Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

In the past several decades historians have investigated the complex origins, evolution, and legacy of the radical Chicana/o Movement. None of them however provide an overview of this important movement. Most studies, for instance, focus on individuals such as Reis Lopez Tijerina, Corky Gonzalez, or college and high school student groups, on events such as the Chicano anti-war movement, La Raza Unida Party, and Mexican American Youth Organization, or on feminists and their struggles against sexism and for Chicana voices in American society. This study provides a tentative interpretation of this complex movement. It focuses on the making of the nationalist identities that guided the activities of the Chicana/o Movement in the US and on the three major foci of this movement during its most important years from 1969 to 1978. I argue that the radical Chicana/o Movement expanded and diversified the moderate civil rights movement initiated by ethnic Mexican activists in the early years of the twentieth century.