I had been approached to participate in the white feminists movement of the late 1960s and 1970s–including the new women art movements in California, but I have always found the counter-masculine agenda ineffective to my ideal of one-humanity. Ultimately feminism is about the freedom to act and think in various personal expressions: denying the male role in humankind or clinging to it, with the conclusive goal of being able to enjoy all the freedoms that others in society enjoy. This is not to say that there is no value in knowing oneself deeply through like-minded groups, but it is only one aspect of defining oneself in the world. How I arrived to my place in this society and how I would externalize my manifestation, is my own personal journey of discovery.
Being Chicana begins for each woman from various life epiphanies, however the common bind is social alienation, either due to language, origin, color, sex, opportunities and finally through an awareness of a system of exclusivity that is unobtainable. Having attended only public schools in an urban setting where the majority of students were black, I did not experience racism until I attended the university. It was my English Literature professor that used all his power to humiliate and diminish me.