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Toward A Chicana Feminist Epistemological Standpoint: Theory at the Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender Author(s): Theresa A. Martínez Source: Race, Gender & Class, 1996, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1996), pp. 107-128 Published by: Jean Ait Belkhir, Race, Gender & Class Journal Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41675338

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Race,Gender & Class: Vol 3, No 3, 1996 (107-128)

Toward A Chicana Feminist

Epistemological Standpoint

Theory at the Intersection ofRace, Class , and Gender

Theresa A. Martinez, Sociology The University ofUtah

Shewhoknowsshecannotspeakofthemwithoutspeakingofherself,ofhistorywithoutinvolving herstory,alsoknowsthatshecannotmakea gesturewithoutactivatingthetoandfromovement oflife.

TrinhT.Minh-ha

...1mustaskmyself:Whereisthelove?How ismylifeworkservingtoendthesetyrannies,these corrosionsofsacredpossibility?How amIearningmembershipinourworldwidemovementfor self-determinationandself-respect

JuneJordan

Theory -that oh so elusive well of entrenched meaning. It can open doors to

the social world both insightful and concrete. Itcan also be used to justify academic

marginalization and silencing ofvoices which are not as familiar, which are "other."

While the Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary assures us that theory is "a general principle formulated to account for certain observable phenomena," and "a body of

principles governing the study or practice of an artor discipline," italso assures us that

theory is "an assumption or guess" (1984:710-1 1).

Theresa A. Martinez isanassistantprofessorofsociology attheUniversityofUtah.Herteachingand research interestsincludetheintersectionofrace,class,andgender,thesociology ofdeviance,andthe sociology ofculture.Herrecentworkincludes"EmbracingtheOutlaw: Deviance attheIntersectionof Race, Class, andGender,"(Utah LawReview,February1994,),and"Popular Music intheClassroom:

TeachingRace,Class,andGenderwithPopularCulture"(Teaching Sociology,July1994). Currently,she isworkingonabooktentativelytitled,Living Chicana intheUnited States: Chicana Thinkingon Race, Class, and Gender.

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108 TheresaA, Martinez

Inmy discipline, sociology, theory is nothing ifnot grand. Robert K. Merton contends that the quest for an all-embracing, unified theory is a challenging commitment and that

Any philosopher ofthe eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries worth his salt had to develop his own philosophical system . . . Each system was a personal bid for the definitive overview of the universe ofmatter, nature and man. (Merton 1967:46)

A lofty ideal, one might surmise. At the same time, itevokes amusing images. For instance, one can imagine Marx, Durkheim, and Weber observing the social world like various "professional peeping toms" (Berger 1963), and running home to scribble notes on scratch pads -trying to make large and grandiose sense of the social world, universe, community, and last but not least, milieu (always pronounced in proper pseudo-French). I became entwined in their social milieu as a student sociologist just entering the university. I was the product of a process of academic socialization which embedded the ideas, the theories, the epistemologies of these thinkers into my consciousness. I read them, stewed over them, debated them, was frustrated by them, and got angry at them. I cherished what they said; I despised what they said. What I did not realize then but what I realize now is that they were

simply storytellers. They were in fact telling "stories," often called theories, about the world. Although theywere limited both by experience and time, these very storytellers were able to set forth with their "stories" - their theories - the boundaries, facades, building structure, mortar and bones ofwhat we know as sociological thought.

My academic training taught me to place their way of knowing the social world in a sphere above my own, and this effectively silenced my version of the story when itdiffered from theirs. When I didn't understand the theories of these eminent

men, I assumed that therewas something wrong with my side of the story. My mother askedme ifIwas doingwell in school. Ofcourse I was; I had learned the story, their

version, very well ... to the negation ofmy own and even my mother's. It was when I was doing my research on battered women in NewMexico - the dissertation - that I realized that sometimes the stories were very different and sometimes, bless their

hearts, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim didn't have a clue. I came to know the work of Gloria Anzaldúa. I came to read other radical women of color. I encountered a Chicana discourse on our history, work, poetry, and prose. I was amazed at how very different the stories could be told. But before I came to this realization I had a great deal ofunlearning and learning to do.

This present work is about that unlearning and learning process. While the

paper is by nomeans a complete denial ofMarx, Weber, and Durkheim and the other "masters of sociological thought" that dominated my undergraduate and graduate

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Chicana Feminist & Race,Gender,Class 109

training, itis about affirming otherways ofknowing the social world. But chiefly, this

paper is about autobiography. It is about my story, my personal history as a Chicana, and as a feminist. In trying to know and understand my personal history, I take a step that sharpensmy ability to envision the social world within the individual life, as well as the individual life within the social world, that is both theorizing and stoiytelling. This paper, while not an achievement ofa completed Chicana feminist epistemological standpoint, is a beginning step taken toward its accomplishment and toward affirming its timeliness and its significance in the world of academia and in everyday life.

Being Chicana/Being a Scholar: Grounds for Questioning

Unlearning and learning to become a sociologist entailed a lengthy process in which I began to form the basis for my theorizing as a Chicana in a white male world. Taking theory courses as an undergraduate and later as a graduate student, I soon found that some ofthe classic "masters of sociological thought" while sometimes

speaking to my view of the world often fell short of a this view that flowed from a

heritage in which personal experience was the hallmark of understanding. Others, while still remote, appealed to my sense of the world more. While white feminists did value personal experience, they were seemingly fixed in the element of gender,

ignoring the major elements ofrace/ethnicity and class. Instead I found my view of the world validated in works by radical women of color and Chicana historians,

researchers, novelists, and poets. These women affirmed my own epistemological standpoint and helped to give me grounds for questioning my implicit and explicit theoretical training.

Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim were three "masters of

sociological thought" who appealed to me in various ways but failed me in others.

Marx was almost a hero to me in my growing up years as he tangled with the evil of

capitalism and its progeny: alienation and social inequality (Marx and Engels 1955; Marx 1956; Marx and Engels 1978). Weber was a thinker who I perceived as

intuitively akin to myself in his concept ofverstehen (Weber 1964). He recognized that understanding human actions meant delving into the subjective meanings individuals placed on those actions. It was with Durkheim that I was firstintroduced to the nature of the sacred and the profane. His discussion ofreligion was sometimes difficult to take given my unique Catholic upbringing; however, it also had a tremendous impact on the way I understand religion even today.

However, neitherMarx, norWeber, nor Durkheim, discussed women to any

great extent, least of all women of color. There were also important facets to their

theorizing which I found profoundly problematic. Marx accepted the notion of

femininitywhichwas so well propagated by the bourgeoisie (Thonnessen 1983), and

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110 TheresaA. Martinez

had less to say aboutwomen than Engels (Marx in Kandal 1988:280). Weberwas the

"patriarchal romantic" who believed that "scholarly work should be value free," and that "passionate concerns over values threatened objective evaluation ofevidence by social scientists" (Kandal 1988:155; Shils and Finch 1949). This stance was deeply opposite tomy own understanding as a Chicana. Although I would not have used the words "epistemologica! standpoint" in my undergraduate days, I knew even then that

the knowledge validation process I had grown up with, and had seen in my mother, brothers and sisters was, if anything, value laden. We validated our truth on the basis of our intuitive and value-laden passions. Forme, emotion did not cloud reasoning, but reasoning cloudedmy emotion. Durkheim saw the dangers of sexism in nineteenth

century societies, according to TerryKandal (1988:88); yet, he was very much a "man" ofhis times, and wrote in Suicide: "With a few devotional practices and some animals, the old unmarried woman's life is full" (Durkheim 1951:215).

Although I felt more affinity with Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin's theories, neither discussed women ofcolor to any extent. Simmel's work spoke about real life experience, about coquetry and fashion, and lectured on the sociology of smell

(Coser 1971). Hiswork resembled a "wealth ofmemorable vignettes," and "meander-

ing enlightenments" (Frisby 1981 :69), like snapshots of a vivid tapestry drawn from

true to life colors, fashioned impressionistically (Frisby 1981). Benjaminwas also a kind of impressionistic painter who, one senses, was quite intense about everyday life

and the social world. His work like Simmel's also sought to "capture the rich details ofsocial life amid the totalitywhich makes up society itselF (Martinez 1984-85:1 14). Simmel's and Benjamin's work taught me that the sociologist could be a visionary-a personwho takes risks and pushes boundaries, and in my case, cognizant ofgoddess among the minutiae.

While Simmel and Benjamin appealedmore tomy sense of the world and my

place in it,theywere not as closely tied to my worldview as I would have liked. What was theory to Marx, Durkheim, and Weber as well as Simmel and Benjamin, was limited in focus to the author's context, and that context was white, male, and Europea -something I never fully appreciated until I read work by women ofcolor like Patricia Hill Collins. She aptly terms this context a "Eurocentric masculinist" epistemology as opposed to her "Afrocentric feminist epistemology" (Collins 1991:203). Collins

suggests that theorists from this tradition are part and parcel of a validation process which decides "which version of truth will prevail" (Collins 1991:203). Barbara Christian discusses much the same issue as she alludes to the fact "that Western scholars have long believed their ideas to be universal" (1 990:338). She suggests that the New Criticism, the new literary critical theory, is becoming the dragon itsought to destroy.

For I feel that the new emphasis on literary critical theory is as hegemonic as

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Chicana Feminist & Race, Gender,Class

the world which it attacks. I see the language itcreates as one which

mystifies rather than clarifies our condition, making itpossible for a few

people who know that particular language to control the critical scene-that language surfaced, interestingly enough, just when the literature ofpeoples ofcolor, ofblackwomen, ofLatin Americans, ofAfricans began to move to the "center" (Christian 1990:338)

Patricia Hill Collins and Barbara Christian, along with women of color in

many disciplines, were all beginning to question that which is inviolable in the canon of academic learning: theory. But, why would they question the theories which had stood from time immemorial, or so we reasoned in graduate school, as the epitome of what "theory" should be? They questioned them because these theories often

abandoned, neglected, dismissed, and silenced their realities, their worlds, which were

differently positioned in relation to white men, to white women, and to men of color

(Blea 1988; Hurtado 1989; Sandoval 1990). While Marx, Weber, and Durkheim and forthatmatter, Simmel and Benjamin -white, European, males -theorized about the

social world, their contexts limited their understanding of the dynamics affecting women of color. These theorists' views, limited by history and context, erased the

complex interlocking systems ofoppression that Patricia Hill Collins calls the "matrix of domination" (1991:225) where race, class, and gender exist along axes of differential oppression. With the writing ofPatricia Hill Collins, new possibilities have

emerged in writing theory that includes a much more richly, multifaceted perspective not limited to gender, class standing, or ethnicity and race, and definitely not some

quasi-quantitative addition of these.

White feminist theory has validated individual women's experience. It has validated the "subject" rather than the "object" of research as a living, breathing, individual woman Unlike traditional theorists, the feminist theorist and researcherwas free to care about her informants -her subjects of study. The feminist theorist was not ashamed to feel accountable to the women she studied (Oakley 1981 ; Jagger 1989). Further, feminist theory validated a woman's standpoint as unique from that ofmen's

(Hartsock 1987). Dorothy Smith's standpoint theory, a definite part of Patricia Hill Collins' work, opened new avenues of approach to social science research (Smith 1981, 1987). Smith suggests that our view of the social world, our "standpoint" is a definite product of our social positioning with regard to our gender, our social class, our racial or ethnic group, and other facets of our social position.

