EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Third-year student Yolanda
Pendeda puts on a workshop titled "Better Alone Than in
Bad Company" about women who stay in abusive relationships at
Saturday’s conference.
By Michaele Turnage
Daily Bruin Contributor
The prison-industrial complex, sexuality, health, access to
higher education and other issues that affect the lives of women
were hot topics during Saturday’s Chicana/Latina
conference.
About 600 women of all ages from the Los Angeles area gathered
at UCLA and lent their voices to 17 workshop discussions, dined on
El Salvadoran food and enjoyed a musical performance.
“We try to create a safe space for women to talk about
sex, their self-image, fears and hopes without oppressive forces
present,” said Angelica Marin, a second-year history transfer
student and conference organizer, who said Chicanas and Latinas
often don’t feel comfortable discussing such topics
openly.
Raza Womyn, an organization committed to the empowerment,
education and liberation of all women, hosted the Sixth Annual
Chicana/Latina Conference: “Mujer Fiera: Soy Descarada
“¦ Y Que!!!”
The title, which means “Fierce Woman: I am shameless
“¦ and what!!!” shows the strength of women and counters
stereotypes that cast women as passive and weak, organizers
said.
The conference began with organizers showering the women with
positive affirmations of their beauty, strength and talent.
Organizers also wanted attendees to identify themselves with the
UCLA students.
“It is important for these women to see themselves in
us,” Marin said, adding that she would have benefited from
seeing strong Latina college students when she was in high
school.
According to the organization, “descarada,” or
shameless, is a word used to silence women’s opinions on many
topics. With the conference, Raza Womyn hoped to reclaim the word
as a term of empowerment, as other minority groups have done in the
past with words used to oppress them.
This year’s conference tackled issues facing garment
workers.
“Garment workers are gaining visibility and support for
their rights,” said Erica Ramirez, a fifth-year Chicana/o
studies and American literature and culture student.
In another workshop, women learned about the prison-industrial
complex and signed cards that will be sent to prisoners serving
life sentences in the California Institution for Women at the
Chino/Corona site.
The prison-industrial complex is a set of alleged political and
economic interests which fuel the U.S. prison population growth by
putting nonviolent criminals in prison to provide a cheap labor
force for corporations.
According to workshop presenter and ’96 alumna Vivianna
Trujillo, who is a member of the Southern California Criminal
Justice Consortium, companies such as TWA, MCI, Victoria’s
Secret, J.C. Penney and Kentucky Fried Chicken derive huge profits
from exploiting prison labor.
Companies that use prison labor can pay wages as low as 15 cents
an hour and don’t have to offer benefits, she said.
Additionally, Trujillo said, recent legislation such as the
three strikes law, which condemns felons found guilty of a third
serious crime to at least 25 years in prison; and Proposition 21,
which lowered the age juveniles could be tried as adults to 14,
feed this work force by making it easier to incarcerate people.
“As soon as you think of women in prison, you think of bad
people and criminals,” said 16-year-old Melina Ramirez, a
junior at John Muir High School in Pasadena. “You don’t
think of them as mothers, as somebody’s sister and
cousin.”
Since the first conference in 1995 attracted 50 to 60 women,
most of whom were attending UCLA, the event has substantially
grown. This year’s conference provided child care and a
college, job and health fair.
The conferences have always been bilingual.
Past conferences addressed issues such as Proposition 187, which
would have denied publicly-funded social services, health care and
education to illegal immigrants. The legislation first passed and
was later declared unconstitutional.
Oxnard resident Consuelo Alonso brought her 13-year-old
daughter, Jenny, to the conference so that she could learn more
about college.
“I want her to be successful in life, have a career and go
to school,” she said, adding that young people need to see
students like them in college. “I want her to understand how
important it is.”
Helping women find success was one of the key goals of the
conference.
“We want them to be aware of themselves as agents of
change,” Ramirez said. “We want them to go back to
their schools and communities and question their surroundings and
the different environments they’ve found themselves
in.”