Hijas de Cuauhtémoc was a student Chicana feminist newspaper founded in 1971 by Anna Nieto-Gómez and Adelaida Castillo while both were students at California State University, Long Beach.
The Chicana movement
Between 1970 and 1980, the Chicana feminist movement developed in the United States to address the particular issues that concern Chicanas as women of color. This movement developed out of the Chicano student's movement. The Chicano movement centered on a wide range of matters: social justice, equality, educational reforms, and political and economic self-determination for Chicano communities in the United States. In the same way that Chicano males were questioning the historical and contemporary realities of Chicanos in the US, Chicanas established to investigate the oppressions forming their own experiences as women of color. Chicana/o studies professor Maylei Blackwel has written that the student's newspaper Hijas de Cuauhtémoc was a vital part of the uprising Chicana movement.
Founding
Anna Nieto-Gómez, co-founder of the Hijas de Cuauhtemoc newspaper, found her inspiration from a book written by Fredrick Turner that highlighted a Mexican Revolutionary group named the same. She said that "We were motivated to start Hijas because chicana contemporaries were experiencing sexual harassment within chicano movement. [...] Male leadership seeking freedom and civil rights for himself and not for the included chicanas." Anna Nieto-Gómez was exposed discrimination at a very early age, and from those experiences, she wanted to fight for the right against discrimination and sexism. She felt that the Feminist movement was a part of their Chicana history. While working as a counselor and instructor at California State University Long Beach, she mentored and organized Chicana undergraduates. As an outcome of that organization process, they published Hijas de Cuauhtémoc. Besides Anna NietoGomez, Cindy Honesto, Marta López, Corinne Sánchez, Adelaida R. Del Castillo and Sylvia Castillo are the founders and chief editors of Hijas de Cuauhtémoc. The group Hijas de Cuauhtémoc became a way for women in the Chicana/o movement to organize collectively. They were able to express their experience as young, working-class Chicanas and to address issues that were ignored in the student's movement like for example their critique about machismo in the Chicano movement. The student newspaper presented new forms of feminism as they started the dialogue about the intersection of class and race. These concepts were presented through an "innovative mixed-genre format that was equal parts journalism, poetry, photography, art, social critique, recovered women history, and political manifesto". It involved economic and social issues, political consciousness and Mexicana/Chicana history. Moreover, it provided space for many young activists to express their own political insights and visions".
Support
To print the first issue, the newspaper received financial support from a Norwalk Mutualista society, a tradition of Mexican migrant communities. In contrast to the support group, other Chicano men, especially Chicanos in the sphere of the Chicano newspaper El Alacrán were less supportive of the arising of a feminist Chicana newspaper.
Goal
The newspaper stated that its goal was to "inform Chicana about herself through history by reporting Chicanas political activities in the communities and by educating her to socioeconomic conditions that she must deal with as a woman in a minority culture of an oppressive society."
Content
The issues covered subjects like sterilization and reproduction health, welfare and labor rights, employment and gender discrimination, access to health care, Chicana incarceration, family and cultural roles, along with sexism, sexual politics and women's role in the movement.
Overall the paper encouraged Chicanas to complete their education by providing them with a support group, an organizational tool, and a forum for addressing their concerns as women. Moreover," the newspaper was a vehicle for regional communication where Chicanas spread information about their political activities, campus issues, Mexican history, the growth of Chicana feminism, women in prison, role of women in the movement and a struggle against sexism and sexual politics". Besides working on the issues, members of Hijas de Cuauhtémoc participated in Community organizations and made links among other Chicana groups such as the La Raza Community Center in Eastside Long Beach, the UFW's grape boycott and Teatro Campesino.