La Hermandad and Chicanas Organizing: The Community Rhetoric of the Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional

Abstract

To address the need for situated accounts of community rhetoric, this article examines the legacy of the first Chicana feminist organization, the Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional ( CFMN ). The CFMN and their archival collection provide[d] Chicanas an education about how to interpret, be and act in the world. To invent a rhetorical identity, and an organization that makes change, the CFMN 1) invoked a remembering of a Chicana history of policy making to incite other Chicanas into political action, and 2) strategically drew on the use of the Chicana concept of “ La Hermandad” to define a particular Chicana method of collectivity.

“Allow Me to Speak”

“…Many Latinas in the United States are seen as the other, the object, the "minority." Based on the awareness of the experiences of women related to their politically disadvantaged positions in society, Chicanas aim to organize with others to contribute to political action and social change (Leon, 2012). Borrowed from black feminist scholarship, Collins' (1989) "multiple consciousness" and "oppositional consciousness" can be used to explain how women of color engage in defining who they are.…”