Chicana

Chicana is a term used in the United States to describe a woman of Mexican origin or descent, commonly a Mexican American woman who identifies with the social, political, and cultural experiences of Mexican communities in the United States. It is the feminine form of Chicano and emerged in the 1960s and 1970s during the Chicano Movement as a claim of pride, political agency, and cultural self-definition. The term is often used alongside or in contrast with Latina or Mexican American, and its meaning can vary by speaker, community, and context.

Chicana activism has focused on civil rights, labor organizing, education reform, immigration policy, and gender equality, challenging both mainstream discrimination and sexism within the broader movement. Chicana feminism developed to address the needs and voices of women within the movement and later in its own right, drawing on concepts such as Gloria Anzaldúa’s mestiza consciousness and borderlands theory. Notable contributors include writers Gloria Anzaldúa and Sandra Cisneros, activists Dolores Huerta and Cherríe Moraga, and artists like Judy Baca and Ester Hernández, whose work has highlighted race, gender, and labor issues. Chicanas were integral to community organizing and education efforts and to labor movements within the United Farm Workers.

Chicana identity continues to influence literature, film, art, and scholarship and remains a site of ongoing negotiation of race, gender, class, and sexuality in the United States. Some people prefer terms such as Latina or Mexican American to emphasize broader heritage, while others affirm Chicana as a distinct stance within the larger Latino/a experience.