Brainstorm Week 10 - Elena Orlando

Feministas in the borderlands organize community because this country was built on the enslavement of African people, the genocide and dispossession of Native folks, and the exploitation of immigrant labor. O.V.A.S. Psychos, a collective of radical womxn in LA organize from the belief that Womxn of color and the land are interchangeable, “both continue to be simultaneously exploited, occupied and raped within patriarchal societies, specifically by the foreign power structures of white supremacy” (https://ovarianpsycos.com/her-story/). The resilient practices we have learned over the course of this quarter recognize the ways in which the well-being of womxn is inextricable from the health of Mother Earth.The reclamation of ancestral knowledge in the present by collectives such as O.V.A.S. Psychos, is a process feministas engage in to invision liberatory futures.  O.V.A.S. Psychos also writes that “healing our communities by addressing pertinent issues no longer feels sincere nor is it an adequate nor appropriate response. We will learn tactics, build strategy and in the process find our purpose..accepting that we may or may not ever heal.” This statement encapsulates the ideas that many other Chicanas have articulated and speaks to the fact that healing and action are both necessary in the fight for liberatory futures. 

Supporting and lifting up young people is also central to creating liberatory paths forward. Chicas Rockeras is a “summer camp [that] endeavours to provide a ‘safe transformative space’ where girls can break the confines of gender stereotyped behaviours by participating in musical idioms (e.g. rock, punk), in the context of communal growth” (Scwartz 49). Encouraging young womxn to express themselves and expand what their belief in that they are capable of, is essential to collective and self healing. Alice Bag describes this camp as a space where young womxn can “make themselves big,” yelling and expressing themselves in an environment that does not reify constrictive gender norms (Ampersand 2:17). In the context of a patriarchal and white supremacist nation, creating spaces of healing and expansion is revolutionary. The healing and encouragement of imagination and creativity within spaces such as Chicas Rockeras connects to larger actions.