active in social issues in the community.
She has done work for ARTSTEACH UCLA and the E.LA Rape Hotline,
Child Abuse Center. Recent exhibitions have included 'Dia de los
Muertos' for The Photo Center in 1986, Self-Help
Graphics at Atelier in 1986, and 'Women by Women' at the Galeria
de la Raza in San Francisco in 1985.
Carmen
Lomas Garza, artist
Carmen is one of the best known artist/folklorists in the Chicana/o
art community. Her work reflects her interpretations of the collective
regional memory of the traditions and customs of her native South
Texas. Amalia Mesa Bains writes that Carmen's "visual storytelling
offers varied groupings of characters engaged in the everyday events
and festivities of their community" (CARA). In art school, Carmen
studied children's art along with high art, and chose to focus on
the latter's accessibility. Her art, she says, is simple, direct,
and accessible. For example, a table is drawn at a tilt to illustrate
its contents rather than follow the traditional rules of perspective.
She adds, "I wanted to make the point that the aspects of Chicano
culture that we take so much for granted are beautiful and worthy
of depiction in fine art"
Dolores Huerta, labor leader,
vice-president of United Farm Workers
Dolores Huerta, 65, is the original vice-president of the United
Farmworkers Movement, the first organization to support Mexican-American
farm workers, which she cofounded with the late Cesar Chavez. Active
since the early 60s with the farmworkers, she organized the grape
boycott in New York in the late 1960s, worked to pass the first
laws protecting collective-bargaining rights for California farm
workers in 1975, and helped establish the first credit union for
farm workers. She is currently working with her daughter Juanita
to establish workshops to train a battalion of young labor organizers,
a venture partially supported by funds from a lawsuit settled by
the San Francisco Police Department for injuries that officers inflicted
on her during a 1988 political demonstration. Dolores continues
to tour the country lecturing, organizing events, lobbying legislators,
and negotiating new contracts. She shrugs off the suggestions that
she has become an icon of feminism or a symbol of Chicano pride.
"I get a lot of accolades, but I feel a little unworthy of them,"
she says. "I've only been part of a continuum; so many have fought
and died for all of us. I've just done my job." (--Chiori Santiago,
Latina magazine, Summer 1996
issue...)
Irene Martinez,
co-founder, Fiesta Educativa
Ms. Martinez is co-founder of Fiesta Educativa, a nonprofit organization
dedicated to providing bilingual education and support services
for children and families with disabilities. Founded in 1978
in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, the organization
continues to help mostly-Latino parents understand and take advantage
of federal and state services for children with disabilities, including
Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism. Parents and children
share stories and resources, hear bilingual presentations by professionals,
discuss issues like communication and sexuality. Parents also
gain a valuable ally in dealing with government bureaucracy as they
learn about the laws governing the education and daily lives of
the disabled: California's Lanterman Act, and the federal individuals
with Disabilities Education Act and Americans with Disabilities
Act. Fiesta Educativa sponsors a yearly conference in late
May; for info call 323.221.6696
Vilma Martinez, lawyer/activist
Vilma Martinez was one of the first Chicana lawyers; she graduated
from Columbia in 1967, worked for the NAACP
Legal Defense Fund and then for a major firm in New York. She left
the firm in 1973 to become the General Counsel of MALDEF.
She was the third person to head MALDEF since its founding in 1968.
She was an outstanding General Counsel, administratively in terms
of placing the organization on a sound financial basis and substantively
in terms of involving MALDEF in the key civil rights issues of the
70s and 80s, such as reapportionment. She left MALDEF in the mid-80s
to become a partner in a major LA firm. (--Miguel Mendez, Stanford
Law School)
Amalia Mesa-Bains, artist/scholar
San Francisco resident Amalia Mesa-Bains is an artist, scholar,
curator, and writer who has been involved in the Chicano artist
movement since the 1960s. Dr.
