Citation

RodrÍguez MNICARUSSELY. Am. Ethnol. 2008; 35(2): 308-320.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1548-1425.2008.00037.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In this article, I interrogate the iconic Mexican mother–wife image and practices of feminism of primarily U. S.-born, Mexicanas–Chicanas (MeXicanas). I anchor disempowering discourses about MeXicana motherhood as subordinate and problematic outside the family, but I look closely within the family context to see how the mother–wife image appears, becomes sustained, and is subverted. I argue for more than the fact of resistance to this image: for a range of practices (“differential movidas”) that, in an ethnographic context, are used to dismantle it. I conclude that, through differential movidas, MeXicanas rework stereotypical ideas despite moments that seem to sustain them. [Chicana, Mexican American, feminism, stereotypes, subjectivity, differential movidas]