ABSTRACT
Maylei Blackwell archived documents, collected stories, and conducted interviews of Chicanas involved in groups such as the Hijas de Cuauhtemoc, one of the first Chicana or Latina feminist organizations in the United States. Blackwell interrogates how the women she interviewed contended with the pervasive masculinist attitudes embedded in the Chicano Movement’s dominant form of cultural nationalism. Through Blackwell’s in-depth, longitudinal research, a narrative of targeted harassment of outspoken Chicana feminists in the academy, among other spaces, emerges. Blackwell not only samples the women’s narratives, but also theorizes how their stories have been largely overlooked as contributors to a major political upheaval. Blackwell remains vigilant to avoid applying dominant logics of mainstream feminist historiography that might misinterpret Chicana feminism’s struggles. Blackwell folds many voices into the book, allowing the women to retell, through their own memories and thoughtful analyses, their experiences in an emerging landscape of women of color feminisms that included Chicana feminism.