Mesa-Bains
is a leading altar installation artist, incorporating Chicano culture
and folk traditions into her work. She was the curator for the traveling
Ceremony of Memory exhibit and the regional committee chair (Northern
California) for the exhibition Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation,
1965-1985 (CARA). She also has written extensively on Chicano art
and culture. Among her many awards is a 1992 Distinguished MacArthur
Fellowship. She has served as a consultant for the Texas State Council
on the Arts and the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and is a former
Commissioner of Arts for the City of San Francisco. She holds
a BA in painting from San Jose State University, an MA in interdisciplinary
education from San Francisco State University, and an MA and Ph.D.
in clinical psychology from the School of Clinical Psychology, Wright
Institute in Berkeley. --from Amalia's PBS
bio
Cherrie Moraga, writer/poet/activist/playwright
Cherrie Moraga is a prolific, award-winning Chicana writer/activist/poet/
playwright. Her many published works include Loving in the War
Years/Lo Que Nunca Paso Por Los Labios, Cuentos: Stories
by Latinas, and The Last Generation. Three of her plays
are published in Heroes and Saints and Other Plays by West
End Press. She is also co-editor of the pivotal Chicana feminist
text, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of
Color, both the English and Spanish versions (co-authored separately
with Gloria Anzaldua and Ana Castillo). Cherrie has taught drama
and writing courses at various universities across the nation, and
is currently a faculty member at Stanford University. Her
newest play, Watsonville, enjoyed a successful run in San Francisco
last year.
Anita Perez Ferguson, legislator
Anita was recently re-elected to a second term as the president
of the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) in Washington DC,
a bipartisan political organization that recruits and trains female
candidates to run for elected office, the first Chicana to do so.
Although she lost, she was one of the first Chicanas to run for
US Congress in the state of California, 1990. She has worked both
for the US State Department and the Clinton White House. She has
won a variety of local awards for her many achievements (Pat Sweeney).
Guadalupe Quintanilla, educator/profesora
Cuando Guadalupe comenzo su educacion como nina en el Valle del
Rio Grande en Texas, ella fue designada como "retardada" debido
a su baja calificacion en una prueba de IQ (en ingles, por supesto).
Mucho anos despues, cuando era adulto y madre, ella volvio al high
school y sobresalio en sus clases. Siguio su educacion hasta
recibir un Doctorado en Educacion y ahora es Profesora de Educacion
en la University of Houston. Leer
toda su historia. (Jaime Garmendia)
Adaljiza Sosa Riddell, UC
Davis professor/activist/founder of MALCS
Adaljiza Sosa
Riddell is currently a professor of Chicana/o
Studies at UC Davis, and one of the most esteemed mentors of
contemporary Chicana graduate and undergraduate students. She played
a pivotal role in the development of Chicana Studies by founding
Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, a national organization
devoted to developing strategies for social change, and to "bridge
the gap between intellectual work and active commitment to our communities"
(MALCS Declaration). MALCS is open to all Chicana scholars,
activists, community members, and students. For more information
and membership info, you can email clrp@davis.edu
Graciela Sanchez, Director,
the Esperanza Center,
San Antonio, Tejas
Graciela is the director of San
Antonio's Esperanza Peace & Justice Center--a nationally
renowned gente-based progressive organization that challenges our
cultural view of women, people of color, queers and the poor through
art, alliances, literature and action. Because of their work,
they have been attacked by the Religious Right in this city and
conservative white gay men. Their attacks in the media culminated
in Esperanza's defunding from the city's art budget; the city cut
over $70,000. A lot of that money was earmarked to the
Lesbian/Gay Film Festival, the MujerCanto festival (an arts festival
that featured women) and MujerArtes (another mujer based arts program).
The city council freaked under the pressure from this unholy alliance.
Anyway, Esperanza no se muere! Graciela, her partner Gloria and
the rest of the Board and staff of Esperanza weathered through the
storm. (written by Dulce Benavides, San Antonio Lesbian/Gay
Association, who adds that "The experience that we had...cemented
the fact that sexism, racism, classism and homophobia are branches
from the same tree of intolerance and that we (as gay people) are
not immune from its rotten fruit").
