Brainstorm Week 10 - Caroline Johnson

Feministas in the borderlands organize community in the present as they plant seeds for the future by bringing together their community to create strong women now that will pass on these skills and values to their own daughters and other women in the future. Everything they do works towards healing with their traumas and the history of their ancestors, to empower women in the future. These groups take all women who want to participate in creating a sustainable path towards a future with affinities within difference as they move towards emancipation. These women do not compare what they have gone through to try and say that one has suffered more, they work together to both overcome what they have struggled with to create a better future for both. In doing so all of these groups show practices of resilience that prepare for the health and well-being of the future. Two examples of such groups are Ovarian Psychos and Chicas Rockeras.

The organization Ovarian Psycos is a group of women of color who ride their bikes together and have a dialogue. All women are accepted here. This organization brings together healing and cycling as resilience practices by creating a space where all women of color are able to come together and discuss what they have gone through; while at the same time riding their bikes to create an empowering movement to move into the future. They also bring together different communities, by connecting these they follow the idea of affinities within differences. The group had multiple chants but one that I noticed was how they said “We have nothing to lose but our chains” (Frances 50:00). This group is not set back by any of the comments such as it being sexist. Maylei Blackwell explained how they manifest the punk idea of do it yourself and making gang symbols to be a symbol of empowerment. Many of these women have daughters of their own or reflect on their own experiences in being young girls and created this group to try and make these girls to not fear moving around their city, to change the future.

Another group that empowers women and is an example of how feministas in the borderlands are using what they have now to change and better the future is Chicas Rockeras. This camp allows women to learn an instrument and form a band for a performance all in a week. The skills this teaches in itself are very valuable; however, the idea that it is a punk camp is very valuable. For example, “Alice Bag says she wants the girls to feel self-confident and free” (Ampersand 2:10). Girls find their voice and power here. Before the camp girls are told to be small and quiet, but here they are told to do the opposite - to play loudly and reclaim their voices. The skills developed here transcend into all other parts of life. This camp is a form of Chicanxfuturism as it is empowering women for the future. This camp that Marin started is allowing these young girls to take the future into their own hands at a young age.