Muxeristas, Feministas and the New Regime: Building Critical Solidarity in Chicana Feminism

Session Submission Type: Paper Session

Abstract

Opening important conversations on building more self-reflective solidarity and resistance among Chicanx/Latinx people and in the field of Latina/o/x Studies, this presentation explores the new transnational, queered, trans-Indigenous, and more-than-human terrains of Chicana feminism. Rooted in muxerista and Chicana feminism, the presentation addresses questions such as: How is the more-than-human deployed in both old and new methods of surveillance and violence against Latina/o/x bodies? And, what are the lessons that we can gather from previous examples of such deployments in light of the emergence of a new fascist regime in the U.S.? Furthermore, how has the more-than-human always been a source of healing and home for Chicanas and women of color? What does building critical solidarity between Chicanx, Latinx, Afrodecendientes, and Indigenous women look like? And, how can we imagine and employ methods of healing in the decolonial imaginary to protect our spirits and mourn, love, create, heal and fight, amidst these new terrains? Utilizing, critiquing, and building on the writings of Chicana and women of color thinkers including Chela Sandoval, Helena Maria Viramontes, Gloria Anzaldua, Patricia Williams and Anita Revilla, these presentations will engage both timely theoretical debates that address critical questions from the margins of the field and emergent strategies to confront ongoing violences against our communities. In this inter-generational presentation, panelists will engage classical theories and push their boundaries as they analyze where they can adjust or expand to converse with the voices and experiences of new intersectionalities. We will consider how queer and feminist Latinx people are home-making and spirit-healing as we confront violence on larger and more international scales. We consider how we can critically build solidarity whilst respecting our differences to protect the core of the scale: our spirits, our communities, our selves. The panel will include research that engages with and reflects literary analysis, ethnography, creative praxis, communal testimonio and auto-teoria, and community participatory methods. The panelists are all queer Chicana/xs and include artists, scholars, advocates, and educators whose identities lie at intersectionalities that are not typically engaged in Latina/o/x Studies.

Sub Unit

• Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association

Individual Presentations

• “We Are Not Dogs”: Resistance and the Literal and Figurative Weaponization of Dogs in Viramontes’s Their Dogs Came With Them - Sara A. Ramírez, Texas State University

• "We are Turtles”: Latinidades Creating Home in the Face of Violence - Annie I Fukushima, University of Utah

• Muxerista & Jotería Testimonios of Spiritual Resistance - Anita Tijerina Revilla, California State University LA

Chair

• Romina Garcia, New York University

Biographical Information

Annie Isabel Fukushima is a KoreXicana Scholar Activist. She is currently the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research overseeing campus-wide undergraduate research activities at the University of Utah, supporting research across the disciplines. As faculty she is Associate Professor in the Division of Ethnic Studies with the School for Cultural & Social Transformation at University of Utah. She is currently co-directing a postdoctoral training program that brings together science education and humanistic inquiry, with her collaborator Dr. Ramón Barthelemy. For 2023, she is the Lead Fellow for the School for Cultural & Social Transformation Mellon funded Transformative Intersectional Collective (TRIC). In 2020 - 2021, she was a University of Utah Presidential Leadership fellow. Prior to joining the faculty of University of Utah, Dr. Fukushima was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Rutgers University (2013 -2015) with the Institute for Research on Women and the Department of Women and Gender Studies. She received her Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in Ethnic Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is the co-lead for the Institute of Impossible Subjects project, "Migratory Times." She is also the Project Lead & Co-Principal Investigator for the Gender-Based Violence Consortium. She is the author of the award-winning book Migrant Crossings: Witnessing Human Trafficking in the US (Stanford University Press, 2019) where she examines witnessing immigrant communities of Latinidad and Asian/Asian American diasporas, when they experience violence during or after the crossing into the United States. Her commitments are to communities where she has served as an expert witness on immigration, civil, and criminal cases and serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition and a member of the Board of Trustees for the Salt Lake Acting Company.

Sara A. Ramírez is a first-generation college graduate and Chicana scholar-activist-mother, who teaches Chicana feminist literature as an Assistant Professor of English at Texas State University. Through her research, teaching, and activism, she is committed to the preservation and promotion of writing by women of color. Her scholarship appears in American Studies, Diálogo, Hispanic Issues On Line, as well as edited collections. She specializes in Anzaldúan thought and has co-edited two volumes of El Mundo Zurdo for The Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa. She is currently working on her first monograph focused on representations of trauma and resistance (especially through the vein of Anzaldúan philosophy) in Chicanx feminist cultural productions. She serves on the board for Third Woman Press, Infrarrealista Review, and Abode Press and is part of the Executive Forum for the Chicana/o Literature LLC for the Modern Literature Association.

Maribel Martínez is a Queer Chicanx of P'urhépecha heritage, brainiac, storyteller, and dream warrior from East San José, CA. Maribel shapeshifts between public policy, higher education, and the arts. Maribel performs and writes short stories, poems, plays, napkin memoirs, and may even sing you a Mexican bolero or ranchera. Maribel is a member of Macondo Writer's workshop, Califas en Comunidad writer’s group, Primeras Paginas playwright’s circle, The Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute (MALI) Silicon Valley, and was a founding member of La Peña’s Hybrid Performance Experiment Ensemble and The Queeceañera Project SJ. Maribel is a recipient of the inaugural Movimiento de Arte Y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) Cultura Fellowship, the California Arts Council Emerging Artist award, and a Center for Cultural Innovation grant. Maribel’s play for young audiences, Becoming (MAR), premiered at Teatro Vision in 2022 and was broadcast on CreaTV San Jose. Its sequel Mar in the Middle had a staged reading at the School of Arts and Culture in 2023. The final installation of the Mar trilogy is currently funded by Horizons Foundation and will premiere at sprin 2025. Maribel’s short play Out for Finals was part of the San Jose City College inaugural playwrights festival in 2024. Maribel’s work has been published in the Mujeres de Maiz en Movimiento, EASTside Magazine, Journal X, and Beyond Queer Words: Queer Anthology. Maribel is currently a Cultural Bearer fellow with the Bay Area American Indian Two Spirit (BAAITS) organization and will produce a performance piece on the meaning of Two Spirit. Maribel has a BA in Political Science, an MA in Applied Anthropology, and multiple certificates in public policy. Maribel was the founding manager of San Jose State University Cesar E. Chavez Community Action Center and the founding manager of the County of Santa Clara Office of LGBTQ Affairs. Maribel currently leads the Division of Equity and Social Justice for the County of Santa Clara. Maribel credits the community-engaged approach and deep listening skill development to early training as a community organizer with the United Farm Workers Union, SEIU, and People Acting in Community Together.

Anita Tijerina Revilla is a Muxerista and Jotería activist-scholar, Professor, and Chair of the Department of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Her scholarship centers on student movements and social justice education, with a focus on Chicana/Latina, immigrant, feminist, and queer rights activism. Dr. Revilla’s areas of expertise include Jotería Studies (Queer Latinx Studies), Chicana/Latina and Black Feminisms, and Critical Race Theory.
A proud Southsider from San Antonio and Harlandale High School graduate, Dr. Revilla is the first in her family to attend college. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, a master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a doctorate from UCLA’s Graduate School of Education. Dr. Revilla co-founded the Association for Joteria Arts, Activism, and Scholarship. Beyond her academic work, she is a visual artist who celebrates her community through paintings embodying her passion for creativity, healing, and activism.