Selected works
Wikiquote has quotations related to Anna Nieto-Gómez .
- Encuentro Femenil
- The Needs of the Chicano on the College Campus (1969)
Anna NietoGomez | |
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| Born | 1946 San Bernardino County, California, United States |
| Nationality | Mexican American |
| Movement | Chicana feminism |
Anna Nieto-Gomez (also rendered as NietoGomez) is a scholar, journalist, and author who was a central part of the early Chicana movement. She founded the feminist journal, Encuentro Femenil, in which she and other Chicana writers addressed issues affecting the Latina community, such as childcare, reproductive rights, and the feminization of poverty.
Anna NietoGomez was born in San Bernardino, California on March 30, 1946, the eldest of three. NietoGomez is a third-generation Chicana on the maternal side of her family while having roots in New Mexico back to the 1600s on her father's side of the family. Her mother, a high school graduate, began working for the Santa Fe Railroad at the age of eighteen in 1944. NietoGomez learned the value of independence from her father, a man who grew up witnessing his single mother struggle to raise him. [1] Her father, a World War II veteran, [2] taught NietoGomez how to cook and sew since he believed a woman should be able to survive on their own. [1]
From an early age, NietoGomez was very aware of the discrimination, both from racism and sexism, that existed in her segregated community. Much of this early awareness stemmed from her own family. For example, as a young girl NietoGomez disliked how her grandfather treated her grandmother; she went on a meal strike in order to negotiate a behavior change from him. According to NietoGomez, "my grandma would not eat at that table until everyone was finished-like a servant, like she wasn't family-so that didn't seem right since neither my father nor my other grandfather treated their wives this way." [1]
In 1967, NietoGomez began attending California State University at Long Beach and became involved in the Mexican-American students rights movement, founding Hijas de Cuauhtémoc in 1971, a feminist-centered Chicana newspaper. NietoGomez and the women's group, also named Hijas de Cuauhtémoc, "took their name from a Mexican feminist organization that worked against the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship in Mexico," [3] : 326 and also addressed issues ignored by the Chicano population, including those to do with gender and sexuality. Her contemporaries in the group included Adelaida Del Castillo,[ citation needed ] Sylvia Castillo, Leticia Hernandez, and Corinne Sanchez. [4]
During this time NietoGomez was also involved in el Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán,(MEChA). Much of NietoGomez’s activism was met with resistance from male Chicano activists who felt Chicana feminist groups were either trivial or harmful to the broader movement. Though she was elected to president of the student organization, she was hung in effigy by male students who felt a woman should not represent their organization. [3] : 327 Male Chicano activists also commonly tried to delegitimize Chicana feminists by comparing them to white American feminists. Nieto-Gomez called those comparisons “divisive and threatening to the strength of the movement.” [5]
Later NietoGomez would serve at California State University, Northridge, in the Department of Chicano Studies, where she challenged sexism directly through the Chicano studies classes she taught. [6] While at Cal-State Northridge, NietoGomez created the curriculum for critical Chicana studies courses on the topics of family, global identity, history, and contemporary issues. [1] In the Spring of 1973, Hijas de Cuauhtémoc developed into Encuentro Femenil, considered the first Chicana scholarly journal. [7] Encuentro Femenil published poetry and articles based on issues affecting the Chicana community, though publication stopped within two years.[ citation needed ] Her publication record also included 16 articles, many now classic works on Chicana feminism.
NietoGomez was denied tenure at California State University, Northridge in 1976, due to what she considered her political stance. After a lengthy battle to appeal the tenure decision, NietoGomez resigned on September 3, 1976. [8] NietoGomez's tenure battle and professorship in general demonstrate not only the power dynamics and pitfalls in white male-dominated institutions, but also within the Chicano movement of the time. [1]
Cherríe Moraga is a Xicana feminist, writer, activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English since 2017, and in 2022 became a distinguished professor. Moraga is also a founding member of the social justice activist group La Red Xicana Indígena, which is network fighting for education, culture rights, and Indigenous Rights. In 2017, she co-founded, with Celia Herrera Rodríguez, Las Maestras Center for Xicana Indigenous Thought, Art, and Social Practice, located on the campus of UC Santa Barbara.
Ana Castillo is a Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Considered one of the leading voices in Chicana experience, Castillo is most known for her experimental style as a Latina novelist and for her intervention in Chicana feminism known as Xicanisma.
The Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional was a Mexican-American organization dedicated to economically and politically empowering Chicana women in the United States.
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.
Chicano poetry is a subgenre of Chicano literature that stems from the cultural consciousness developed in the Chicano Movement. Chicano poetry has its roots in the reclamation of Chicana/o as an identity of empowerment rather than denigration. As a literary field, Chicano poetry emerged in the 1960s and formed its own independent literary current and voice.
Norma Alarcón is a Chicana author and publisher in the United States. She is the founder of Third Woman Press and a major figure in Chicana feminism. She is Professor Emerita of Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
A variety of movements of feminist ideology have developed over the years. They vary in goals, strategies, and affiliations. They often overlap, and some feminists identify themselves with several branches of feminist thought.
