Chicago to Puerto Rico: Diaspora & Destierro, Movement & Migrations

Session Submission Type: Non-Paper Session: Roundtable Format

Abstract

On January 27th, the executive orders from the White House ushered in an era of state-sponsored erasure by forbidding words in public documents, discourse, and policy that are vital for highlighting the racial and class intersections within gender based violence. The words “women”, “gender,” “victim,” “trauma,” and “Black” and “Latinx” have been flagged as forbidden territory. The language is a haunting echo of the colonial dispossession at work across the US and the globe. What does it mean to understand destierro in the context of gentrification, whereby diasporic Puerto Ricans are being dispossessed of the island and the mainland neighborhoods that they migrate to?

Situating the past and present-day organizing of Afro-Latino women, girls and gender expansive femmes on the island of Puerto Rico and Chicago, we aim to critically engage how intersections of race, class, gender, and region create lasting conditions of gendered violence. Kimberele Crenshaw’s coining of intersectionality offers a method of “mapping out the margins” to reveal the oppressive forces shaping the material conditions of Black women and girls lives (Crenshaw, 1991). This dialogue returns to the “unprotected” places, spaces, and bodies of women, girls, and gender-expansive femmes to chart out resistance movements in response to forced migration, gentrification and “destierro” (exile) from lands that African diasporic people once called home. We map the “roots and routes” of intergenerational feminist collectives, organizing, and organizations working to end gender-based violence and uplift women’s health (Gilroy, 1993).

This dialogue is inclusive of scholars, educators and activists who also work within two Latine organizations founded during the feminist struggles of the 1970s to address women’s health as it relates to gender-based violence and the needs of low-income women and their families. Taller Salud was founded in 1979 to address the forced sterilization of Puerto Rican women, and Mujeres Latinas En Accion was founded in 1973 to address the domestic violence being experienced by Mexican, immigrant women in the Pilsen neighborhood. Now, both organizations are facing the threat of gentrification and defunding that seeks to erase the legacy of Black and Brown feminist movements upon which the organizations are founded.

Our dialogue re-maps migration not as a singular, linear path but as a series of movements and negotiations between the island of Puerto Rico–a colony of the United States–and the mainland in Chicago, home to a Puerto Rican diaspora and Boricua community facing gentrification. Further, we conceptualize the ways colonial violence is enacted on the land and the bodies of women, girls and gender-expansive femmes through the logic of paternalism and patriarchy. The black feminist pedagogical practice of “dialogue” where people listen, feel, and learn from each other’s situated perspectives led to a language of resistance developed in academic settings and kitchen tables to shift the material conditions of women and girls. This dialogue is a call to action, to building community across disciplines and diasporas to reckon with this current political maelstrom—-to generate a space for radical feminists to listen, respond, and organize new routes towards collective liberation.

Sub Unit

• Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association

Chair

• Noor M Jones-Bey, PhD

Panelists

• Sayeed Sanchez

• Angela Cruz

Comment

• Savannah Shange, University of California-Santa Cruz

Biographical Information

Angela M. Cruz Felix, PhD is a Latina, Afro-descendant, and Puerto Rican leader dedicated to social justice, community empowerment, and the advancement of gender equity. With over 15 years of experience working with survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking in community-based organizations, she has developed extensive expertise in trauma-informed advocacy, culturally specific services, and systemic change. She currently serves as the Director of the Women and Health Initiative at Taller Salud, a renowned feminist organization in Loíza, Puerto Rico, where she leads initiatives focused on gender-based violence prevention, health equity, and community-driven responses to social issues. Dr. Cruz-Felix holds a Ph.D. in Psychology specializing in Consultation, Research, and Education and a Master’s in Counseling Psychology. As a first-generation graduate in her family, she understands the transformative power of education and mentorship in marginalized communities. Her work is deeply rooted in the principles of collective leadership, intersectionality, and Afro-Caribbean identity. She amplifies the voices of underrepresented communities and fosters inclusive spaces for healing and advocacy. She believes in the power of resilience and transparency to build authentic relationships and drive collective action.


Sayeed Sanchez Johnson (elle/el) serves as the Advocacy Manager for Mujeres Latinas en Acción. Born in Waukegan, Illinois (a northern suburb of Chicago), grew up within a working-class, Black and Mexican household and community that informs his politics; later, he moved to Chicago to study English Literature and African American Studies. His research interests include Afro-diasporic expressions of communal resistance that include music, food, and literature. As the Advocacy Manager for Mujeres Latinas en Accion, they organize Mujeres’ advocacy and policy initiatives at the local, state, and national level that pertain to immigrant justice, economic justice, women’s health, and confronting gender-based violence, culminating in the production of Mujeres’ first-ever Position Paper, ¡Actívate!: a Community-Data Driven Plan to help Latinas and their Families Thrive. Sayeed’s work is profoundly influenced and shaped by the strong lineage of Black and Latina women from his family, who have worked generationally to challenge patriarchy within- and outside the household.

Noor Jones-Bey, PhD (she/her/ella)is a transdisciplinary educator, researcher and artist from the Bay Area, CA with over fifteen years of experience working within the field of education. As a scholar and practitioner deeply interested in the liminal spaces between theory and practice, Noor has extensive experience designing humanizing programming and curriculum that is responsive and relevant to global and local communities. Noor currently serves as National Resource Center Director for Mujeres Latinas En Accion and as an equity and design consultant, providing technical assistance to a variety of professionals, organizations, and universities nationwide. Noor earned her Ph.D. in Urban Education and her M.A. in Sociology of Education from New York University and her B.A. in American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Noor’s interests range across disciplines from sociology, education, Black and Native studies, and visual culture to examine issues of liminality, identity, space and power as they relate to education. Her dissertation work examines intergenerational knowledge of Black womxn and girls navigating in and out of schools.

Savannah Shange (she/her) is associate professor of Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz where she also serves as principal faculty in Critical Race & Ethnic Studies. She serves as research lead for the Abolishing Patriarchal Violence table of the Movement for Black Lives and conspires for a police free Oakland with the Black Organizing Project. She earned a PhD in Africana Studies and Education from the University of Pennsylvania, a MAT from Tufts University, and a BFA in Experimental Theater from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Her first book, Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Anti-Blackness and Schooling in San Francisco (Duke 2019) is an ethnography of the afterlife of slavery as lived in the Bay Area. She is a proud alumni of BYP100 and is currently working in collaboration with organizers to document and amplify the practice of abolition in everyday life.