Chicana feminist voices : in search of Chicana lesbian voices from Aztlán to cyberspace

Chicana Feminist Voices: In Search of Chicana Lesbian Voices from Aztlán to Cyberspace, analyzes an assortment of Chicana feminist writings from the 1970s to the present. This project begins to mend what I see as an epistemological disjuncture in the historical record of Chicana feminist writing between the ‘70s and the ‘80s; it also anticipates additional changes taking place on the World-Wide-Web. My work studies how contemporary Chicana lesbian writing maps the transfiguration of Chicana identity and epistemologies. The emergence of Chicana lesbian literature reveals that Chicana lesbian feminist epistemologies play an important role in altering Chicana/o cultural production, especially the definition of community in Chicana/o literature. The primary objectives of the project are multiple: to map out the major contours of Chicana feminist discourse, to identify some general and specific parties involved in the construction of Chicana feminist discourse, to understand the influence of Chicana lesbian feminism on Chicana feminism, to discern the implications of lesbian of color consciousness for Chicana/o identity politics, and to hypothesize the direction, shape, and influence Chicana feminist discourse will have on the World-Wide-Web. Source material for this project ranges from the journals of the 1970s Chicano movement, through lesbian of color writing of the 1980s, to women of color Web sites of the 1990s and 2000s. A secondary aim of my work is the reclamation and preservation of archival Chicana writing and the creation of an electronic database of women of color Web sites. My argument about the importance of revealing and connecting voices emerges with the help of a variety of works by Chicana feminists and Chicana and Anglo psychologists: Anna Nieto-Gómez, Chéla Sandoval, Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, Aida Hurtado, Estela Portillo-Trambley, Robert Kegan, Mary Field Belenky, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule. The project consists of five chapters: chapter 1, “In Search of Chicana Lesbian Voices,” chapter 2, "The Weave of Women’s Writings in the Chicano Movement: Gender Struggles and Discursive Practices," chapter 3, "Tongues Untied: This Bridge Called My Back," chapter 4, "CONNECTed Voices: Chicanas and Women of Color Feminism, " chapter 5, "Epilogue: The Future of Chicana Feminist Writing on the World-Wide-Web."