ABSTRACT
The roots of the psyche of la Chicana lies deep within the colonial period in Mexico. The conquest, the encomienda system and the colonial Catholic Church were to play a major role in forming the sexual-social roles of the Mexican woman. And the class relationship between patron and the Indian slave woman provides the historical foundation of the machismo phenomenon. Rape of the Mexican Indian women by the Spanish conquistadores was an act of conquest and marriage subsequently became a tool of colonization. Rape and marriage represented models for the Mexican male who longed to be free and strong like the conquistadores. Even the colonial Catholic church superimposed its ideology during this period and justified the oppression of conquest as something good. Marianismo, the veneration of the Virgin Mary, became the model of how to make oppression a religious obligation. This is the heritage of the Chicana.
