Reclamation: A Feminist Genealogy of the Cultural Symbols of the Chicana Feminist Movement

This thesis will explore two significant cultural symbols of Mexican-American/Chicano culture: La Malinche and the Virgin of Guadalupe [La Virgen de Guadalupe]. The Chicana Feminist Movement, a notable women of color feminist movement, is considered to have been created and most active in the 1960s-1980s era of the United States. An examination will be conducted on how the two cultural symbols, La Malinche and La Virgen de Guadalupe, have impacted the creation and development of the Chicana Feminist Movement during the ‘hey day’ of the movement, 1960s-1980s. A theoretical framework encompassing a broader cultural theory will be used in addition to feminist postcolonial theory, and the theory of intersectionality. This will be coupled with a feminist genealogical methodological approach that focuses on the changing conceptualizations of the analysis materials, revealing the intricate connections made between the movement’s development and the re-analyzation and re-historicizing of the two cultural symbols. Through this complex approach, a central argument will be made that both symbols, but predominantly La Malinche, aided in creating and establishing a developing Chicana feminist consciousness that was then used to tackle the multi-oppressed lives of many Chicana feminists.