Hispanic and Latino women in America have been involved in journalism for years, using their multilingual skills to reach across cultures and spread news throughout the 19th century until the common era. Hispanic presses provided information important to the Hispanic and Latin American communities and helped to foster and preserve the cultural values that remain today. These presses also "promoted education, provided special-interest columns, and often founded magazines, publishing houses, and bookstores to disseminate the ideas of local and external writers."
Chicana literature is a form of literature that has emerged from the Chicana Feminist movement. It aims to redefine Chicana archetypes in an effort to provide positive models for Chicanas. Chicana writers redefine their relationships with what Gloria Anzaldúa has called "Las Tres Madres" of Mexican culture by depicting them as feminist sources of strength and compassion.
Francisca Flores was a labor rights activist, an early Chicana feminist, a journal editor, and an anti-poverty activist.
Alicia Escalante is a Chicana activist who was active during the Chicano Movement. She was the founder and chair of the East Los Angeles Chicana Welfare Rights Organization from 1967 to 1978.
Yreina Cervantez is an American artist and Chicana activist who is known for her multimedia painting, murals, and printmaking. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Mexican Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
Hijas de Cuauhtémoc was a student Chicana feminist newspaper founded in 1971 by Anna Nieto-Gómez and Adelaida Castillo while both were students at California State University, Long Beach.
Multiracial feminist theory is promoted by women of color (WOC), including Black, Latina, Asian, Native American, and anti-racist white women. In 1996, Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill wrote “Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism," a piece emphasizing intersectionality and the application of intersectional analysis within feminist discourse.
Patricia Zavella is an anthropologist and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Latin American and Latino Studies department. She has spent a career advancing Latina and Chicana feminism through her scholarship, teaching, and activism. She was president of the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists and has served on the executive board of the American Anthropological Association. In 2016, Zavella received the American Anthropological Association's award from the Committee on Gender Equity in Anthropology to recognize her career studying gender discrimination. The awards committee said Zavella’s career accomplishments advancing the status of women, and especially Latina and Chicana women have been exceptional. She has made critical contributions to understanding how gender, race, nation, and class intersect in specific contexts through her scholarship, teaching, advocacy, and mentorship. Zavella’s research focuses on migration, gender and health in Latina/o communities, Latino families in transition, feminist studies, and ethnographic research methods. She has worked on many collaborative projects, including an ongoing partnership with Xóchitl Castañeda where she wrote four articles some were in English and others in Spanish. The Society for the Anthropology of North America awarded Zavella the Distinguished Career Achievement in the Critical Study of North America Award in the year 2010. She has published many books including, most recently, "I'm Neither Here Nor There, Mexicans"Quotidian Struggles with Migration and Poverty, which focuses on working class Mexican Americans struggle for agency and identity in Santa Cruz County.
La Conferencia de Mujeres por la Raza was held in Houston, Texas, between May 28 and May 30 in 1971. The conference marked the first time Chicanas came together within the state from around the country to discuss issues important to feminism and Chicana women. It was considered the first conference of its kind by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Hijas de Cuauhtemoc was a revolutionary feminist organization founded in Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). The organization was opposed to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz and the imperialist economic policies during this period, which they felt exploited workers. Hijas de Cuauhtemoc engaged in many forms of activism to promote the removal of Diaz from power. As a feminist organization, Hijas de Cuauhtemoc also sought to connect revolutionary struggle to radical social changes for Mexican women. Specifically, the feminist demands of Hijas de Cuauhtemoc were the abolition of domestic labor, equal pay, educational access, equal rights within the family, and rights for women in agricultural work.
The term Chicanafuturism was originated by scholar Catherine S. Ramírez which she introduced in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies in 2004. The term is a portmanteau of 'chicana' and 'futurism', inspired by the developing movement of Afrofuturism. The word 'chicana' refers to a woman or girl of Mexican origin or descent. However, 'Chicana' itself serves as a chosen identity for many female Mexican Americans in the United States, to express self-determination and solidarity in a shared cultural, ethnic, and communal identity while openly rejecting assimilation. Ramírez created the concept of Chicanafuturism as a response to white androcentrism that she felt permeated science-fiction and American society. Chicanafuturism can be understood as part of a larger genre of Latino futurisms.
A Mexican American is a resident of the United States who is of Mexican descent. Mexican American-related topics include the following:
Mujeres Activas en Letras Y Cambio Social (MALCS) is an inclusive organization of Chicana, Latina, Native American and gender non-conforming academics, students, and activists. MALCS focuses on recognizing the hard work of contributors to the organization, giving women access to higher education, and educating society about the issues they face. MALCS was established in 1982 at the University of California, Davis after noticing no change was being made during the Chicano Movement despite their activism efforts. To continue their efforts in unifying women, they provide membership opportunities and benefits such as access to their summer institute and their peer-reviewed journal: Chicana/Latina Studies which talks about the experiences of Latina women. This organization helps bring them together to share their thoughts, opinions, and information about things they want to work on, current issues, or anything. They also bring together their research and community involvement to create social change. It is a safe space for everyone to uplift and support one another.
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