Yet, women ofcolorwere not so much a part of this "feminist" methodology and theorizing. We were, in fact, subject to "exclusionary practices in Women's Studies" (Baca Zinn, Cannon, Higginbotham and Dill 1990:29). This is part and

parcel ofbeing differentlypositioned in relation to white women (Blea, 1988; Hurtado 1989; Sandoval 1990). As these poems describe, women of color often tangle with the

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112 TheresaA. Martinez

reality ofdifferential experience:

I wonder why there are women born with silver spoons in theirmouths Women who have never known a day ofhunger

Women who have never changed their own bed linen And I wonder why there are women who must work

Women who must clean other women's houses Women who must sell shrimps for pennies a day

Women who must sew other women's clothes Who must cook Whomust die In childbirth

In dreams (Lim 1990:26)

when I was growing up, people told me I was dark and I believedmy own darkness

in the mirror, in my soul, my own narrow vision

when I was growing up, my sisters with fair skin got praised

for their beauty, and in the dark I fell further, crushed between high walls

when I was growing up, I readmagazines and sawmovies, blonde movie stars, white skin,

sensuous lips and to be elevated, to become a woman, a desirable woman, I began to wear

imaginary pale skin (Wong 1981)

Andwhite feminist theory had also neglected the voices ofwomen of color, often regarding gender and only gender as the bond and platform on which the women'smovementwas to be grounded Thiswas incongruous to women ofcolor like

myself -Chicanas, African American women, Asian women, Latinas, and American Indian women, who know that our racial/ethnic identity could not nor everwould be separate from our gender identity. Norma Alarcón articulates the white feminist

neglect so eloquently.

Since the subject offeminist theory and its single theme -gender -go largely unquestioned, its point of view tends to suppress and repress voices that

question its authority . . . This may account for the inability to include the voices of women of color into feminist discourse, though they are not

necessarily under-represented in the reading list. (Alarcón 1990:360)

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Chicana Feminist & Race,Gender; C/q&y 1JJ

In reading Alarcón and other women of color, I read their voices -voices often silenced by white men, by men of color, and by white women. The writings of thesewomen ofcolorwas and is brave and dangerous. Questioning "theory," often the

trademark ofone's discipline, not to mention the underpinnings ofdominant views, is

problematic to say the least. The personal experiences ofbell hooks in the wake of Ain't IA Woman (hocks 1990), and Patricia Williams after her questioning of a legal scholar's teaching of legal concepts and theory (Williams 1991 ), come across as essays on strength in the face ofpainful opposition. These women of color encouragedme to believe that the world is not Marx-, Weber-, and Durkheim- centered. As Patricia Hill Collins' work suggested, "[j]ust as the material realities of the powerful and the

dominated produce separate standpoints, each group may also have distinctive

epistemologies or theories ofknowledge" (Collins 1991 :204). It would follow, then, that I had both a unique standpoint and a unique epistemology as a Chicana, one which was distinct from European male theorists in my discipline. (I believe itis critical to add that contemporary social scientists and other scholars have done more thorough- going work in the area of oppression along differential axes like race, class, and

gender. This papermentíais only a few of the scholars that could have been included, in particular, the work ofMichael Omi and Howard Winant, Bonnie Mitchell and Joe

Feagin, Paul Gilroy, Tricia Rose, James Scott, Carol Stack, Henry Giroux, and Paulo Freire have also influenced my thinking).

A Chicana Voice, A Chicana Discourse

A compelling Chicana discourse became evident from my reading. I could hear in the writings ofChicanas the vocalization ofmy own history, my own issues and concerns. Deena Gonzalez, Vicky Ruiz, Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana Rivero

capture the Chicana voice in historical time. Deena Gonzalez traces racism, classism, and sexism on the New Mexican border through the legend of "La Tules" Doña Gertrudis Barceló, a businesswomanwho shocked anglos with her frankness but most of all the audacity of her entrepreneurship. Gonzalez argues that La Tules was a southwestern female figure used by anglo writers such as Josiah Gregg, to vilify Mexicans as dirty, promiscuous, heathen, savages; while, implying the cleanliness, righteousness, religiosity, and civilization of the anglo American. González suggests that Doña Gertrudis Barceló, La Tules,was an extraordinary woman who sought to survive anglo encroachment and gambled on accommodation. She epitomizes not only the turbulence ofthe times-life on the changing borderlands of the southwest, but also "contact and conflict between independent female Catholics and westering male Protestants" (González 1993:86). I might add, they were Mexican American female Catholics and anglo male Protestants.

Vicki Ruiz discusses the impact ofAmericanization forces on adolescent

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114 TheresaA. Martinez

Mexican American women from 1920 to 1950. Ruiz documents racism, sexism, and classism through the effects offorces such as education, employment, and the media on the lives ofthese youngwomen coming of age during this time period. She asserts that these forces caused intergenerational tensions between the young women and their

parents, and this, in turn, forced the young women to make profound life choices. However, Ruiz argues that these forces are not necessarily harbingers of acculturation, but finds instead that "the ideological impact of material acculturation has been overrated" (Ruiz 1993 :123). Ruiz typifies the adolescentMexican American woman as awomanwho faced and coped with a bicultural world of contradictions - "the lure ofHollywood and the threat of déportation1' (Ruiz 1993:123). She was a voice that

strove to achieve the American dream, but in the main, was ever mindful of her

heritage and her people (Ruiz 1993 :122).

Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana Rivero (1 993) discuss the narrative voices of three New Mexican women -Cleófas Jaramillo, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert and Nina Otero-Warren, as writs of discontent in the 1930s-writs of discontent

against the prevailing forces ofracism, classism, and sexism. Specifically, Rebolledo and Rivero identify strategies of resistance used by these writers. First, they name themselves and their culture in the voiding erasures imposed by the Anglo cultural invasion. They name a "colonized identity. . .by detailing the cultural signs embedded in it" (Rebolledo Rivero 1993:18), espousing social banditry in detailed and name filled accounts which "fill the physical and psychological space of the book with the historical imprint of cultural hegemony from the past as a recall of cultural memory" (Rebolledo and Rivero 1993:18). Second, they recall the past with a sentimental

nostalgia that "questions present authority" (Rebolledo and Rivero 1993:18) in

focusing not on the individual but on the community, and in firmly placing the past in the center and marginalizing the present. Third, they bind and blend several different

genres in one storytelling experience, mixing "the oral with the written, history with creative autobiography, recipes and narrative, family history and romance" (Rebolledo and Rivero 1993 :18). This produces a form of remembering that is deliberate in its

collectivity as opposed to individuality. Fourth, they became a feminine discourse, particularly in their inclusion of "women's work"~recipes, tradition, and romance

(Rebolledo and Rivero 1993:18). Last, their translation from Spanish to English is itselfa critique of anglo culture, according to these authors, because translation signals the limitations of anglos-their inability to understand the refined Spanish traditions

(Rebolledo and Rivero 1993 :18-19).

The Chicana's historical voice is one ofresistance, resilience, humor and wit. I recognizedmy family andmy heritage in these voices - struggling against discrimina- tion in a racist, classisi, and sexist society; struggling to keep alive family heritage and

history in a changing time with a marginal status; and struggling for self, for a definite female voice in a world where the ethnic female had little if any "air time." These

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Chicana Feminist & Race,Gender; C/asj 115

themes are even more apparent in the work ofMaxine Baca Zinn, Denise Segura, Christine Marie Sierra, Cynthia Orozco, Alma Garcia and Norma Alarcón as they discuss the family, the labor market, higher education and feminism. These writers also stress the blindsides within the Chicano/a community, Chicano/a studies, and

anglo feminism where the concepts of sexism and racism, respectively, have been

ignored or "added onH at best. Maxine Baca Zinn stresses the negative impact of structural economic changes in society on the Chicano/a family (as well as the African American family and other families of color) (Zinn 1989). However, Zinn adds, even structural analyses ofChicano/a families fail to add gender into the picture, that is, "fail to consider the interplay of gender-based assumptions with structural racism" (Zinn 1989:874). Denise Segura (1993) documents the triple oppression which Chicanas face in the labor force. Segura recognizes the the face and fact of racism and class oppression as documented by Mario Barrera (1979); however, takes the analysis a step further to include the axis of sexism. Her analysis is echoed by Christine Marie Sierra (1 993) as she discusses higher education where she focuses on the triple axes ofracism, classism, and sexism, recognizing that the issue ofpatriarchy outside ofrace and class oppression has only recently been questioned. Sierra's point is asserted also

by Cynthia Orozco who finds the Chicano community and Chicano studies wanting with regard to issues facing Chicanas (1993), and who revises "El Plan de Santa Barbara" with "El Plan de Santa y Barbara" to "encompass the feminist voice itlacked in 1969" (1993:15). Alma Garcia argues that Chicanas have been "tacked on" to Chicano Studies as fragmented pieces-as "Great Women," "Workers," or "Women."

(Garcia 1990:26). She advocates that Chicanas be "a vital component" (1993:25) of any Chicano studies program and that we pursue the Chicana with a view toward

synthesis and wholeness. Norma Alarcón emphasizes that anglo feminists have

appropriated or "added on" This Bridge CalledMy Back, the multiple voices of Chicanas and other women of color, only to negate these voices in practice by

assuming that the common denominator ofoppression is woman/women, excluding the importance of other factors in oppression, namely, racism. For Alarcón the white feminist "episteme" is missing the mark and "epistemology is flattened out in such a way that we lose sight of the complex and multiple ways in which the subject and

object ofpossible experience are constituted" (Alarcón 1990:361).

In the world ofcultural production, Angie Chabram Dernersesian, Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana Rivero further extend the discourse on the Chicana. Angie Chabram Dernersesian's focus is on sexism as she writes about Chicana cultural

productions of the 1970s. These cultural productions, she asserts, are like raised voices in a room full of "male hegemonic constructions of group identity" (Derne- rsesian 1993:39) -raised voices which split the Chicano/a subjectivity. We will not, these voices remind me, sit back and take a "beating" of our consciousness, or be drowned out by the Chicano collective, and essentially male, voice, but emerge in

poetry and prose as Guadalupes with running shoes-empowered and resistant.

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116 TheresaA. Martinez

The Chicana literary voice ofthe 1990s, according to Rebolledo and Rivero, is characterized by important new developments and trends on the topics ofrace, class, and gender. The firstdevelopment is the emergence of the conscious Chicana herself - "the growth of the personal essay" (1993:25). Unlike earlier literature in which the

writer is inferred from her written words, the Chicana emerges as a full-blown

speaking person in her contemporary writing. She firmly states her mind in a

"deliberately conscious essay" (1993:25). The second development is the "redemption of the male relationships in the lives of Chicanas" (1993:27). While early writing reflected anger, challenge or non-inclusion ofpatriarchal male figures, and concomi- tant recovery of the female figures of their pasts; contemporary writers recognize the

male figures in their lives as more complex, less monolithic. The male emerges in

contemporary writing as less of a monster and perhaps as more of a sympathetic character. A third new area of development involves being more open about and

dealingmore frankly with sexuality, where Chicanas emerge as "audacious and even

outrageous" (1993:28). They emerge as Chicana lesbians who refuse to silence "taboo" voices that their "mothers warned them against." They emerge as women who need and want sex from their partners, exploding the mythology surrounding the "good girl." They emerge as fully conscious, fully sexual beings with control of their bodies and their lives. They also emerge as women who have been raped, who have been

sexually violated, who have survived violence. "What comes forth clearly. . .is the

acceptance of female desire by all the writers, the acceptance ofbeing a woman with

all its joys and travails" (Rebolledo and Rivero 1993:29).

