Emerging feminism(s): El Teatro de las Chicanas and Chicana feminist identity development

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-103)This thesis will explore the ways in which Chicanas voiced and performed an emerging Chicana feminist consciousness through artistic expressions as members of El Teatro de las Chicanas. The emergence of a Chicana feminist identity is explored through archival analysis, interviews and participant observation. The plays and performances of El Teatro de las Chicanas serve as an important component in researching the ways in which Chicanas voiced and performed a Chicana feminist identity. This study is contextualized within the social and political milieu of the 1960s and 1970s, a period of time in which Chicanas and Chicanos began entering institutions of higher education and became involved in political movements toward social justice like the Chicano Movement, the Anti-War movement and the farm worker movement. Although many teatro groups emerged at the time of the Chicano Movement, the existence of El Teatro de las Chicanas- an all female, woman-centered teatro group--is particularly significant in documenting the emergence of a Chicana feminist consciousness