Esta investigación trata sobre los discursos de lo femenino que performan cinco raperas chicanas de la ciudad de Los Ángeles. El principal objetivo es entender las razones que motivan a algunas chicanas a hacer rap, siendo éste un campo masculino que devalúa lo femenino y lo reconoce sólo como objeto sexual. Mediante entrevistas a profundidad y su rap se construyeron los aspectos significativos de su constitución femenina, usando el género como perspectiva de análisis. De este modo, se busca comprender el entramado objetivo y simbólico que construye dichas motivaciones.
Las raperas chicanas remiten a contrastes y tensiones que surgen entre generaciones familiares; permiten un acercamiento a las condiciones de vida del barrio; al igual que encarnan una lucha compartida: la reivindicación de lo femenino como un lugar de poder desde donde enunciar su diferencia y renegociar las distintas relaciones sociales que las constituyen en términos de subordinación. La estrategia que han desarrollado es mediante la revisión, reconocimiento y apropiación de saberes que se asocian con una profunda raíz cultural imaginada con los que resignifican lo femenino heredado, revalorizando quiénes son y transformando sus prácticas. En dicha búsqueda, el rap es fundamental no sólo para comunicar sus experiencias de vida a la comunidad, sino para articular sus luchas, las cuales definen en términos de descolonizar y curar.
This thesis is about the discourses on the feminine produced by five Chicana emcees (M.Cs) or rappers from Los Angeles. The main aim is to understand the reasons that motivate some chicanas to rap, knowing that it is a masculine space where the feminine is devaluated and only recognized as sexual object. Crucial aspects of their womanhood were built through the data collected with in-depth interviews and their rap lyrics, and a gender perspective was used as the category of analysis. In this way it was possible to comprehend the objective and symbolic framework that constitutes such motivations.
Chicanas in rap refer to contrasts and tensions between family generations, they give their approach on life conditions in the neighborhood, as well as they embody a shared struggle: they claim the feminine as a place of power from where they can enunciate their difference and renegotiate the different social relations that constitute them in terms of subordination. The strategy they have developed is by reviewing, recognizing and appropriating knowledge that is associated with deep imagined cultural roots that resignify the inherited meanings for the feminine. In such a way they revalue themselves and transform their practices. In such a quest, rap is crucial not only for delivering their life experiences to the community, but also for the articulation of their particular struggles, which they define in terms of Decolonization and Healing.