Awareness, consciousness, and resistance: Raced, classed, and gendered leadership interactions in Milagro County, California

Leadership Past and Present

Mainstream scholars as well as Chicano scholars have begun their studies of leadership by expounding upon the attributes, ascribed and assigned, and characteristics of the individual. Assumptions found within these leadership theories are functional and conflict oriented. Most leadership arguments assume pluralist and managerial theories for understanding.1 From these theoretical perspectives, leadership is perceived in terms of the individual.2 Within the individualistic framework of leadership, women or individuals with ethnic affiliations are assumed capable of accessing and amassing a power base if they are willing to seize the opportunity, which is theoretically available to anyone. At the same time, common assumption exists that these populations lack the necessary individualistic attributes for leadership, and thus miss out on leadership opportunities.

As with conventional studies of leadership, a myriad of theoretical perspectives from a variety of disciplines have been used to examine Chicano leaders and leadership. Many Chicano scholars have replicated a male argument in leadership research, marginalizing women or minimizing their activism by placing their analysis in the context of a male perspective.3 Evidence shows that women made significant contributions to the Chicano Movement, yet the exploits of Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzalez, Reies Tijerina, Jose Angel Gutierrez, and Cesar Chavez, commonly known as the four horsemen of the Chicano Movement, abound today, while female leadership remains overshadowed. In the present, as in the past, culture and domestic everyday activities remain the expected realm of women, and leadership exercised within this sphere tends to be neither recognized nor valued. Even Mario Garcia, in his most recent account of Mexican American leadership, places women in a male equation of gender, failing to address female leadership for its own value.4

In contrast, feminist theorists provide analyses that expand our current understanding of leadership.5 They have advanced leadership understandings beyond the public world of politics and exclusive gendered domains.6 For example, many Chicana scholars critique the limitations of the analyses of women's involvement in the movimiento.7 They argue that these limitations are due to women's subordination by way of labor division and invalidation based on gender assignment. I propose that an examination of race, class, and gender oppression, embedded in the tensions and struggles waged by women leaders in their quest for social change, the quest that characteristically locates women at the center of leadership, can yield a more complex and rich analysis.

Using thirteen sociohistorical ethnobiographies collected from 1992 to 1994, I examine the ways in which Chicanas used raced, classed, and gendered interactions to carry out their leadership or activism. I explore how the women internalized, understood, and negotiated leadership interactions, and how their experiences serve to illustrate a reflective awareness of their social locations. I propose that they used a relational leadership strategy to carry out social justice and social change agendas.8

The women began with the assumption that their gender influences how they are treated or perceived within their other social locations. Some Chicanas in this sample defined their leadership interactions within a female consciousness, while others expressed their involvement within a feminist frame of reference.9 Most participants rejected traditional notions of femininity, while some claimed a female consciousness. All framed their activism within their belief in justice, equality, and fairness, as understood through a multiplicity of social locations.

These activists and leaders used their knowledge of themselves, their respective social locations, and their social environments to gauge justice, equality, and fairness as they confronted issues embedded in their leadership interactions. Their recollected experiences with structures of inequality serve as a way to analyze Chicana leadership relationships.

The women in this study, whom I have identified with pseudonyms, have actively sought to create social change in Milagro County, through formal and informal leadership venues.10 They have worked as program directors, elected officials, grassroots organizers, and business owners to create institutions of change, administer educational institutions, and serve as educators.

Chicana/Latino leaders, with some exceptions, have not been recognized and have largely remained invisible within the dominant society.11 Yet, in matters of everyday life, these leaders have served as a source of empowerment and change for the Chicana/Latino community. Cesar Chavez raised the consciousness of the United States to the plight of farmworkers. In coalition with liberal idealistic leaders-Jews, middle-class Euro-Americans, Catholic nuns and priests, and students who were a prominent force in this alliance-Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Worker (UFW) members waged a struggle for human dignity and recognition of workers. Because Chavez fit traditional attributes of leadership, he was bestowed with recognition as a charismatic leader of a movement. To this day, Chavez is still considered a key and primary figure in the union's formation and evolution. On the other hand, Dolores Huerta, vice president of the UFW, a leader within the union since its inception and instrumental in contract negotiations, policy formulations, and boycott actions, has not received the recognition afforded Chavez.12 While a number of other Latino and Chicano men have received recognition as leaders by dominant and Raza communities, the contributions made by Chicana activists and leaders have been widely overlooked, with a few important exceptions.13 For the most part, the androcentric nature of the historical visibility of Chicano leadership and activism obscures Chicana leadership. While Ema Tenayuca and Luisa Moreno are noted for their progressive and union activism, and Josefina Fierro de Bright is recognized for her political involvement, notions of leadership are generally grounded on assumptions about a universal and male understanding of power and authority.14 The inclusion of these women leaders only serves to complement or illustrate the exploits of masculine leadership and activism. Strength, rationality, and decisiveness are some of the characteristics expected of a person, generally male, who exercises leadership or holds a position of power.15 These qualities often upstage contributions that Chicanas or Latinas bring into the leadership process, especially in their struggles to overcome the forces of racism, classism, and sexism or androcentrism.