The gathering in San Francisco, July 7-9, 2006 could have never happened without the support of my family, the Mojicas. Las Mujeres were able to reunite after 27 years through the hard work and support demonstrated by my aunt and uncle, their children, grandchildren and significant others. Camille and Nichole Mojica hosted the working meeting on Saturday, [...]

Margaret Cruz is one of the few people you meet in this life that you remember forever. I remember vividly, being scared to death of Margaret when I first met her at 17 in Houston. She spoke to me in this booming voice tailored to traveling across a football field more than the inside of a hotel suite. ‘Young [...]

So being the proactive semi-retired activist mom can be she contact’s Jose Angel Gutierrez, former head of Partido Raza Unida and asks him about a young man that was filming the 1973 Party Convention in El Paso, Texas. Ruth, Lupe and Martha all attended the conference as delegates from the states of Texas, Illinois and [...]

I do remember when I first met Lupe in Houston, 1977. I had heard a lot about her from my mom prior to the IWY convention. They had collaborated on projects since 1972 when Lupe, Ruth, and Martha, were at the ‘Adelante Mujeres’ Women’s Conference sponsored by the Midwest Council of La Raza at Notre [...]

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I met with Lupe at UCLA. I got lost (even with Mapquest) and misjudged the traffic coming from Wesminster so I was late getting to the Chicano Studies Library. Once I found it, I was greeting with a sunny smile ’y un gran abrazo’ from Lupe. She and [...]

We drove through town to find Martha’s house, the three of us. Mom got a chance to know Katie in the car and by the time we found Martha’s house they were best buds. As I would begin to remember and Katie would begin to know, all the Chicanas I knew from that movement were mom’s first. No [...]

We spent four days in Austin Texas doing research on a timeline of events for the film and working with Martha Cotera at the U/T Austin Benson Latin American Collection. I took my dear friend and official still photographer, Kathryn Haviland with me. Mom, met us at the airport having flow in from El Paso. [...]

So I asked the women I had met in Houston if they would be interested in being a part of a dialog on their ten year collaborative effort in both the womens and chicano movements. I told them that their stories include the Chicana Caucus, the Partido Raza Unida, the Mexican American Political Organization, the [...]

So after I had this epiphany on the subway and I called mom to tell her about the rest of my new life, her first words (after she stopped chuckling) were ‘you’re going to need a mentor–call Virginia’. The Virginia she was referring to is Virginia Martinez, otra primera from the 70′s and still active [...]

Many of these womens stories include their involvement in Chicana Caucus in various forms, the National Women’s Political Caucus and the International Womens Year National Womens Conference in Houston 1977. I too have a perspective of those four days in Houston. I was there, as a seventeen year old administrative aide, knowing everything about life and what was [...]