The last trend Rebolledo and Rivero document is the "concern that Chicanas have always had about borders" (1993:30). Chicanas are inhabitants of the

borderlands-the lands on theU.S. Mexican border, as well as the crossroads between cultures. They themselves inhabit multiple spaces between cultures, ethnicities,

genders, and classes. They are outsiders and insiders; they inhabit the center and the

margin; they are selfand other; they are subject and object. Living in the borderlands can break, jar, and explode safe havens. Yet, itis knowledge of the borderlands-this

history and reality, which produces what Gloria Anzaldúa calls a "mestiza conscious- ness" (1987:77), a consciousness which is multi-faceted and multi-voiced. It is a

bridge consciousness which translates between cultures and peoples. Most of all, the mestiza consciousness contains within itself both the clash of differences and the

power to sustain that clash. For, the mestiza consciousness has developed strategies of survival capable ofwithstanding a multi-layered, complex and shifting world.

While the themes apparent in an emergent Chicana discourse - themes of discrimination along the axes of race, class and gender; themes of struggle and resistance in a patriarchal dominant society, a sexist ethnic community, and an

exclusionary feminism; themes ofwit and humor; themes of defining and seeking a womanself-speak tomy own life themes and myself as a theorist, itis this last literary

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Chicana Feminist & Race,Gender, Class 117

theme discussed in Rebolledo and Rivero which speaks most fundamentally and loudest Itis Gloria Anzaldúa's words -the "mestiza consciousness" (1 987 :77) -which

helped me to realize that theorizing is not on some abstract plane which I cannot reach. Her essays in This Bridge Called My Back, and Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras, are testimonies to the resilience of a woman who struggles against dogmatic and hegemonic patriarchies, and racist, middle class matriarchies, bent on making invisible the simultaneous experience of race/ethnicity, gender, and

class, not tomention sexuality. In fact, "[Consciousness as a site ofmultiple voicings is the theoretical subject, par excellence, of Bridge

" (Alarcón 1990:365). Gloria

Anzaldúa taughtme that my life was theoretical and that searching my life experience would give me insight into the society in which I lived.

To live in the Borderlands means you are neither hispana india negra española

ni gabacha, eres mestiza,mulata,half-breed caught in the crossfire between camps

while carrying all five races on your back not knowing which side to turn to, run from. . .

To survive in the Borderlands

you must live sinfronteras be a crossroads. (Anzaldúa 1987:194,195)

Thesewomen, these extraordinary radical feminists of color, these Chicanas, gaveme hope and taught me much about courage. It was with their help that I began to recognize my own vision, if only shadowy -one which was unfettered by thinking

processes andways ofknowing thatwere notmy own, which placed value on personal history and experience, self-expression, relationships, and yes, love (Jordan 1990). In fact,I can also theorize, and my version is just as real, as relevant, as significant as Marx, Weber, and Durkheim's or even Simmel's or Benjamin's. I have come to think oftheorizing as storytelling-weaving one's understanding of the world into a coherent

tale, not unlike Benjamin's storytellers who give advice within the framework of the

story,not unlike the many storytellers I have encountered in my past and in my present.

Theorizing as Storytelling: Where Autobiography Meets Theory

When I theorize, I tell a story, and by this I tryto understand, tryto make sense of,my universe. This is my theorizing, my storytelling. This is the place and the

movement where I was bom, and where I grew. It is also my place and my movement in relation tomy family, my community, andmy society. It is for me a journey ofrapid and slow-motion memories where I connect with myself and with so many others.

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118 TheresaA. Martinez

I remember waking up to the sound of my mama cleaning beans in the kitchen. I am on the couch in the living room where she and I sleep. I have seven brothers all sleeping in strange and probably grotesque shapes in the back room. I have four sisters who sleep in the middle room. The older girls are just beginning to wearmakeup but the younger ones listen to mama's admonition, "Onlyputas (whores) do that"I can hearmy mama in the kitchen getting the beans ready to cook. I love to hear that sound, I know how good they are going to be. Notice my dad is not around. I know that mama and daddy don't see eye to eye. I remember angry voices, my mother's anger atmemories offists and pain, and beer somewhere mixed in. Jealousy. Mama and children afraid to go to the front door, for fear, for fear the outside world would find out Evenwhen Iwas small I knew that he had done something to hurt her.

We do almost everything together, mama and I. We go to the Salvation Army, the rummage sales, the church, and the commodity house. Commodity cheese is the best. Mama and I go to the commodity house and get cheese and other things, like peanut butter. I tell my friends at school about my yen for "commodity" cheese. All of a sudden I realize that I've said something I shouldn't. It's the way they look at me

funny.Youfoolt you'vejust let them knowyou're on welfare. But it's okay, I'm among friends. Many ofthem know what it's about and they don't tease me about it.Many of these kids are poor. They have to struggle as much as we do. They nevermake fun of whatwewear or how our house lodes. Everybody's house looks pretty much the same.

My oldest brothers go into theMarine Corps. I think itis spelled "Marine C- o-r-e." My oldest brother went to Vietnam. I don't know where that is. I write short letters to both of them along with the other brothers and sisters and my mama. She and I are the only ones home since I don't go to school yet. We pray the rosary together every day. We listen to Walter Cronkite every evening news. My mama cries every time. Shewatches the casualty reports and doesn't say a word. It isn't until later that I realize that the casualty reports are reports sent home to a lot of Chicano/a, Black, and poormothers and fathers. Both ofmy brothers send home their paychecks so we can eat at home. Dad has been out of the house for a long while. My older sisters go towork and the younger ones sell squash or rosaries. We get offwelfare and I miss the commodity cheese.

