The Chicana M(other)work Anthology: Porque sin madres no hay revolución

Research Statement by Cecilia Caballero, Yvette Martinez-Vu, Judith Perez-Torres, Michelle Tellez, and Christine Vega

The Chicana M(other)work (CMW) collective is seeking funding to support the remaining work for our forthcoming book anthology, The Chicana M(other)work Anthology: Porque sin madres no hay revolución, under contract with the University of Arizona press. The CMW collective is a group of five Chicana mother-scholars across different universities and working within different positions in academia (e.g. graduate students, staff, professors). This anthology brings together emerging scholarship and testimonios written and created by self-identified Chicana and Women of Color mother-scholars and allies who center mothering as transformative labor through an intersectional lens. The introduction, collectively written by the CMW collective, theorizes “Chicana M(other)work” as a concept and project informed by our specific gendered, classed, and racialized experiences. Through CMW, we provide a framework for institutional transformation which makes feminized labor visible and prioritizes collective action and holistic healing to enact socially just futures for mother-scholars, our children, and our communities.

We are applying for funding for the indexing costs of the book and to complete revisions for our introductory chapter. Because we are are not tied to one particular institution, we have received very little institutional support and obtaining funding has been a challenge. We have a full draft of this anthology and have received positive reviews from the U of A press. We are under a tight schedule to finish the final draft by May 31, 2018. After the final draft is completed, we still have to index the book, which will be complete by the August 2018 Sabbatical Beauty timeframe. We also plan to use the 4-month period on outreach for our anthology, which will include an article on our CMW Blog and an episode on our CMW Podcastdedicated to providing a preview of our anthology to both academic and non-academic audiences. Funding for this project will ensure early outreach and on-time delivery and release of this anthology within the Feminist Wire book series in Spring 2019.

We believe this anthology will provide a significant contribution to literature on motherhood studies and women of color feminism because current scholarship around mothering in the academy centers on a White, middle-class, cisgender, and married perspective. It is important to note that according to recent research, working-class and first-generation Chicana and Women of Color mother-scholars are disproportionately negatively affected in academia, and they are either pushed out, exploited into unstable contingent positions, or pressured to assimilate in academic spaces that are hostile to mother-scholars of color.

This book is needed because we center our theory of CMW through naming these hostilities, resisting injustices, and uplifting Chicana and Women of Color Mother-scholars and allies within and beyond institutional spaces. We also dismantle the idea of mothering and call for revolutionary change via ancestral knowledge, self-mothering, and vulnerability. Our project aligns with the Sabbatical Beauty community because we aim to empower mothers of color through promoting community building, social justice advocacy, and mothering ourselves as a means of self-care and healing.