Introduction: Motherhood as a Feminist Discursive Space

Abstract

Mexican women at the beginning of the twentieth century spoke and wrote about the Revolution. They also fought for labor rights and women’s rights in Mexico and in the U.S. Their voices were loud. And they were clear. Yet, we have lost track of them and still believe in the mythological constructs of Mexican femininity: the passive Virgin of Guadalupe; or the terrible mothers, Malinche and Llorona. I propose that it is precisely through motherhood, an affective and therefore effective cultural space, that Nellie Campobello, Juana Belén Gutierrez de Mendoza, Sara Estela Ramirez, and Andrea Villarreal González claim their roles as historians, single mothers, political voices, and/or simply their right to be, to exist beyond assigned roles of femininity that erase them and their contributions.