“Feminista Manifestó” is a debut 15-track album that captures more layers to Celesté Martinez's story, her identity as a Queer Chicana, and intersectional feminist politics. This collection of songs includes a combination of original works and intentionally selected covers that captures the band’s unique sound of Latin Folk and Riot Grrrl Punk Rock.

Over 12 years ago, Celesté was first exposed to Chicana Feminism and visual artists including Ester Hernandez, Alma Lopez and Yolanda Lopez. She found so much resonance with these Chicana Feminists artists that Celesté knew one day she wanted to also contribute to this movement as an artist. 

Last fall when Celesté started to write “Más de Una Puente” the way she could contribute to the movement of Chicana Feminist art became very clear. She realized that the message of the song was profoundly inspired by a collection of feminist writings titled “A Bridge Called My Back,” where Women of Color shared their stories about the intersection of race, gender, class, sexuality and so much more. She remembered how when she first read those stories, it affirmed for her that Celesté could be a part of the feminist movement and she did not need to elevate her gender over her other intersecting identities. This is a theme you may also hear in the second verse of “Feminism is Intersectional.”

When Celesté reflects on the versuses of “Más de Una Puente,” she recognizes how each verse shares more about her lived experience and the messages she constantly received from the world as a Queer Chicana. Celesté explicitly wrote the song in Spanish to emphasize that this is a song for Latinx and Chicanx women, femmes and thems. Since not all Latinx and Chicanx speak Spanish, Celesté intentionally used a combination of Latin folk rhythms with power chords progressions that may also feel familiar to this primary audience in hopes that the music itself can transcend the message that the existence of feminine beings is so much more than to be stepped on or to endure great suffering to validate our worth. When Celesté publicly performed this song for the first time, she realized the song is her invitation for others to join the feminist movement alongside her. This invitation then became central to how she curated the rest of the album from a variety of songs she wrote since 2021.

The opening track “Los Mandamientos Femeninos” actually contains a similar composition structure to “Más de Una Puente” because Celesté sees these two songs directly in conversation with one another. “Los Mandamientos Femeninos” is greatly inspired by Chicana Feminist theorists Rosa Maria Gil and Carmen Inoa Vazquez who articulated 10 core commandments of what it means to be a Chicana or Latina woman, femme and/or female assigned at birth (AFAB). Celesté remembers reading the list of commandments at 19, and reckoning with how many of her beliefs came from cultural conditioning and so she really started to question what was core to her and her values as a person. When Celesté wrote this opening song, she wanted to translate the messages originally written in English into Spanish in hopes that it would widen the audience of who might have access to this educational theory. Her hope is to invite more Chicanas and Latinas to consider that perhaps what gives our identity meaning was not from a place of choice. “What would it mean for Chicanas and Latinas to wrestle with our cultural identity? What would it take for us to each find our own truth in how we want to relate to our culture and gender identity in real time?”

The cover songs were intentionally selected for this album. The first cover listeners will hear is “Identity” originally written by Poly Styrene and performed by X-Ray Spex, because Celesté recognizes her as a crucial ancestor for Women of Color in Punk. It is crucial to Celesté to honor the significant contributions that Black women have in the world, especially in music and art because they are so often erased from the popular narrative. 

Celesté also wanted to feature "Identity" because so much of this album focuses on who she is and the messages that she constantly confronts as a Queer Chicana. She was inspired to make this cover into a Spanglish version of the song, because Celesté really feel like the combination of languages captures the feeling she often has of being "ni de aqui, ni de alla" (which translates to "neither from here nor from there") while melding together two languages very core to her cultural experience as a Chicana. 

"Identity" song also amplifies how pressures from society about identity can impact the mental health of someone significantly, which deeply resonates with Celesté's lived experiences of navigating anxiety and depression since her childhood. This cover song includes Joshua Trinidad on trumpet and the horn section of Pink Hawks, Denver’s local Xicanx Beat Orchestra.  

The other covers included in the album are: “La Llorona” and “La Bruja.” It also felt important to Celesté to reimagine classic Mexican folk songs that focus on feminine archetypes, because these too reinforce messages of what it means to be a woman, femme or them in Chicanismo and Latinidad. Celesté wanted to create arrangements of the songs in form that resonated with how she personally relates to them. Both of these feminine archetypes may come across as dark, which is why both have influences of heavy metal. When Celesté performs these Mexican folk classics she often asks herself and the audience: “What do we collectively fear about the magic of femininity? What makes us uncomfortable with grief? What do these feminine archetypes reveal to us about our relationship to emotions, ourselves, and colonization?”

Celesté decided to name the album “Feminista Manifestó” because it is a declaration of her story which is political. Celesté sees her existence as a Brown, Fat, Femme, Queer, Chicana person living in the United States is an act of resistance against the idea that somehow her body and identities do not comply with the standards of who deserves power and a voice.

In all, the aspiration is for “Feminista Manifestó” to be as accessible as a Riot Grrrl zine- something that can be picked up and flipped through leaving an impression, a question, or a point of curiosity.