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Elizabeth Martinez Quotes

Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez is an American Chicana feminist and a long-time community organizer, activist, author, and educator. She has written numerous books and articles on different topics relating to social movements in the Americas. Her best-known work is the bilingual 500 years of Chicano History in Pictures, which later formed the basis for the educational video ¡Viva la Causa! 500 Years of Chicano History. Her work has been hailed by Angela Y. Davis as comprising "one of the most important living histories of progressive activism in the contemporary era ... [Martínez is] inimitable ... irrepressible ... indefatigable." Wikipedia  

✵ 12. December 1925
Elizabeth Martinez photo
Elizabeth Martinez: 15 quotes2 likes

Famous Elizabeth Martinez Quotes

“… I don't use "Hispanic" because it is Eurocentric and denies the fact that the people being labeled are not just of Spanish origin. Nor do they all speak Spanish. "Hispanic" denies our indigenous or Indian roots. It also denies our African roots, from the thousands of slaves that were brought to Latin America. "Hispanics" are a unique people made up of at least three different populations. For many of us the term "Latino/Latina" is better than "Hispanic."”

Elizabeth Martinez

It has a connection with Latin America, not with Spain. But &quot;Latino&quot; is by no means ideal because it has a European connotation, also. The term comes from &quot;Latin,&quot; which was, of course, a European language. <br class="br">On what she prefers to be called ethnically in &quot;Unite and Overcome!&quot; https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-1997/unite-and-overcome in Teaching Tolerance (Spring 1997)

“…it’s just another front in the battle against racism. And that’s what it was, because New Mexico was much more colonial than any other area, but it was all the same damn racism. And so I never felt like I was breaking any life pattern; I was just shifting to another front.…”

Elizabeth Martinez

On how she joined the Chicano Movement in “ELIZABETH (BETITA) MARTINEZ” https://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/vof/transcripts/MartinezBetita.pdf (Voices of Feminism Oral History Project; 2006)

“Thinking about racism in terms of just black and white is a further "invisibilization."”

Elizabeth Martinez

We have to recognize the commonality of experience of racism among people of color. Sometimes racism is based on skin color or other physical features; it can have added components of culture, language and legal status -- as in the case of people of Mexican descent.… <br class="br">On racism in &quot;Unite and Overcome!&quot; https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-1997/unite-and-overcome in Teaching Tolerance (Spring 1997)

“… I had my own personal experiences with prejudice. I was the only child of color in primary school, junior high and high school. I went through all those years feeling like a freak in one all-white school after the other. The family next door wouldn't let their daughter play with me because I was Mexican. I got on a bus once in D.C. with my father, who was very dark, and they told us to go to the back of the bus, where black people had to sit in those years. All this created in me a feeling of empathy and solidarity with people of color and formed the roots of my commitment to fighting for social justice and against racism.”

Elizabeth Martinez

On becoming a political activist in &quot;Unite and Overcome!&quot; https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-1997/unite-and-overcome in Teaching Tolerance (Spring 1997)

“The problem of locating photos often confirms the indifference to women’s presence in history, as reflected in the media, books, historical records, museums, university libraries.”

Elizabeth Martinez

Source: (es) El problema de localizar fotografías confirma la indiferencia ante la presencia de las mujeres en la historia, cosa que se refleja constantemente en los medios, libros, archivos históricos, museos y bibliotecas universitarias.

“We need to see how dance, music, theater, art, poetry, are major arenas for alliance-building, especially among youth. Culture can usher in new visions”

Elizabeth Martinez

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

Elizabeth Martinez Quotes

“To build unity requires recognizing the central role of young activists. They are vigorously fighting the attack on this century's Reconstruction. Their anger at today's ugly society often translates into a passionate drive for unity across color lines.”

Elizabeth Martinez

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

“In the early 1900s, while colonization continued, the original Mexican population of the Southwest was greatly increased by an immigration the continues today. This combination of centuries-old roots and relatively new ones gives the Mexican-American people a rich and varied cultural heritage.”

Elizabeth Martinez

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

“Looking over the past two decades, we see close ties between gender-related attitudes and political ideology. A law seems to exist that sexism and heterosexism almost always travel alongside reactionary types of nationalism.”

Elizabeth Martinez

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

“The articulation of concerns common to almost all women, such as health, child care, domestic violence, rape and reproductive rights, is much more frequent than it was two decades ago.”

Elizabeth Martinez

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

“The Civil Rights Movement was not an event; it is a process and it goes on. Process says one should learn the language of youth, respect them without glorifying them, take a long look at what we could have done better and pass the lessons along.”

Elizabeth Martinez

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

“The voices of the grassroots, of people, must always be heard if we are to understand the past and move effectively toward the future”

Elizabeth Martinez

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

“One of the most serious obstacles to genuine diversification is that on most campuses the faculty remains lily-white and male”

Elizabeth Martinez

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

“Linking the national identity with race is not unique to the United States. National identity always requires an "other" to define it. But this country has linked its identity with race to an extraordinary degree, matched only by two other settler states: South Africa and Israel.”

Elizabeth Martinez

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

“The real concern of anti-diversity warriors is not with the introduction of politics but with the wrong kind of politics. They want literature to serve a very political function indeed: to sustain, not criticize, the status quo.”

Elizabeth Martinez

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

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