Week 2 Response - Zahra McKee

These readings highlighted how the Chicano and Chicana rights movements were led and organized primarily by everyday people who had strong personal reasons to become involved. Alice Bag's recount of the August 1970 Chicano Moratorium protest documents this well, as in her own personal experience, her family was "expecting a parade, but there were just a lot of everyday-looking people: mothers, fathers, kids and students" (2). She furthers this point, by discussing the Chicano/Chicana community coming together for their fellow people in her song "White Justice" saying "my neighbor and her children came, no one could stay away" (0:43). This experience in Alice Bag's life was obviously very impactful on her, such that she has created a story and song on the topic. Art is a very healing way to process experiences for others to consume and connect with, which makes it a great element of social movements. Additionally, art is accessible to all, regardless of education, due to all of the different ways you can express yourself. This lack of barrier and the strong pathos of art make it really effective to expanding your movement and including more voices. The young women of Hijas de Cuauhtemoc also represent the art being made as a way to further social movements. Despite not having formal training, these women harnessed their own creativity to make art in the form of rap and their newspapers. In Maylei Blackwell's "Chicana Power", Corinne Sanchez describes how their rap group "grew to a very powerful group in the sense that we were being heard more than the men outside of Long Beach State. It's not that we started off as a rap group; it just evolved from our involvement" (83-84). The do-it-yourself nature of art means that it aligns well with the self-motivated aspect of community organized social movements, like the Chicano movement.