Con Respeto y Confianza: a correspondence between sister-scholars that braids Chicana Latina Feminist methodologies in women of color research

Abstract

In this article, we engage in a letter correspondence we call Chicana Latina Feminist (CLF) cartas, where we discuss the nuances of utilizing pláticas, along with similarly informed methodologies of video testimonios and epistolary practices within our respective research process. Our cartas correspondence demonstrates, (1) the challenges we faced through the use of pláticas, (2) the lessons we learned in the process, and (3) the bridging of pláticas with other CLF methodologies. We offer our excitements, fears, and breakthroughs in hopes that it helps others considering using CLF informed pláticas.

Keywords:

• Pláticas
• testimonios
• epistolary methods
• race-gendered methodologies
• Chicana Latina Feminist cartas

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We capitalize Women of Color as it aligns with our frameworks and demonstrates our intentions in centering them in the work.

2 Spanish words will be found throughout this paper to represent the ways we communicate as bilingual people. We choose not to translate or italicize words in Spanish following Anzaldua’s example of honoring our linguistic contributions (Anzaldúa, 1999).

3 We took inspiration for our epistolary approach from Solórzano’s (2013) email correspondence with Derrick Bell and Cisneros’s (2021) epistolary letter to adjunct professors.

4 To preserve the conversational element in our cartas we will mostly be referring to CLF pláticas as pláticas, but please know that if you see pláticas on its own we mean CLF pláticas.