Intercultural Communication Studies XIV-3 2005 Groenewold Chicana Feminism: Self-Actualization Through Border Conscience

With the emergence of “marginal discourses ” meant to challenge and destabilize the dominant discourse as representative of human reality, marginalized voices from within these ostracized communities have begun to express their own theoretical frameworks and present an alternative premise for the speculation of otherness. Chicana feminism is one of these theoretical movements that are expressed from within and without sanctioned alternative discourses. The qualification of feminism according to cultural, socioeconomic and racial characteristics that shape the Chicana woman associates the Chicana with a male-centered social movement and theoretical discourse that seeks to subordinate her based on gender. The Chicana is mindful of the imposed oppression determined by her cultural allegiance, not only from the Anglo-dominated society in which she struggles to survive, but also that oppression inflicted upon her from within her culture of origin. The Chicana feminist’s identity is multiple. A hightened awareness of the various contributing factors that determine the Chicana’s marganilized status gives rise to a theory-based border conscience tha