Dr. Linda Van Ingen
director of the Women’s Studies Program, University of Nebraska at Kearney, 308.865.8772
The Chicana Movement will be the topic of a presentation sponsored by the Iota Iota Iota (Triota) chapter at the University of Nebraska at Kearney on Monday, Nov. 19.
The presentation, which is free and open to the public, will be given by Amber Lewis at 6:30 p.m. in Copeland Hall, Room 140.
Lewis, now an adjunct professor at UNK and history teacher at Kearney High School, received her master’s degree in history from UNK and did her master’s thesis on the subject. Her thesis is titled “The Chicana Movement in Nebraska in the 1960s and 1970s.”
“I first became intrigued by the Chicano/a Movement during one of Dr. Van Ingen’s history classes when I was an undergraduate,” Lewis said. “She showed a famous documentary called Chicano! I wondered why I had never learned about this movement in high school, and decided that I wanted to know more about what Mexican-American women were doing during the Civil Rights Era; thus, my selection for my master’s thesis.
“I thought it was important, because there are many Latino/a students who do not get to learn about this important part of American history, and these stories need to be told more often,” Lewis said. “As my research project grew, I decided to take it to a relatively local level and see what Chicanas were doing within the Nebraska University system during the 1960s and 1970s.”
“The members of Triota meet and plan an event for every month of the school year,” Van Ingen said. “They decided to bring Amber Lewis in as a guest speaker as part of Hispanic Heritage Month.”
Triota is the women’s and gender studies honor society at UNK. Its purpose is to encourage, support and promote awareness of gender-related issues on campus and in the community.
