About - Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social

History of MALCS

Chicana/Latina women were an integral part of the activities collectively recognized as the Chicano Movimiento, most active and visible from 1964 to 1975. By the early 1980s, their contributions were barely acknowledged. Sensing this collective loss of voice, feeling highly isolated, eager to extend their knowledge to other women, and desiring to change society’s perceptions, a group of Chicana/Latina academic women gathered at the University of California, Davis, in spring 1982. Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) was established at this first meeting. The MALCS declaration (see below), written one year later at the Berkeley campus, formally established the organization and affirmed the membership’s dedication to the unification of their academic life with their community activism.

FOUNDING DECLARATION STATEMENT

We are the daughters of Chicano working class families involved in higher education. We were raised in labor camps and barrios, where sharing our resources was the basis of survival. Our values, our strength derive from where we came. Our history is the story of the working class people, their struggles, commitments, strengths, and the Chicano/Mexicano experience in the United States. We are particularly concerned with the conditions women face at work, in and out of the home. We continue our mother’s struggle for economic and social justice. The scarcity of Chicanas in institutions of higher education requires that we join together to identify our common problems, to support each other and to define collective solutions. Our purpose is to fight the race, class, and gender oppression we have experienced in the universities. Further, we reject the separation of academic scholarship and community involvement. Our research strives to bridge the gap between intellectual work and active commitment to our communities. We draw upon a tradition of political struggle. We see ourselves developing strategies for social change, a change emanating from our communities. We declare the commitment to seek social, economic, and political change throughout our work and collective action. We welcome Chicanas who share these goals and invite them to join us. ( June 1983)

–Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell, Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History, 1998

To manifest these goals, MALCS began hosting a summer research institute (an annual academic conference and gathering) in 1986. The Summer Institute is the highlight of the year for MALCS members. Held on various member campuses since the first institute at UC Davis in 1985, the event is a yearly reunion of Chicanas/Latinas and Native American women from all across the country. With lectures, workshops, seminars, and various social activities, the Summer Institute is designed to challenge MALCSistas intellectually by sharing work and ideas; it creates an informal space for socializing and networking, and offers a safe space to present early work for discussion and development. The Summer Institute is a unique and creative space from which we emerge energized and ready to engage the world again The statement below articulates the motivations and goals of this gathering:

Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS, Women Active in Letters and Social Change) is an organization of Chicanas/ Latinas and Native American women working in academia and in community settings with a common goal: to work toward the support, education and dissemination of Chicana/ Latina and Native American women’s issues. Chicanas/Latinas and Native American women from a variety of institutions gather at this yearly Summer Institute to network, share information, offer support and re-energize. The MALCS Summer Institute is one of the few places Chicanas/Latinas and Native American women can come together without the influence of male and/or Euro-American consciousness or opinion. While some charge that this is separatist, the MALCS reply is not one of apology. This is our space. The dynamics of this Chicana/Latina and Native American woman space is worth guarding, even in the face of criticism from those we respect and work within our home institutions. (1991)

MALCS also began laying the groundwork for an academic journal devoted to Chicana/Latina feminist scholarship, first with a newsletter and a working paper series called Trabajos Monograficos, then retitled to the Series in Chicana Studies in 1991. It evolved into Voces (1996-2001) and is now the Journal of Chicana/Latina Studies (2003-to present).

MALCS members also helped establish the Chicana/Latina Research Center of the University of California at Davis in March 1991, to develop Chicanas/Latinas as scholars. It was a center for knowledge by, for, and about Chicanas/Latinas. Its goals included:

maintaining a UC Davis-based research center that fosters and supports scholarship on Chicana/Latina issues, including the development of theory, methodology, and pedagogy pertinent to Chicanas and Latinas in contemporary society;
And developing and sustaining an effective research agenda for Chicanas/Latinas that will have policy implications for Chicanas/Latinas and benefit the Chicana/Chicano, Latina/Latino community, the State of California and the United States;

It closed in 2010, but information about the work of the center can be found here.

Scholarship on MALCS

Learn more about MALCS from the articles linked below: