This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

Fortieth anniversary edition of the foundational text of women of color feminism. Originally released in 1981, This Bridge Called My Back is a testimony to women of color feminism as it emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Through personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art, the collection explores, as coeditor Cherríe Moraga writes, "the complex confluence of identities-race, class, gender, and sexuality-systemic to women of color oppression and liberation." Reissued here, forty years after its inception, this anniversary edition contains a new preface by Moraga reflecting on Bridge's "living legacy" and the broader community of women of color activists, writers, and artists whose enduring contributions dovetail with its radical vision. Further features help set the volume's historical context, including an extended introduction by Moraga from the 2015 edition, a statement written by Gloria Anzaldúa in 1983, and visual art produced during the same period by Betye Saar, Ana Mendieta, Yolanda López, and others, curated by their contemporary, artist Celia Herrera Rodríguez. Bridge continues to reflect an evolving definition of feminism, one that can effectively adapt to and help inform an understanding of the changing economic and social conditions of women of color in the United States and throughout the world.

Table of Contents:
Artwork Enough Is Enough: Preface to the Fortieth Anniversary Edition Cherríe Moraga Acts of Healing Gloria Anzaldúa and The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Literary Trust Catching Fire: Introduction, 2015 Cherríe Moraga Foreword to the First Edition, 1981 Toni Cade Bambara The Bridge Poem Kate Rushin La Jornada: Preface, 1981 Cherríe Moraga Introduction, 1981 Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa Part I: Children Passing in the Streets The Roots of Our Radicalism When I Was Growing Up Nellie Wong on not bein mary hope whitehead lee For the Color of My Mother Cherríe Moraga I Am What I Am Rosario Morales Dreams of Violence Naomi Littlebear Morena He Saw Chrystos Part II: Entering the Lives of Others Theory in the Flesh Wonder Woman Genny Lim La Güera Cherríe Moraga Invisibility Is an Unnatural Disaster: Reflections of an Asian American Woman Mitsuye Yamada It's in My Blood, My Face—My Mother's Voice, the Way I Sweat Anita Valerio "Gee You Don't Seem Like an Indian from the Reservation" Barbara Cameron "... And Even Fidel Can't Change That!" Aurora Levins Morales I Walk in the History of My People Chrystos Part III: And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures with You Racism in the Women's Movement And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures with You Jo Carillo Beyond the Cliffs of Abiquiu Jo Carillo I Don't Understand Those Who Have Turned Away from Me Chrystos Asian Pacific Women and Feminism Mitsuye Yamada "—But I Know You, American Woman" Judit Moschkovich The Black Back-Ups Kate Rushin The Pathology of Racism: A Conversation with Third World Wimmin doris davenport We're All in the Same Boat Rosario Morales An Open Letter to Mary Daly Audre Lorde The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House Audre Lorde Part IV: Between the Lines On Culture, Class, and Homophobia The Other Heritage Rosario Morales The Tired Poem: Last Letter from a Typical (Unemployed) Black Professional Woman Kate Rushin To Be Continued... Kate Rushin Across the Kitchen Table: A Sister-to-Sister Dialogue Barbara Smith and Beverly Smith Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance Cheryl Clarke Lowriding through the Women's Movement Barbara Noda Letter to Ma Merle Woo I Come with No Illusions Mirtha N. Quintanales I Paid Very Hard for My Immigrant Ignorance Mirtha N. Quintanales Earth-Lover, Survivor, Musician Naomi Littlebear Morena Part V: Speaking in Tongues The Third World Woman Writer Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers Gloria Anzaldúa Millicent Fredericks Gabrielle Daniels In Search of the Self as Hero: Confetti of Voices on New Year's Night—a Letter to Myself Nellie Wong Chicana's Feminist Literature: A Re-vision through Malintzin/or Malintzin Putting Flesh Back on the Object Norma Alarcón Ceremony for Completing a Poetry Reading Chrystos Part VI: El Mundo Zurdo The Vision Give Me Back Chrystos La Prieta Gloria Anzaldúa A Black Feminist Statement Combahee River Collective The Welder Cherríe Moraga O.K. Momma, Who the Hell Am I? An Interview with Luisah Teish Gloria Anzaldúa Brownness Andrea Canaan Revolution: It's Not Neat or Pretty or Quick Pat Parker No Rock Scorns Me as Whore Chrystos Appendix Afterword: On the Fourth Edition Cherríe Moraga Foreword to the Second Edition, 1983 Gloria Anzaldúa Refugees of a World on Fire: Foreword to the Second Edition, 1983 Cherríe Moraga Counsels from the Firing... past, present, future: Foreword to the Third Edition, 2001 Gloria Anzaldúa Biographies of Contributors Biographies of the Original Contributors, 1981 Credits

About the Author :
Cherríe Moraga is a poet, playwright, cultural activist, and educator. Her many books include Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir; A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness: Writings, 2000–2010; and Loving in the War Years: Lo Que Nunca Pasó por Sus Labios. Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004) was a poet, metaphysical philosopher, and scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory. Her books include Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza and The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader, a posthumously published collection of her work.

Review :
"These essays and poems do more than just revisit the hopes, fears, frustrations, and accomplishments of women of color circa 1981; they also shed light on concerns women continue to face today … There are lines of poetry here sure to stir the imagination and connect with all ages, races, and genders … This Bridge Called My Back deserves to be picked up by a new generation of radical women." — ForeWord Reviews "Immense is my admiration for the ongoing dialogue and discourse on feminism, Indigenous feminism, the defining discussions in women of color movements and the broader movement. I have loved this book for thirty years, and am so pleased we have returned with our stories, words, and attributes to the growing and resilient movement." — Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe), Executive Director, Honor the Earth "This Bridge Called My Back … dispels all doubt about the power of a single text to radically transform the terrain of our theory and practice. Twenty years after its publication, we can now see how it helped to untether the production of knowledge from its disciplinary anchors—and not only in the field of women’s studies. This Bridge has allowed us to define the promise of research on race, gender, class and sexuality as profoundly linked to collaboration and coalition-building. And perhaps most important, it has offered us strategies for transformative political practice that are as valid today as they were two decades ago." — Angela Davis, University of California, Santa Cruz "This Bridge Called My Back … has served as a significant rallying call for women of color for a generation, and this new edition keeps that call alive at a time when divisions prove ever more stubborn and dangerous. A much-cited text, its influence has been visible and broad both in academia and among activists. We owe much of the sound of our present voices to the brave scholars and feminists whose ideas and ideals crowd its pages." — Shirley Geok-lin Lim, University of California, Santa Barbara "This book is a manifesto—the 1981 declaration of a new politics ‘US Third World Feminism.’ No great de-colonial writer, from Fanon, Shaarawi, Blackhawk, or Sartre, to Mountain Wolf Woman, de Beauvoir, Saussure, or Newton could have alone proclaimed this ‘politic born of necessity.’ This politic denies no truths: its luminosities drive into and through our bodies. Writers and readers alike become shape-shifters, are invited to enter the shaman/witness state, to invoke power differently. ‘US Third World Feminism’ requires a re-peopling: the creation of planetary citizen-warriors. This book is a guide that directs citizenry shadowed in hate, terror, suffering, disconnection, and pain toward the light of social justice, gender and erotic liberation, peace, and revolutionary love. This Bridge … transits our dreams, and brings them to the real." — Chela Sandoval, University of California, Santa Barbara