“This is our home!” Chicana Oral Histories: (Story)Telling Life, Love and Identity in the Midwest A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Kandace J. Creel IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Edén E. Torres December 2010 © Kandace J. Creel 2010 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements This project could not have come to fruition without the assistance of colleagues, friends, and family. I am indebted to all of those who believed in me and encouraged me to continue with my studies. In particular I must acknowledge the eight women that so graciously gave me their time and entrusted me with their stories. Mama, Estella Falcon Creel, this is really your dissertation, without your stories this would have never come to existence. My Kansas familia, Aunt Lilly Falcon Rider, Aunt Gloria Falcon Madrid, Aunt Cindy Perez Falcon, thank you for allowing me to see you in your most vulnerable moments. You have all taught me the value in preserving our stories, and the continued importance of familia. Margaret Perez, your invitation to your home and into your life enabled me to better understand the experiences of my abuela’s generation and to forge even closer relationships with your children – I sincerely thank you for that. For the amazing women of Minnesota – Martha Castañon, your enthusiasm and flowing storytelling inspires me. Teresa Ortiz your activist commitments and ability to play with words astounds me. Guadalupe Morales your generous spirit and warm hugs support me. All of your stories have touched my life in multiple ways, and I am forever grateful for your oral histories. I must also thank many academic mentors that have guided my success at the University of Minnesota. Edén Torres, my advisor, confidante, and friend – your mentorship is truly a precious gift. I know this project would not be what it is without your support and guidance and I would not have survived this experience without you. You are mi tortuga who steers me through turbulent waters and anchors me within the academy. To Louis Mendoza, thank you for your willingness to always step in and provide thoughtful feedback and encouragement. I know my work is better because of you. To Richa Nagar, your ideas on feminist praxis and storytelling influence so much of my work here. Thank you for your kind words and for helping me continue to forge new collaborations and seek new/shared audiences. And to Bianet Castellaños and Lori B. Rodriguez, mil gracias for your expertise and commitment to my success. To my mentor and friend, Ilene Alexander, thank you for reading my work, but more importantly talking over our work in our fun and engaging gatherings. My feminist pedagogy and writing skills have grown under your guidance. Sara Puotinen has also provided mentorship and assistance at every stage of this academic project; thank you for all of your support, you know exactly what to say when I need to hear it. The Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has my deep gratitude for funding the majority of my oral history research. And of course to my friend Nathan Tylutki, who had the toughest job of all – listening to me complain about the process while also dealing with my grammatical issues. Thank you sincerely for your careful reading and editing of this document. To the many mujeres who have helped me with my writing, in particular to the women of the Kitchen Table Collective: Women of Color Writers, I sincerely thank you. In i particular my prima Alexandra Mendoza Covarrubias, thank you for being a wonderful friend and careful reader of my work. My friend Rachel Raimist is always there with an encouraging word. I needed our frequent calls and chats more than you know; your ideas on organization have strengthened this dissertation. SooJin Pate, thank you for pushing me to make my ideas and writing more clear, and of course for the many readings of my chapter drafts. To Lori Young-Williams and Sherry Quan Lee, thank you for helping me to uncover my creative writer voice, all of my writing projects are better now that our paths have crossed. Thank you to my hermanitas – Kelcie R. Creel and Kynsey M. Creel – you have inspired me in unimaginable ways, I write for us. And of course, last but not least, thank you Andrea Nordick for your partnership and your support throughout this process. Your love and encouragement always remind me why I do what I do. ii Dedication For all Chicana storytellers who make this work possible, who bravely speak their lives and especially mi mamá – la estrella which guides me, Estellita. and For my Aunt Cindy (1958-2009) whose stories continue to live in my heart. iii Abstract Tracing the lives of eight Midwestern Mexican American women, my