Mapping Everyday Mexicana/Chicana Political Organizing in the Texas and Arizona Borderlands examines the historical and contemporary contours of women's grassroots organizing. The project is a digital and oral history that examines Mexican American women's political participation using the concept of cultural citizenship to articulate an expansive yet grounded politics of citizenship. We conduct research in two borderland regions-the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and the Southern Arizona area of Tucson and its surrounding communities. Both regions have a long history of Mexican American political activism, and as conservative and/or swing states, Mexican/Mexican American community organizers have mobilized around broad and persistent issues such as gerrymandering, racial profiling, and border militarization.

Research Goals

• Explores how women have relied on extensive kinship and family networks to increase engagement with electoral politics and beyond within Latinx communities in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

• Examines the radical or issues-based women activists organizing outside the realm of electoral politics who have shaped discourse and influenced politics and policy at the local, state, and national levels.

Research Questions

• How have Mexicanas and Chicanas conceptualized citizenship in their daily lives?

• What strategies and tactics have women organizers in the borderlands used to fight against and transform political and economic structures?

• How do women utilize personal relationships -kinship and community networks- to create and sustain political mobilization?

• How has Mexican American political participation, especially women's engagement, been described/characterized historically?

• How has women's organizing in electoral and non-electoral politics influenced each other?

• How have the border regions of South Texas and southern Arizona influenced women's political organizing historically and in the present

  To answer these questions, we utilize an interdisciplinary approach that includes archival research, oral history and the collection of ephemera (e.g., political flyers, campaign photos, newspaper clippings).