Feeling Free: Festival Coordinator Diane Avila's Coda + Acknowledgements
I think we had a good time. We worked hard, we accomplished a lot of things. I think we grew. I remember those years just feeling unencumbered by expectations from all angles. From men, from the neighborhood, from feminism, from everything. I just felt very free, and I think that's what Mujeres offered to women of all ages. We were always, constantly exploring. And doing something. There was a real activism-- we acted. Diana, I remember you said we need a gallery. We didn't wait for a gallery. We need a gallery? Let's make one up! We need a food co-op? Let's make one. Whatever we we needed, I think we felt empowered to just make it ourselves and make it the way that we wanted it. -Diane Avila
Special thanks to the following, who are not responsible for any errors or omissions.
This project is supported by a grant-in-aid from the US Latino Digital Humanities program (USLDH) and the Mellon Foundation.
For more information about USLDH-Mellon grants-in-aid initiative at Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage/Arte Público Press, please visit: https://artepublicopress.com/recovery-program/grantsinaid/
USLDH staff Dr. Lorena Gauthereau, Dr. Carolina Villarroel, Dr. Gabriela Baeza-Ventura, and Dr. Linda García-Merchant, who was raised in and is dedicated to documenting Chicana feminisms of the Midwest and beyond.
Nicole Marroquín (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), who has led the effort to bring the photographic archives of Diana Solís to light, was in charge of preparing photos by Solís for the exhibit. Prof. Marroquín also guided me and others to rediscover the Festival de Mujeres and the Festival video by Eleanor Boyer and Karen Peugh.
Eleanor Boyer, Wayne Boyer, Karen Peugh, and Mediaburn Archives for documenting the Festival in 1979, making the Festival video publicly accessible on Media Burn, preserving this documentation, and sharing it with this project. Eleanor Boyer served as liaison for our access to materials, including digital images of Wayne Boyer's historic photographs that he prepared for this exhibit.
Festival coordinator Diane Avila and Jean Parisi, who located a very rare copy of the Festival program.
Sabbatical and research support from the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS) and feedback from UIS Professors Devin Hunter and Lynn Fisher.
The library-based and online achives, archivists, and museum curators who provided information and images: Morgen MacIntosh Hodgetts and the digitization team at DePaul University Library's Special Collections and Archives; curator Sarita Hernández; the National Museum of Mexican Art; Chicago History Museum; JD Doyle, Queer Music Heritage; Chicago Gay History and Tracy Baim; University of Michigan Library, Special Collections Research Center, Joseph A. Labadie Collection; Collections and University Archives, UIC Library; Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, Chicago Public Library; the African Activist Archive Project at Michigan State University; Library of Congress; National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution; Grand Valley State University Special Collections Young Lords in Lincoln Park Interviews; Gerber/Hart Library and Archives; and Kartemquin Films.