Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez: A Tribute

Abstract

Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez:A Tribute Sarah M. Quesada (bio) and Maylei Blackwell (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Portrait of a young Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez, by Melanie Cervantes, Dignidad Rebelde. [End Page 996] Long before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned red lipstick into a political statement, Elizabeth "Betita" Sutherland Martínez donned it as a badge of audacity. After all, Martínez epitomized the unapologetic scholar-activist for Chicano studies and the world. A legendary advocate and Chicana journalist, she often appeared on the front lines battling on behalf of numerous causes, from access to reproductive health care to racial justice, to equal rights in an early antiglobalization movement. From the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to supporting African decolonization at the UN, to fighting for Latinx workers' rights during the global shift to neoliberalism, hers was a legacy of multiracial, feminist, and internationalist solidarity. Ninety-five years after her birth, Martínez succumbed to vascular dementia and passed away on June 29, 2021, in San Francisco, California. While her physical presence has vanished, her legacy could not be more enduring. Martínez's lifetime of writing, organizing, teaching, and inclusive militancy creates a framework for American studies that this tribute seeks to highlight. In particular, her additional roles as a social movement knowledge holder and historian, a committed mentor and a bridge to youth activists, a women of color feminist, and a prolific documentarian underscore lessons learned from her lifetime that serve as an antidote to and an inspiration for a troubling present era. Reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the twenty-first century has seen the rise of totalitarianism in Russia, China, and the United States, the latter via the growth of Trumpism. The related proliferation of white supremacist movements and a virulent anti-immigrant hatred have fueled an unbridled epidemic of racially motivated gun violence and threats to women's rights. But Martínez's legacy provides a framework for scholar-activists to address these challenges with an inclusive platform modeled after her commitments to social justice and her radical democratic thinking in the face of despair and uncertainty. One of the Chicano Movement's most powerful thinkers and prolific writers, Martínez understood well the legacies of coloniality. In a truly Fanonian fashion, she perceived the legacies of colonial [End Page 997] power as equally affecting both domestic and international communities of color. Likewise, she heeded the urgency of organizing against patriarchal and white-dominated organizations to effect equality for women, especially those of color. Finally, she believed in the need to write resistance into the archive, passionately documenting the plight of others so that we might all follow in the activists' footsteps. This tribute provides insight into Martínez's exemplary written legacy and untiring resistance. After all, those who knew her can still hear her chanting against foreign intervention in "Raza Sí, Guerra No!" For those who did not know her, this tribute provides an access point to that legacy. The contributions in this forum feature the intricacies of Martínez's internationalism, her multigenerational activism and multiracial feminism, as well as the foundational role of her memory work for social change. We examine these three pillars of her life's work mainly chronologically and thus start from the beginning years of Martínez's life. Racial and Internationalist Solidarities Elizabeth "Betita" Sutherland Martínez was born in 1925 in Washington, DC, to a Mexican immigrant father who was a diplomat and later a Georgetown literature professor, and an Anglo mother who was a high school Spanish teacher. Raised bicultural and bilingual, her dual identity is reflective of a painful in-betweenness that marked her identity. The forms of exclusion and relative privileges of being biracial while growing up in a segregated, whites-only Maryland suburb can be seen in her nom de plume. She first used her mother's maiden name, "Liz Sutherland," as she came of age as a writer and journalist in the Jim Crow era, later adopting "Betita Martínez," as part of the Civil Rights Movement and her lifelong commitment to racial, economic, and gender justice.1 While her life journey...