Reading assignment for Monday April 16, 2012. Your reply (under Comments) is due before class. Your response should demonstrate you’ve done and thought about both of the readings. Be sure to check and make sure your response posts.
Cherríe Moraga, A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness (79-162)
Based on your readings this semester on textual communities and print culture, what does Moraga’s writing reveal about the construction of communal texts, anthologies and performances? How much ownership do we have of our writing? How much debt to others? What do you think of Moraga’s decision not to contribute to This Bridge We Call Home?
On a more personal level, do you think Moraga is right about how she and Anzaldúa could have resolved their differences? Do you agree with her reading of Anzaldúa’s writing as having more to do with vision of the ideal than the more concrete politics of process?
Yes, it is true that I was not born in this country Yes, it is true that English was not my first language . . . that my mother’s mother raised 10 kids all on her own . . . that I don’t come from a family of doctors and lawyers
But I do come from a lineage of strong women women who maximize every resource who share even if they have little who still love even if they’ve been hurt who find reason to smile when no one else is
what’s not true is that I don’t belong here. . . I’m exactly where I’am supposed to be
and that’smy truth
Image from 2011 Women of Color Leadership Retreat
This piece was inspired by all the works I’ve read about Chicana women, such as in Chicana Feminist Thought, ¡Chicaca Power! and This Bridge Called My Back, who are not given the respect they are entitled to and who’ve struggled to fit in. Many women of color are made to feel ashamed of their culture, language, heritage, etc., because it is not the dominant one or lived in mainstream society. There have been women and still are led to believe that they can’t achieve what they dream or that they don’t deserve what they want. Many are belittled including but not limited to reasons because they’re not the “right” sex, gender or race. However US Third World Feminism which emerged from the Chicana Movementdid many things to address issues of discrimination and to bring women together through shared experiences. It also proposed to counteractnegative representations of womanhood by having women from all backgrounds reclaim their identities and stories. My goal was to write a piece that is self-affirming and motivates women to tell their stories. Even if women took a different path in life either by choice or force, nothing changes the fact that they deserve to be free and happy.
Reading assignment for Monday April 16, 2012. Your reply (under Comments) is due before class. Your response should demonstrate you’ve done and thought about both of the readings. Be sure to check and make sure your response posts.