Elizabeth Martinez quotes

...it's just another front in the battle against racism. And that's what it was, because New Mexico was much more colonial than any other area, but it was all the same damn racism. And so I never felt like I was breaking any life pattern; I was just shifting to another front.... (Elizabeth Martinez)
The problem of locating photos often confirms the indifference to women's presence in history, as reflected in the media, books, historical records, museums, university libraries. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
We need to see how dance, music, theater, art, poetry, are major arenas for alliance-building, especially among youth. Culture can usher in new visions. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
To build unity requires recognizing the central role of young activists. They are vigorously fighting the attack on this century's Reconstruction. Their anger at today's ugly society often translates into a passionate drive for unity across color lines. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
In the early 1900s, while colonization continued, the original Mexican population of the Southwest was greatly increased by an immigration the continues today. This combination of centuries-old roots and relatively new ones gives the Mexican-American people a rich and varied cultural heritage. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
Looking over the past two decades, we see close ties between gender-related attitudes and political ideology. A law seems to exist that sexism and heterosexism almost always travel alongside reactionary types of nationalism. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
The articulation of concerns common to almost all women, such as health, child care, domestic violence, rape and reproductive rights, is much more frequent than it was two decades ago. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
The Civil Rights Movement was not an event; it is a process and it goes on. Process says one should learn the language of youth, respect them without glorifying them, take a long look at what we could have done better and pass the lessons along. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
One of the most serious obstacles to genuine diversification is that on most campuses the faculty remains lily-white and male. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
Linking the national identity with race is not unique to the United States. National identity always requires an "other" to define it. But this country has linked its identity with race to an extraordinary degree, matched only by two other settler states: South Africa and Israel. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
The real concern of anti-diversity warriors is not with the introduction of politics but with the wrong kind of politics. They want literature to serve a very political function indeed: to sustain, not criticize, the status quo. (Elizabeth Martinez)
... I had my own personal experiences with prejudice. I was the only child of color in primary school, junior high and high school. I went through all those years feeling like a freak in one all-white school after the other. The family next door wouldn't let their daughter play with me because I was Mexican. I got on a bus once in D.C. with my father, who was very dark, and they told us to go to the back of the bus, where black people had to sit in those years. All this created in me a feeling of empathy and solidarity with people of color and formed the roots of my commitment to fighting for social justice and against racism. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
The voices of the grassroots, of people like Fannie Lou Hamer, must always be heard if we are to understand the past and move effectively toward the future. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
All over the country today, La Raza is in motion. A spirit of awakening runs through the big city barrios, small towns, colleges and universities, the countryside. Our people are refusing to be filled with shame any longer, they are refusing to be oppressed, they are demanding liberation and a decent life...They are working on problems like working conditions and pay, education, welfare rights, housing, child care, police brutality. They are forming groups of women with names like Las Chicanas and Las Adelitas. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
That is the true Raza tradition, a communal tradition. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
revolution means turning things upside down and taking another look at what is taken for granted. So revolution means new ideas about relations between men and women, too. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
The Chicana may be working 16 hours a day to support for her children, but she will still be viewed as a sexual object rather than a human being. Unless she is over the age of 35 or 40, she will be seen more as a face and body than as a fellow worker and fellow victim of oppression. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
The truth is that we need to reexamine and redefine our culture. Some of us do not believe that in our culture, femininity has always meant: weak, passive delicate looking... in other words, qualities that inflate the male ego. The women of La Raza is traditionally a fighter and revolutionary. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
Up to now, the U.S. women's liberation movement has been mainly concerned with sexism and ignored or denied the importance of racism. For the Chicana, the three types of oppression cannot be separated. They are all a part of the same system, they are three faces of the same enemy. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
Let us all remember: history makes us and we the people make history. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
Ask almost anyone outside of academia to name famous US women of Mexican origin and you will probably hear ‘Dolores Huerta.' If the person knows our contemporary writers, maybe ‘Sandra Cisneros' and ‘Ana Castillo.' If you ask for a name from earlier times, you might get ‘Sor Juana'-the rebel nun of the 1600's. When you try to dig deeper, your companion may whimper, ‘I give up! Well...there's the Virgin of Guadalupe, she's on a lot of T-shirts. It was inevitable, then, that the need for a book like this would be recognized. (Elizabeth Martinez)
Cornel West, the African American philosopher and writer, spoke recently in San Francisco talking about the importance of linkages. For example, he said gay and lesbian rights are an issue in the African American community. They aren't separate, outside of the community. Just because the issue is not welfare, or racism, or gangs, that doesn't mean it's not a Black community issue. I think that's a very useful and important way to look at things. I know a lot of Latinos wouldn't agree that gay and lesbian rights are a Latino issue. But we need to work for this understanding and make it clear that the issue is not a problem for a bunch of people outside the Latino community who happen to be gay or lesbian. It's inside our community. Taking that kind of position is the only way that in fact makes sense. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
Lucy Parsons never stopped working for the revolution to end the oppressive capitalist system. It could come only through a well-organized workers' movement, she said, which would take over the factories, all the means of production. Repeatedly imprisoned for her work, she saw free speech as crucial...Lucy was a warrior woman of unlimited courage and commitment. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
Enriqueta Vasquez's column "Despierten! Hermanos" became known for its eloquent efforts to combat sexism within the movimiento while also working for an anti-colonial liberation to benefit all Raza. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez
I didn't want to be ahead, I wanted to be with the people in the moment. But, you end up being ahead because you're different. That's the irony of it. View quote
Elizabeth Martinez