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Chicana/Latina feminists have long struggled to sustain social movements dedicated to eliminating multiple interlocking oppressions. Often, they have struggled against narrow definitions of Chicano/a identity and feminism. This article is a case study of Raza Womyn, a Chicana/Latina student organization, whose members organize around a Muxerista (a Chicana/Latina feminist activist) vision of social justice that rejects patriarchal notions of Chicano nationalism, white and/or middle-class-dominated perspectives of feminism, and static definitions of sexual identity while building on the legacy of Chicana/Latina feminist thought. Specifically, this research documents the experiences of activists who worked to rectify the mistakes of earlier social movements that were undeniably patriarchal and heterosexist. Toward this end, the women in this organization created the space for sexual identity exploration, questioning, and sexual fluidity by rejecting social constructed norms and fixed definitions of hetero and lesbian identity.
Keywords: muxerista / Chicana feminism / activism
In 1999, I attended the fourth annual Chicana/Latina Conference organized by the members of Raza Womyn, a student organization founded in 1979 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The conference drew over 400 women of all ages and covered a variety of topics in workshops and dialogues throughout the day, including a keynote by Cherríe Moraga and a performance by Monica Palacios. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ) sexuality and the struggle against homophobia was a central topic of discussion throughout the conference, including workshops about racism, gender, labor struggle, immigration, and much more. The full integration of Queer1 issues into their organization's agenda distinguished Raza Womyn from most other student organizations on campus (who were not solely identified as LGBTQ). The conference began at 9 am and ended at 6 pm, and by the end of the day, I became convinced that this organization had something powerful to teach others and me. Today, I refer to the knowledge that I inherited from Raza Womyn as muxerista theory and vision.
This article provides a working definition of muxerista and explains how a muxerista vision created the space for an exploration of sexual identities that may have otherwise never arisen outside of this environment. Furthermore, this research documents the experiences of an organization that worked to rectify the mistakes of earlier social movements that were undeniably sexist...