 | ||
The personal is revolutionary reflections from the oral history of gloria arellanes
Gloria Arellanes (born March 4, 1946) is a political activist known for her involvement with the Brown Berets during the Chicano Movement and has been influential in the development of Chicana feminism.
Contents
Gloria arellanes nodapl day of action nov 15 2016
Early life
Gloria was born in East Los Angeles. and a few years later her her family moved to El Monte, California where she lived with her parents. Her father, César Barron Arellanes, was a Mexican immigrant and her mother was of indigenous Mexican descent from present-day Azusa. She attended El Monte High School, which is where her political consciousness began to develop. Her high school had a large Chicano population and they often stuck together and supported each other. Through this engagement and community-building, her identity as a Chicana began to grow. She identified many racist aspects of her high school, including discriminatory arrests made in school, teachers ignoring Chicano/a students when they raised their hands, and tracking Chicano/a students into vocational classes.
After graduating high school, Gloria enrolled in the East Los Angeles College but quit after one year. She went on to get involved in community work and got a full-time job the Neighborhood Adult Participation Project which was an anti-poverty program where she organized black and Chicano communities and worked on voter registration. Her political consciousness and involvement continued to be refined.
Brown Berets
In 1967, Gloria and some of her friends visited La Piranya, a coffeehouse owned and operated by the Brown Berets. There, she met David Sánchez who would later become the prime minister of the Brown Berets, who encouraged her to join the Berets. She began attending community meets and events and eventually decided to join. The Brown Berets worked on building community programs, the first of which was the Barrio Free Clinic, which Gloria was given the responsibility of coordinating. In 1969, she was made the official clinic director.
Due to gender inequality perpetuated by the male Brown Berets in the Chicano movement, Gloria along with others broke away from the LA chapter by writing a resignation letter that clearly explained their reasons for leaving. The letter was signed, "Con Che!" due to Che Guevara's stance on equality among the sexes.