Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement, theory, and praxis that scrutinizes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections impacting Chicanas and the Chicana/o community in the United States. Chicana feminism empowers women to challenge institutionalized social norms and regards anyone a feminist who fights for the end of women's oppression in the community.
Las Chicanas Poster at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes
Mexican children in a segregated company housing facility in Corcoran, California (1940)
Mendez v. Westminster (1947) overturned de jure racial segregation in schools. The case was initiated when Sylvia Mendez (pictured) was turned away from enrolling at a "white school." Mexican American children, especially of darker skin, were only permitted to learn manual skills education, while white schools taught academic preparation. At the "Mexican schools," girls were only taught sewing and homemaking.
A young woman talking with a group of young men in El Segundo Barrio, El Paso (1971)
Chicano or Chicana is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans who have a non-Anglo self-image, embracing their Mexican Native ancestry. Chicano was originally a classist and racist slur used toward low-income Mexicans that was reclaimed in the 1940s among youth who belonged to the Pachuco and Pachuca subculture. In the 1960s, Chicano was widely reclaimed in the building of a movement toward political empowerment, ethnic solidarity, and pride in being of indigenous descent. Chicano developed its own meaning separate from Mexican American identity. Youth in barrios rejected cultural assimilation into the mainstream American culture and embraced their own identity and worldview as a form of empowerment and resistance. The community forged an independent political and cultural movement, sometimes working alongside the Black power movement.
A "Chicano Power!" by M.E.Ch.A. CSULA is held up in a crowd (2006).
El Paso's Second Ward, a Chicano neighborhood (1972)
"Chicana by luck, proud by choice" at 2019 Women's March, Los Angeles
Chicano may derive from the Mexica people, originally pronounced Meh-Shee-Ka.