dissertation interrogates the role of stories and storytelling in familial relationships and community building. I engage with Chicana feminist understandings of identity through these Midwestern Chicanas’ stories of growing up in the Midwest (in the 60s and 70s) and their lives as women – while paying particular attention to the intersectional categories of gender, race, class and sexuality. Chapter One situates a “mestiza methodology” and the process of collecting oral histories with three women who are immediately related to me and five who are not. My research approach infuses and shapes the theory through which I write and interpret lives. It blurs the boundaries between autoethnography, oral history, testimonio, and storytelling in order to uncover the moments when women’s words become empowered messages for other Chicana/os. Weaving in women’s stories, Chapter Two looks closely at Gloria Anzaldúa’s conceptualization of the borderlands (as an in-between space of creative strategies for survival and affirmation) in relation to Midwestern Mexican American woman’s experiences. By situating Anzaldúa’s metaphorical borderlands/la frontera in the Midwest (Kansas and Minnesota), I argue that while the physical border may be miles away the cultural clashes and borders that exist due to isolation, racism, and initially small communities of color have nevertheless mapped the borderland onto Chicanas in the Midwest. In imagining Anzaldúa’s framework of la frontera as a dynamic space of transition and creation within the geography of the Midwest we see how Mexican American identities made in this context are full of opportunities for re-envisioning politicized identities (mestiza consciousness) iv through the firm planting of roots, self-definition, and claiming an alienating space as home. Chapter Three explores the themes of family that emerge out of these women’s testimonies. I read their commitment to family in the stories they tell about their lives as indicative of needing to find places where they can fully be themselves, even if the family can sometimes be a site of pain. This pain and a need for family become mutually constituted for some women in this context. I also link the family to the messages that these women receive about sexuality under the theoretical framing of “silence” around sexual issues. Through uncovering the complicated understandings of silence in relation to Chicana sexuality I explore how these women often resist the gendered roles they might feel constrained by in order to move the reader to think about their actions as underground feminist acts. Lastly, the conclusion synthesizes these eight Midwestern Chicana voices around the theme of storytelling. It reiterates the importance and value of the family and how storytelling has created community and served as a means to pass on important cultural knowledge. In thinking about the bonds that women specifically build through storytelling I characterize the sharing of stories for these greater purposes as actos de amor, (acts of love). I assert that through dissolving the strict borders between ethnography and oral history, or testimonio and storytelling we can write Midwestern Chicanas into larger histories and explore alternative meanings of feminist identities in these geographic places far from the U.S./Mexico border. v Table of Contents Acknowledgments.……….………………………………………………………………..i Dedication……………………………...…………………………………………………iii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iv List of Tables ……………………………...……………………………………………viii Prologue: Knowing Myself So as to Know Others: A Chicana Journey………………….1 I am the Story Part I: This is a Story about Stories……………………………………...11 Introduction: Sowing Seeds for Future “Fields”: Hablando in Elevators and Other Midwestern Chicana Feminist Values…………………………………….12 Situating my Project within the Fields of Women’s Studies and Chicana/o Studies, 13 A Note About Terminology, 28 Talking in Elevators and Other “Midwestern Values,” 33 Mande? Asking Questions and Gathering Answers, 38 Listening to Stories/Writing Our Narratives, 47 I am the Story Part II: Los Cucumbres…………………………………………………..56 Chapter 1: Exploring Intimacies in Chicana Oral History Collection: A Mestiza Methodology……………………………………………………..57 1.1 My Story is not Mine Alone, 60 1.2 Defining My Mestiza Methodology, 62 1.3 Understanding Women’s Bonds: Intimacies of Chicana Relationships, 69 1.4 Mestiza Methodology as Embodied Research: Intimate Settings for Intimate Connections, 76 1.5 Intimate Knowledges – Pain and Loss in Life and Research, 80 1.6 The Place of Testimonio in Oral History Research, 87 I am the Story Part III: Home is Where the Heart Lies……………………………….…96 vi Chapter 2: Planting Roots and