We finally move out of the "poor house" as my mama called it-the barrio others call it,and I can still remembermissing my very best friend - a Chicana, the boy I had a crush on - a cute Chicano, and the boy who had a crush onme-another less interesting Chicano. We move to the northeast heights; the place where people with more money live. I'm going to a different Catholic school. In that peculiar institution

you never mention "commodity" cheese. I remember some of my most painful moments at this mostly white school where I suffer through "spie," "greaser," and "dirtyMexican." No one there is Chicano/a except me and this one girl who they call

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Chicana Feminist & Race,Gender; Class 119

Sandóval as iftheywere saying Hsand oh vull" with an accent over the "oh". I couldn't believe she pronounced her name so badly. It was a reminder of the intolerant

English-onlymentalitywhich devalued a beautiful language so much so that maybe her

parentswanted desperately to forget how to say the words or maybe they never knew how.

We have tomove out and into a different neighborhood. We don't stay very

long in this house either and it's in this house that we learn my dad is dead. Mama doesn't want us to go to the funeral. The three youngest children don't go. I hardly knew him, really. I have only vague recollections ofwho he is, and have a hard time

recallingwhat he looks like. All I know is that mama is curiously unemotional and the

other brothers and sisters don't know where to look. That was 1968. My family mourned Martin, Bobby, and Felipe.

During this time, some ofmy brothers and sisters are becoming very "aware" and very into "radical" things. It is a time in which I have to decide just what I should call myself. While my mama has always insisted that we are Spanish, one ofmy brothers argues that she is wrong. He tells her that we are a mixture of Spanish and

Indian, so that means that we are, in fact, Mexican American. Moreover, he tells her that we are Mexican Americans with a consciousness, and that means we are "Chícanos." Mama is stubborn about maintaining the word Spanish and later

compromises with the word Hispanic-born and bred of the U.S. Census. I often

wondered why she should feel this way. I later realized that mama must have had

deep-down reasons for fearing and hating these words -Mexican and Chicano - and they probably had a lot to do with the fact that she loved us. She never wanted

anything to hurt us and itis more than likely she had seen people hurt tremendously over words like Mexican and Chicano. At this time, I decide that I am Mexican American but will accept Chicano or Hispanic. While I'm studying in grade school with the nuns I'm also listening to my brothers and sisters about the Black Panthers - we subscribe to their newspaper. My brother is telling me about Che Guevara, ChairmanMao, and playing songs by the Last Poets that sound like chants -forefathers ofrap. At the table we are talking about so many different topics -history, literature, music, psychology, you name it.I write my eighth grade term paper on Marxism. It

is fourteen pages long with bibliography. I've got to hand itto those nuns.

I get through high school at a pace not fast enough. I'm too fat,too ugly, too

many pimples, too big goggle glasses. I don't date. I'm the one who is smart. My next older sister is "the babe." I read an awful lot. I love to read. The whites and the blacks at our school have their own sides of the main hallway. The Chicanos/as have a stairwell. The Chicanas don't like me very much. They think I think I'm "too bad" -

college prep courses don't jibe with them. They don't think I'm material for 7a raza.*

Yet, I've got the last name Martinez. This effectively bars most friendships in

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120 TheresaA. Martinez

Advanced Placement English. This is a time when I see others with their fathers and

really know that I never had a father. I begin to feel angry with him and to miss him. I write a poem for my creative writing class which won an award that high school

junior year... It goes like this...

I remember going to meet Daddy by the backyard fence

and I always wondered

whyMama never let him in

but only watched us from a window in the house (Martinez 1977:41)

The university is very different. Its mainly about this class business, which I know I can do. I'm readingMarx, Weber, and Durkheim. Everybody is so sure that

they know everything, that their words are the words of most significance. I'm convinced that they understand life on some unintelligible plane which I can never

hope to reach and leave itat that. But I never really quite agree with them either. I'm not so sure why I don't agree with them, but I am sure that they know nothing about what IVe gone through, and that must have some significance. Doesn't it? When I get my degree, I decide to tryout graduate school at the University ofTexas at Austin. My oldest brother tells me that he can't see any sound reasoning behind this move. After all, I have only two choices in this life-eithermarriage or the nunhood. Mama doesn't contradict him. Hermessage has preceded and superseded his. She hasmade itclear that any one ofher daughters can do anything. This feels right to me. She and I need a break from each other. I am constantly snapping at her and she at me. She doesn't want to let me go but I go.

I run home from Texas. Imissmymama and my home, and UT Austin feels

very uncomfortable. Some ofthese people know how to smile to your face and still let

you know you're a "dirty Mexican." I am offered a Fellowship at UNM and leave Texas with no regrets. I have lingeringmemories ofmy friend Frank and I going to see the Alamo-glass cases full of guns in a church, reified portraits of the poor Texan "homesteaders," evil lookingMexicans with bared teeth. Complete ignorance of the real story - "homesteaders" who turn out to be mercenary adventurers, a poorly equippedMexican armymade up mostly of Indian conscripts, a battle more on the side ofthe adventurers than the Mexicans despite the numbers. These people really don't know their history. Somehow "those Mexicans" must bemade out to be the bad guys.

In the firstweeks back atUNM,mymama dies. . . I am disconnected. I don't feel like I am anyone or anything. I don't feel much like living anymore. At that time

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Chicana Feminist & Race,Gender; Class 121^

I start to die gradually with every day. While I stash my feelings away, I continue to

plug away like a true ritualist. I'm reading Marx, Weber, and Durkheim again. This time it's graduate indoctrination This time I'm beginning to wonder if they really mean

anything to me at all. Their words ring so hollow in my life. But, I throw myself into

graduate school and write what will become my firstpublication. It is on the

connection between Georg Simmel andWalter Benjamin. I feel a kind ofkinship with both ofthem simply because they are so differentfrom the other theorists. They are not

grandiose theorists, but theorists towhom I can somehow relate because they focus on "smaller" social phenomena. They don't balk at looking at anything from flirting, to

city streets, to storytelling. They fascinate me with their ability to locate individual lives in the nooks and crannies ofdusty rooms and alleyways. They both seem to have taken great risks in their endeavors, risks which left them marginal both in life and in

academia. I admire that.

