In the following excerpt from the beginning of the poem, the reader can see Lopez wrestle with combining these two attributes of her identity. Natashia Lopez’s “Trying to be Dyke and Chicana” attempts to reconcile both Chicana and lesbian identity into one. She is in a constant flux of identities as they play different roles in her life. By listing off the “different languages,” Montoya shows the reader the multitude of her identities. By using words such as learning and language, Montoya implies how foreign this culture surrounding her sexuality is. The stanza following the excerpt on the left begins, “Learning a new language: Lesbian” and continues listing the languages that Montoya has to learn: Lesbian, English, Spanish, and Spanglish. ” Despite her sexuality being one of her dominant attributes and the subsequent marginalization that accompanies it, Montoya is frustrated that she does not have her own place within this community. To Montoya, her sexuality is yet another label such as Mestiza or Chicana that she “slide back and forth. Montoya begins the poem by stating, “How many years of oppression must / there be to be considered trust / worthy in Lesbian culture and lifestyle?” Being lesbian is “another sub-culture” where she finds herself struggling to fit in.

Gina Montoya’s “Baby Dykes” details her struggle to identify with other lesbians.

The following three excerpts of the poems below by Gina Montoya, Natashia Lopez, and Juanita M Sánchez, featured in Chicana Lesbians, illustrate three different perspectives on living as Chicana Lesbians. She goes against two moral prohibitions: sexuality and homosexuality” (Anzaldúa 19). Chicana sexuality was not an issue that was discussed within nor outside the household. Life was dictated largely by traditional gender roles and religion that left little to zero tolerance for any deviations from the norm: “For the lesbian of color, the ultimate rebellion she can make against her native culture is through her sexual behavior. Alarcon states she was inspired to create this publishing company once she realized “there weren’t enough women of color or Latinas… for me to have a conversation with” (Cockrell, “A Labor of Love”). Norma Alarcon founded the Third Woman Press in 1979 as a platform for queer and feminists of color to be heard in the Second Wave Feminist Movement. Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About, published by the Third Woman Press in 1991, features works of poetry that indicate the widespread homophobia within the Chicano Community as well as within ma instream Anglo society.

Chicana Lesbians by Carla Trujillo