I resent the usual remark that if you're a feminist you have somehow become an Anglo or been influenced by Anglos. - Anna Nieto-Gómez

Oral history was an important method because it created a body of knowledge about different types of Chicanas. Oral histories of Chicana leaders and their organizations illustrated the diverse political ideas Chicanas had about social change.

The popular image of Mexican woman is as somber-clad, long-suffering females praying in dimly-lit colonial churches. Church teachings have directed women to identify with the emotional suffering of the pure, passive bystander: the Virgin Mary.

As minority women, the Chicanas have had to fight racism, sexism, and sexual racism. Racism oppresses the Chicana as a member of a Spanish speaking, culturally different, non-Anglo group in a society that values only one culture, and only one race as superior over all, the Anglo-Saxon race. The Chicana encounters sexism in a society that associates social and economic power, authority and superiority with male dominance and male control.