It is at this time that some of my white friends are calling themselves

"feminists," but my Chicana friends don't think this term is quite right. We believe in

equal rights and all that,but something doesn't seem to ring true. White women don't have to understand our experiences nor those of our brothers. At this time I associate the term "feminism" with white women.

I am unhappy but don't allow itto show too much even to myself. I become interested in doing a doctoral dissertation on domestic violence. I think I want to understandmymama's life.I think I want to understand my dad too, but this is buried

deep. I talk to Chicana shelter residents - the survivors, and get their side of the story. I often feel like I am talking to my mama. I am finding that Marx, Weber, and Durkheim have very little to say about these women's lives. Marx has a great deal to

say about the movement of classes through historical time. He is brilliant in his discussion of huge structural changes in economic history. I like his idea of a "classless society," and mourn the inability of Soviet Russia to actually be a "communist" state (Marx and Engels 1955, Marx 1956, Marx and Engels 1978). Weber introducesme to the spirit of capitalism and its relationship to Calvinism. His writing on bureaucracy and authority are "ideal typical" analyses I know will stay with

me. I admire his grasp ifverstehen- "interpretive understanding" (Weber 1964:29) of human behavior, that is, an attempt to see life through the other person's eyes (Weber 1946, 1958, 1960/1 977). Durkheim speaks to my understanding of society when he writes about the relationship between religion and social solidarity (Durkheim 1954, 1961). I see clearly the American flag as related to the totems or animal symbols used to ward off enemies and evil. However, the Chicanas I am

interviewing at the shelter for victims ofdomestic violence, while reachable to a very limited extent byMarx's "false consciousness," Weber's "iron cage," and Durkheim's "anomie," are also unreachable to a large extent by these theorists.

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122 TheresaA. Martinez

Instead I find that GloriaAnzaldúa recognizes abuse ofChicanas with regard to structural trappings. Her words are so telling as she writes, "The loss of a sense of dignity and respect in themacho breeds a falsemachismo which leads him to put down women and even to brutalize them" (Anzaldúa 1987:83). And again, "Though we "understand' the root causes ofmale hatred and fear, and the subsequent wounding of

women, we do not excuse, we do not condone, and we will no longer put up with it" (Anzaldúa 1987:84). Her words linger on the tongue as she weaves together the

contradictions inherent in being Chicma-mestiza - in a society which does not value her. She writes,

I want the freedom to carve and chisel my own face, to staunch the bleeding with ashes, to fashion my own gods out ofmy entrails. And ifgoing home is denied me then I will have to stand and claim my space, making a new culture - una cultura mestiza -with my own lumber, my own bricks and mortar and my own feminist architecture (Anzaldúa 1987 :22).

I am realizing that nothing that I have read thus far in the words of the "great ones" in

my discipline has ever touched the core ofmy consciousness in such a tangible way as is the case when I read Gloria and other radical, feminist women of color. And, most important, something tells me that they are doing theory too. At this time I begin to call myself a feminist. At this time I decide I can call myselfChicana.

Duringmy graduate school experience I marry. He is Chicano, and ifmama was alive, I knew she would approve. At least I think so. He drinks, but that doesn't mean he's like my dad. He's just a social drinker, only he get's really angry when he's been drinking. Butwe've bought the rings alongwith wedding invitations compliments ofAlphagraphics. Wemarry and all is well, or is it? ... I soon learn that his temper and his drinking are one and the same animal. I'm not happy and itshows. He's unhappy and one night ... when the bough breaks ... he loses control ... the cradle willfall ... and I have the sudden understanding that I have married my father. It didn't happen all at once, this realization, but eventually itdoes come. That second time he broke someone else's arm.

As I tryto decidewhether or not I will divorce, an awful thing for a Catholic girl, I come to realize that mama would have been hurt to see me this way. It is her

memory which gives me the strength to divorce. And as I come to accept the loss of mymarriage, I remember hermore and more. It is here in the wake ofdivorce and in the middle of graduate school that the full weight ofmy mama's death overtakes me and haulsme up short I have to deal with her death and somehow I do. Ibegintosee clearly that I have beenwanting to die for a long time. Without her, you see, I don't feel real, have no substance or identity. But I begin to remember her - memories that help me realize mama wanted me to survive. More than that, I begin to see that I am real

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Chicana Feminist & Race, Gender, Class 123

without her. She has seen to itthat I am. Gradually I begin to let go of the need to hurt

myself. Gradually, I begin to let go ofmy mother.

I completemy doctoral degree. I get my firstjob teaching at a southwestern

university. I set up shop as a new tenure-track faculty. I'm reading Gloria Anzaldúa

again, but also Cherríe Moraga, bell hooks, Nellie Wong, Hisaye Yamamoto, Bonnie Thornton Dill, Tey Diana Rebolledo, NormaWilliams, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Marmon Silko, Patricia Williams, Paula Gunn Allen, Denise Segura, Maxine Baca Zinn, Regina Austin, Pat Mora, Chrystos, Ana Castillo, Alma Garcia, Joy Haijo, Patricia Hill Collins and so many more. Patricia Hill Collins is amazing. She emphasizes that my view of the "Eurocentric masculinist knowledge validation

process" is not a lone view. More than that, she inspires me, and I decide to write a book on a Chicana feminist epistemological standpoint. It came to me one crisis- ridden nightwaiting for news ofa loved one in an emergency waiting room. Why does

my worst pain always translate into my best growth?

