Las Adelitas de Aztlán was a short-lived Mexican American female civil rights organization that was created by Gloria Arellanes and Gracie and Hilda Reyes in 1970. Gloria Arellanes and Gracie and Hilda Reyes were all former members of the Brown Berets, another Mexican American Civil rights organization that had operated concurrently during the 1960s and 1970s in the California area. The founders left the Brown Berets due to enlarging gender discrepancies and disagreements that caused much alienation amongst their female members. The Las Adelitas De Aztlan advocated for Mexican-American Civil rights, better conditions for workers, protested police brutality and advocated for women's rights for the Latino community. The name of the organization was a tribute to Mexican female soldiers or soldaderas that fought during the Mexican Revolution of the early twentieth century. Inspiration Throughout the Chicano Movement during the 1960s and 1970s Mexican American civil rights movements were at their peak, and one of the most prominent was the Brown Berets. The Brown Berets expressed a combination of civic activism and cultural and ethnic unity, but with elements of militarism to advocate for farm worker's rights, educational reform, anti-war activism and to organize against police brutality. Female members of the Brown Berets served as a valuable asset to the organization and " gave the organization stability by fundraising, answering phone calls, writing letters, pasting up and writing for the newspaper, and running free clinics. They also became instrumental in organizing the marches against the Vietnam War". All three original founders of Las Adelitas de Aztlán, Gloria Arellanes and Gracie and Hilda Reyes had formerly been a part of the Brown Berets, but had felt that the male-dominated leadership was ignoring the demands and concerns of their female members. Though it was clear that women played a critical role in the organization some felt that the secretarial and clerical positions had devalued them as members. With the rise of second-wave feminism in the 1960s women across the racial spectrum beginning expressing a type of gender consciousness that rejected notions of passiveness or submission to male domination in civil rights circles. Many would even break away entirely to start their own organizations. In February 1970 Arellanes, then the minister of correspondence and finance for the East Los Angeles chapter had handed in her letter of resignation to the Brown Berets's Minister of Education Aron Mangancilla stating "There has been a great exclusion