5 Feet of Fury

A woman without a man is like a corpse without a burial

Thanks to the loyal 5FF reader who spotted this story, which echoes my Taki’s article about Shulamith Firestone

Barbara Salinas-Norman was a Chicana activist, a bilingual teacher, an author, a publisher and an artist. She was “intelligent,” “inspiring,” a “trailblazer.” But her life had begun to unravel, and this once well-connected woman apparently died alone in her Santa Fe home, where her body lay undiscovered for several months behind an unlocked door.  (…)

She was lying near a favorite poster, a takeoff on Rosie the Riveter. This version shows Rosie as a skeleton, with a red cloth on her head and her arm raised in a fist under the caption, “Sí, Se Muere!” Yes, we die. (…)

Salinas earned a bachelor’s degree in education from California State University in Los Angeles and a master’s degree in public health education from the University of California, Berkeley. She became involved in the Chicano movement during that time and considered herself a founding mother of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), a student organization promoting higher education among Chicanos. (…)

 Salinas was especially fond of the movie Eat Pray Love and its star, Javier Bardem. “She was so passionate about the movie. That was her dream story,” Trujillo said. She apparently had met a homeless man at one point who reminded her of Bardem, and they had camped together, Trujillo recalled.