Yxta Maya Murray's Locas (1997): and What about Chicana Barrio Adolescents?.

Abstract

The Chicano Movement that emerged in the decade of the sixties and continued in the subsequent years, served as an incredibly effective means to proclaim and demand the rights of this silenced community in the eyes of mainstream, accommodated U.S. society, and, most importantly, to raise the social, cultural and ethnic consciousness of those who shaped the group that had been labelled as “Mexican-American”. Subsequently, the feminist Chicana Movement fought for the recognition of the silent existence of the female community within the group and mainstream society. However, at the advent of the 21st century, there exists a group of young women who still experience the difficult social and personal situation that living in a marginal position provokes. Some young women in the barrios, such as the ones portrayed in Yxta Maya Murray’s Locas (1997), opt for joining the “wild life”, in an attempt to survive and exist in the face of adversity.