Laura Angelica Simon, educator/filmmaker.
Seventeen months ago, fourth-grade
teacher
Laura Simon borrowed a video camera and proceeded to document the
lives of her students, motivated by the passage in 1994 of Proposition
187 in California, which, among other things, would bar undocumented
children from public schools. Despite her lack of previous
experience, her film, Fear
and Learning at Hoover Elementary, won the Freedom of Expression
Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival and a congratulatory
note from Hillary Rodham Clinton. The film aired the week
of July 1 on PBS, but is sure to repeat....look for Fear and
Learning at Hoover on your local
PBS station....
Phyllis Armas Soto, educator/activist
Phyllis is one of those amazing women who works tirelessly at both
personal and professional levels to ...well, simply to make the
world a better place for Chicana/os, Latina/os, and everybody else.
She raised over eight foster children while a widow, worked counseling
Chicana/o and Mexicana/o youth in the San Jose School District,
drove buses to the fields so farmworkers could attend church, organized
spiritual retreats for Chicanas and Mexicanas who felt alienated
from the Church, and hit the pavement to support the United
Farmworkers, as well as various other Chicana/o protest organizations.
By the mid-1970s, called to recognize her talents as a gifted minister,
she shifted her energies from the institutional Catholic Church
tradition to the formation of an independent Catholic community
with her late husband Tony which is committed to an egalitarian,
antipatriarchal Catholic vision and which incorporated the indigenous
elements of a Chicana/o spirituality. The Comunidad, as they
called it, continues to meet today after eighteen years of independent
existence. I was fortunate enough to meet Phyllis and her late husband
Tony while doing fieldwork in San Jose and am currently writing
a chapter about their many contributions to San Jose's Chicana/o
community.
Tecihtzin, activista, author, actor, storyteller,
and dance and drama director
Among Tecihtzin's many accomplishments, she is the founder of Ballet
Folkorico en Aztlan in San Diego. The Ballet was founded in 1969
and is now directed by her daughter, Teresa. Tecihtzin still
teaches costume design and sewing to the members. Tecihtzin,
who is now 78 years old, also founded the Centro Cultural de la
Raza in San Diego. The Centro is a Chicano/a multidisciplinary cultural
center that promotes, preserves and creates arts and culture. She
also founded Teatro Razita, a youth group that provided a venue
for Chicanitos in the early 1970's. Teatro Razita gave a memorable
performance of El Quinto Sol in front of the pyramids of Teotihuacan
as participants of the 1974 TENAZ Festival (international chicano
teatro association). She also represents the Chicano Nation at various
indigenous gatherings and councils. She is a noted storyteller and
author of various literary works. Her book Chía: A Powerful
Recuerdo (Tochtli Publishing, 1996) preserves the Tejana
language and culture as Tecihtzin tells of her childhood experiences
growing up along the San Antonio River in Tejas during the 1920s.
(written by Nancy Rodriguez
y Viviana Enrique)
Gloria
Velasquez, writer/poet/professor.
Gloria works in a variety of arenas to educate us all about the
complexities of the human experience. A professor of Spanish
at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, she teaches fulltime, but also finds
time to write poetry (I
Used to Be a Superwoman) and children's books. She
has authored a series of books for young people from the perspective
of youths of color, including Juanita
Fights the School Board in which Juanita deals with school
discrimination against Chicanas and fights to continue her education;
Maya's
Divided World, which addresses the issues of divorce and
a mother/daughter relationship; and Tommy
Stands Alone, which tells the story of a Chicano teen who
becomes a social outcast after realizing he is gay. Read
more about Gloria...
For more introductory names and information on Chicana and Latina
chingonas, check your library for an excellent reference book titled
Notable Hispanic American Women by Diane Telgen and Jim Kamp
(Detroit : Gale Research, c1993). If your library doesn't
have it, ask them to order it! Check academica
for other sites and reference works.