M ´ ONICA RUSSEL Y RODR ´ IGUEZ Northwestern University Accounting for MeXicana feminisms ABSTRACT In this article, I interrogate the iconic Mexican mother–wife image and practices of feminism of primarily U. S.-born, Mexicanas–Chicanas (MeXicanas). I anchor disempowering discourses about MeXicana motherhood as subordinate and problematic outside the family, but I look closely within the family context to see how the mother–wife image appears, becomes sustained, and is subverted. I argue for more than the fact of resistance to this image: for a range of practices (“differential movidas”) that, in an ethnographic context, are used to dismantle it. I conclude that, through differential movidas, MeXicanas rework stereotypical ideas despite moments that seem to sustain them. [Chicana, Mexican American, feminism, stereotypes, subjectivity, differential movidas] L ena Reyes, age 35, is a part-time artist and part-time telemarketer, earning something in the range of $10,000 a year. 1 Saddled with increasing debt from educational loans, Lena is also a student, registered at a private technical college in a program to become a certified English–Spanish court translator. Previously, she had worked toward an associate’s degree at various community colleges “off and on for 10 to 15 years.” Education has been important to her, but it has not been the means for her to achieve the economic stability that she has needed. Umpteen colleges have taken her tuition money but regarded her as outside their purview, as she is not a normative student. Her family has taken her domestic contributions for granted and has not supported her in- terests. In her family, womanhood has been cast as restrictive, a view clearly endorsed by her father, her husband, and her son and upheld not infre- quently through violence. Born in San Diego, California, and raised there and in Tijuana, Mexico, Lena was married at 17, although she is now di- vorced. Lena has a son who is himself now 17 and the father of three. She talks about her son’s girlfriend, Sandra, who is the mother of one of her grandsons: “Sandra [sighs]. Well, you know, she’s 18. I don’t let out on her. I treat her more like a daughter. ... I tell her about my experiences. How hard it was for me to realize that I didn’t need to have a man or anyone in my life to be who I am. That I can be who I am within myself.” Lena’s battles have in many ways been more extreme than those of others, but she has fought them insightfully and at great cost. Lena has sought out, forged, and shared alternatives to the restrictions placed on her. Enumerating MeXicana feminist subjectivities Lena and other women in my research express qualities and behave in ways that are not usually attributed to working-class MeXicanas but should be. 2 They exhibit feminist ideals and sensibilities, (re)define family, name terms of social justice, and pass on lessons of women’s power. In Euro- American families, women may be anticipated, even expected, to express these attributes, as they are thought to be positioned to more freely address AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 308–320, ISSN 0094-0496, online ISSN 1548-1425. C  2008 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.2008.1548-1425.00037.x