Elizabeth's Initial Thoughts

Chicana feminism is a very complicated area for me as I’m a Mexican American woman. I’ve always had mixed feelings about the role that women play amongst Latinos and the liberties that are “given” to us. But I’ve also never considered myself a feminist. In the past year, I’ve been learning a lot more about the Chicano Movement and what that meant for those fighting and future generations. I like that I’ve been learning more about the struggle that my “people” have had and continue to work through.

            I didn’t know much about all the work that Chicanas have done and continue to do for our community. It’s truly inspiring and admirable that they’ve dedicated so much of their life and work for the betterment of this culture. I’m really excited to learn, firsthand, about the experiences these women have had. I’m excited to meet one of the women that has helped pave the way for not only Chicanas but Latinas. Hearing about this era has not only empowered me as a Mexican American woman, it’s also helped me visualize the long way that Latinas have come since then. It makes me realize that even small things have made a big difference and it makes me think about my role within this movement. This little into this project and I’m prouder now that I belong to the first Latina-based, academic sorority that was established for the same reasons why Chicanas were speaking up in the 60s and 70s. I’m proud of myself for continuing my interest in helping the Latino community thrive.

            I want to discover more reasons for why I should continue to actively involve myself but I fear that I’ll end up feeling unaccomplished. I fear that learning so much more about these women, I’ll end up thinking I haven’t done enough for my community. But I hope that this project will motivate me even more to continue with my plans of helping young Latinas.

            As far as the actual outcome of the project and what we’ll actually be doing, I don’t have many initial thoughts. I’m an engineer so archiving and oral histories is very new and different for me. I don’t know what to expect. I’m sure it won’t be an easy job, but I don’t know how hard it’ll be. I’m definitely very excited to take part of such an important project. I think it’s absolutely necessary to have these stories taken down for everyone to know. It’s a shame that not much has already been done to try to preserve such important information for such a huge part of this country’s population.

            Although it’ll be a great opportunity to be able to do this kind of work outside of engineering, I’m concerned that I won’t do it right. I’m concerned that I won’t know what to include in the archive. I don’t want to have poor judgment but I’ve never done any work even slightly similar. It’ll be an interesting experience trying to figure out what should be shared with the rest of the world.

            Regardless of my doubts, I can already see this course being more rewarding than what I originally thought when I signed up for it.