With the tools these radical, feminist women ofcolor gaveme and continue to give me I begin to have many important insights into my academic life. It is with

their help that I recognize the limitations in Marx, Weber, and Durkheim and the

reason they didn't speak to the battered Chicanas I had interviewed years ago. Many of these women were experiencing abuse as women and as Chicanas, and their

relationship to the means ofproduction left much to be desired. In other words, their lives were affected by amatrix ofdomination which "operates along interlocking axes of race, class, and gender oppression" (Collins 1991:226). Marx, Weber, and Durkheim -theorists who failed to incorporate interlocking and multifaceted systems of oppression - could give me remarkably little viable theoretical input on the

following abuser's words to a Chicanawho was trying to manage with five children on

AFDC, who I had interviewed years ago: "You look at him again spie bitch and I'll knock your fucking head off." At this time, itbegins to dawn on me that my life has been very much akin to the abused and battered women. Didn't my life also reflect

interlocking systems of oppression? In my new job I hoped that I would meet

colleagueswho sharedmy dreams and aspirations. At the very least I felt that I would be among enlightened minds. I have lived to question this early hope often. During the third year at the university I was asked to introduce Norma Alarcón as a speaker for aWomen ofColor Colloquium which came to the university. The white feminist who introduced me mispronounced my name. It sounded like she said "Mártin-ez" with an accent on the "márt" as in "one-hour mártinizing." Once again, I was reminded that my culture, my heritage, is neither of consequence nor particularly memorable. I

very carefullywalked up to the podium, pronounced my last name correctly -Martinez - and proceeded to introduce our speaker.

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124 TheresaA. Martinez

Relating Stories

Stories can be powerful theories that teach and instruct us. They can shape our views of the world, of the community, of gender, ofrace, ofclass. We could say that the storieswhich shaped racism, or sexism in this country, for example, are pretty

long-standing stories. Today they are still being told in myriads ofnew and improved ways. Stories that stay with us from classical theory can silence the "other" voices in academia. What can emerge, then, is the clear and unmistakable message that a worldview originating from a Eurocentric, masculinist perspective is the only source from which credible and valid theory, research, and publication in the social science

disciplines can be drawn, informing and defining almost every piece of information students are given. People of color, women, gays and lesbians, and poor people who suffer under this standpoint, who are not validated in this contextual milieu, will continue to suffer as their standpoints are invalidated, silenced, and suppressed (Collins 1991:203).

What I have done in this paper is share my story -bits and pieces ofmy life

experience, reflections in glass and sometimes obscure. My story is idiosyncratic and

unique. No one has grown up just the way I have. No one has felt the way I have. Not even those closest tome could say that they see my life as I do. Yet, somehowmy story,this autobiographical sketch, is connected to others' lives, not just my family. My story, while individual, is yet connected to what we call the social fabric.

My story speaks eloquently of larger societal constellations. It speaks of

poverty and the accompanying shame of being poor and on welfare-the hidden

injuries of class. It speaks of domestic violence and the ruptures this causes in a family, the very real impact ithas on the lives of the children. It speaks about class disparities that spill into the lives of the family and influence behaviors and self-

esteem. It speaks about prejudice. It speaks about discrimination both overt, and institutional and subtle. It speaks about being a woman and being Chicana. It speaks about awoman's place and awoman's voice. It speaks about war and its fallout in the

family and with the children. It speaks about feeling pulled apart, feeling marginal, feeling humiliation. It speaks about not being accepted by whites, but also being looked down on and put down bymen from my own culture. It speaks about the Black Power Movement, the Chicano Student Movement and the Women's Liberation Movement. It speaks about the awakening ofwomen ofcolor to their own voices. It

speaks about race, class, and gender. It speaks about my life. It speaks, and in its own

way, itis a valid critique ofEurocentric, masculinist stories which have come before. The fact is, itspeaks. . .and this is a way that I can begin to resist the invalidation, silencing, and suppression ofmy voice.

Theory -that oh so elusive well of entrenched meaning ... I am no longer so

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Chicana Feminist & Race,Gender; C/oss 125

intimidated by its trappings. I have come to realize that doing theory is often not so much about theory but about who has the power to get their version of the story told firstand the power tomaintain the status quo. This paperwas my way ofbreaking the

boundary ofmy own silence and sharing my story.

I am a woman of color. I am a Chicana. I am a sociologist. I am a feminist.

I have finally decided in my life, in my research, and especially in my theorizing that

the most important story/theory that I can tell is not Marx's, nor Weber's, nor Durkheim's. It is not Simmel's, nor Benjamin's. It is not even Gloria Anzaldúa's - a woman I consider amentor, a mother, a sister, and a friend, even though we have just met Itismy own stoiy. This paper has been a step in the direction of claiming itand recognizing it's importance, a small step in the direction of affirming a distinctly Chicana feminist epistemological standpoint. I too can do theory.

*1would liketothankAllenQuintana,Donna Lambert,andJenniferPiercefortheirencouragementand advice onearlierdraftsofthispaper.

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Race and Other Misadventures:

Essays in Honor ofAshley Montagu in His Ninetieth Year

Larry T. Reynolds and Leonard Lieberman Central Michigan University

We could, of course, go on and on in speaking of Dr. Montagu's wide-ranging,

long-lasting career. But itwould be a formidable chore to summarize the intellectual

lifetrajectory ofone who has given so very much to so very many! Happily, Andrew

P. Lyons has relieved us of thattask by penning a broad overview of Montagu's diverse and important contributions. Furthermore, he has presented us with a portrait of both theintellectual milieu and "academic actors" influencing our honoree's

illustrious career. We are most grateful to Professor Lyons forhis effort,because it seemed tous a most fittingway to initially introduce readers tothisfestschrift.

General Hall, Inc. Publishers

5 Talon Way Dix Hills, New York 11746

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All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms