A Community of Limits and the Limits of Community: MALDEF's Chicana Rights Project, Empowering the "Typical Chicana," and the Question of Civil Rights, 1974-1983.

MEXICAN American women; AMERICAN civil rights movement; FEMINISM; WOMEN'S rights; LEGAL assistance to women; OPPRESSION; HISPANIC Americans; NONPROFIT organizations; SOCIAL conditions of women; POLITICAL participation

The article discusses the political rise of Chicanas, or Mexican American women, and their advocacy for civil rights in the late 1970s. Details are given outlining multiple issues such as employment, higher education and sexuality discussed during conferences of Chicanas held between 1974 and 1983. The work of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a nonprofit group that aimed to protect the rights of the Latinos in the U.S., in its establishment of the Chicana Rights Project (CRP) to help under-privileged Chicanas with their legal rights is also addressed.