ABSTRACT
Intersectionality emerged as a critique of civil rights and second wave women’s groups for their exclusion of Black and Latina feminists in their leadership and movement agendas. Now, more than 30 years since its emergence, intersectionality is an increasingly popular mobilizing approach. In Puerto Rico, Colectiva Feminista en Construcción organizers arrived at an intersectional organizing approach through experiences of exclusion and marginalization within the Puerto Rican Left. Combining grassroots movement-building work with advocacy and direct action tactics, the emergent Colectiva has already scored important victories in Puerto Rico. These include the resignation and prosecution of a powerful mayor in Puerto Rico for sexual assault, forming a mutual assistance center, occupying unused buildings, mobilizing hundreds for feminist marches and assemblies, and training new cohorts of feminist organizers through workshops and political schools that combine teachings of theory and practice. This chapter adopts the case of the Colectiva Feminista en Construcción to theorize about the challenges that Latinx movements face in contexts of heightened repression, eroding democratic institutions, and patriarchal violence. Further, the authors detail the elements of an intersectional and decolonial praxis and the pathways by which intersectional organizing enables the formation of new ways of life, new solidarity ties, and the emergence of critical hope for social and political change.
