"A Banquet for Women": Festival Overview
All the work we had done prior was really setting the stage. We already had all the relationships with agencies. We already knew what women wanted and we already knew what women were doing. So it was really just a formality to pull it together. -Diane Avila, Festival Coordinator
The Festival started with coordinator Diane Avila's idea to "set a table" and "offer a banquet of all this stuff for women at one time" (Interview May 25, 2022). It was organized in only a few months because it gathered together relationships that MLEA and the Festival organizers had developed over years. The Festival de Mujeres was remarkable for the ways it was organized, constructed, and staffed by Latinas with women allies of other backgrounds-- from building the stage to tabling to performing. What we know of the Festival from rare documents, film footage, audiotapes, photographs, and interviews provides an important window into Chicana, Mexicana, and Latina women’s organizing and feminisms in Chicago in the 1970s, including networks with Latinas of other ethnicities, White feminists, Black women, and lesbians.
It comes as no surprise to see such a groundbreaking feminist vision at a festival, long recognized as events removed from the everyday, where people and communities can "experiment with identity" and "articulat[e] identity politics" in ways that are less acceptable or stigmatized in ordinary days and spaces (Bennett and Woodward, "Festival Spaces," 11). Although the Festival organizers recall that it was "a very peaceful day," they also recount walking back and forth at the Festival like security, keeping watch on a day when Latinas boldly claimed a barrio street into the night.
Festival de Mujeres 1979 contributes to our understanding of MLEA based on the experiences of two young Pilsen activists on staff at a time when the organization (and many women's organizations) was young, worked at the grassroots with little funding, and was still defining what a Latina or woman's organization would be. The Festival also sheds more light Chicana feminisms beyond the West (Espinosa et al., Chicanas Movidas). This regional perspective is symbolized by the "Mexicana-Chicana" identity claimed by Diana Solís and some Chicago activists of her generation, representing a local movement that "acknowledges the participation of ethnically identified Mexicans and those who framed their identity at the intersection of two cultures and national experiences" (Ramírez et al., Chicanas of 18th Street, 18). Chicagoland has special importance as a site of Mexican immigration since the 1920s and the home of the second largest Mexican immigrant community after Los Angeles as of 2018 (Israel and Batalova "Mexican Immigrants in the United States"). The exhibit excavates the Festival roles of lesbians and women- loving-women who attended across a spectrum of publicly "out" to secretive. We understand that lesbians were present in Chicano movements and Chicana feminism from early days, strategically "negotiat[ing]" their identities over time (Espinosa et al., Chicanas Movidas, 5) so they could participate effectively and safely.
Like the Festival and much good women's work, this exhibit, part of a years long collaboration between myself and Pilsen teaching artist Diana Solís, was only possible with the contributions of many. Foremost are those individuals, families, and organizations who stored precious papers, photos, audiotapes, t-shirts, and posters from the Festival in basements, children's bedroom shelves, closets, and file cabinets for up to 40+ years because they knew this event was an important part of their lives and of Chicago and women's history. For more, see Credits page.
A word about terminologies: In this exhibit, we use the language of 1979 Chicago such as "Latino" and "Latina," the latter term used in the city since 1973 to express both "panethnic affinities" and gender solidarity (Fernández, Brown in the Windy City, 250). For example, although Diana Solís now identifies as "queer," we address lesbians and lesbian feminism of the time period.
-Hinda Seif, University of Illinois at Springfield
SOURCES
Bennett, Andy and Ian Woodward. (2014). "Festival spaces, identity, experience and belonging." In The Festivalization of Culture, edited by Jodie Taylor, Andy Bennett, & Ian Woodward, 11-27. Routledge, 2014.
Fernández, Lilia. Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Israel, Emma and Jeanne Batalova. Mexican Immigrants in the United States. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2020. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/mexican-immigrants-united-states-2019
Ramírez, Leonard, with Yenelli Flores, Maria Gamboa, Isaura Gonzáles, Victoria Pérez, Magda Ramírez-Castañeda, and Cristina Vital. Chicanas of 18th Street: Narratives of a Movement from Latino Chicago. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011.