ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses how her status as a simultaneous cultural "insider" and Chicana feminist researcher reflected a conundrum. The author's sense of Chicana feminist identity, constructed through participation in the Chicano movement, ironically hindered her understanding of the nuances of the ethnic identity of the women. Her status as insider also caused the dilemma of how to present the ethnographic "others" to her peers, Chicano/Latino scholars who privileged the term Chicano. These dilemmas eventually provided insight into the power relations involved when women of Mexican origin identify themselves ethnically. The author contextualizes the meaning of ethnic identity for working-class Mexican American women workers in field research settings with different historical contexts. Women anthropologists and feminist fieldworkers have long been concerned about relationships with informants and have grappled with the dilemmas of being insiders, particularly when they have important similarities with the population being studied.
