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• 1 2018-01-05T17:08:28+00:00 Adelante Mujer and Kids Rights 2 plain 2018-01-19T02:02:44+00:00 It was at this meeting I became a Chicana, at 12 and very unhappy about the length of my day, sleeping on a set of plastic chairs, deciding at an hour when I should have been in bed, marching up to the stage, standing at the microphone in front of my small audience of women cleaning and meeting, to make demands for kids rights. My mother, Rhea, mortified at my display of rebellion gave me that look only Chicana mothers can give, that says “siguele.” Loosely translated and in polite language, “wait until we get in the car and you are going to get a tongue lashing you can’t even imagine if I don’t beat your behind before and after!” Martha, the universal mediator of mothers and daughters, laughed and said “aye, mira la ninita—hechale! Fight for your rights!” Everyone laughed and it did break up the meeting—we left soon after.
  
  In the car, knowing I was in for it, I waited in the back seat. I knew Aunt Ernestine, one of my mother’s oldest friends was no protection from the onslaught—momma would had taken me down in front of her comadres and with their blessing. I waited, but during the two hour car ride back to Chicago, nothing was said about my outburst. In a way I suspect my mother was secretly proud that my little speech seemed well constructed—that I had demonstrated some interest in what she was doing. All of us were children dragged along in the rushing shove of the movement, with absolutely no inclination towards what our iconic parents had taken on. They were public people--in the news every other day, at rallies, meetings, challenging the status quo, criticized by community, family, friends. We were none of those things, living through pubescent and teenage years when the last thing you want to be is noticed, much less a rebel.