Holistic Consciousness in Chicana Feminist Thought

Abstract

As Holism has evolved as a new area of perception, analysis and approach different sets of disciplines become involved in it to come up with new visions and thoughts. In this realm, feminist studies with their various tendencies and concerns share certain principles, yet they differ in others. Chicana feminism, as the construction of feminist aims of the Mexican American women, embraces new concepts and views towards the assertion of the colored woman identity who is different from the white/Anglo American woman. The call for the building up of such a consciousness carries within much cultural heritage. Within this spectrum lies our interest in Chicana consciousness that connects folklore, myth, spiritualism and folk belief. The underlying of such a thought embraces a holistic consciousness that lies within Chicana thought and writings. Along this paper, I am going to unfold the aspects of this holistic phenomenon in Chicana feminism through some examples of Chicana writings. Through the analysis of some examples of Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera as well as other Chicana feminist writers and thinkers I will use a feminist perspective that will reveal this holistic feminist consciousness more clearly. My aims, by the end of this scrutiny, are to come up to the conclusion that the holistic consciousness inherent in the Chicana writings and thought has to address the white Anglo American society and to deconstruct it from within. Chicana feminism is in itself a resistance tool against the mainstream culture and the Western ideals.