Ethnic Studies

Named one of the "Best Books of 1987" by Library Journal Selected by Utne Reader as part of its "Alternative Canon" in 1998 One of Hungry Mind Review's "Best 100 Books of the 20th Century" Rooted in Gloria Anzaldúa's experience as a Chicana, a lesbian, an activist, and a writer, the essays and poems in this volume profoundly challenged, and continue to challenge, how we think about identity. Borderlands/La Frontera remaps our understanding of what a "border" is, presenting it not as a simple divide between here and there, us and them, but as a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us. This edition, coming March 1, 2022, will be a more condensed edition, containing only the original text from 1987, and will be at a more accessible price point for readers. For those looking for a scholarly context to this crucial work, the Critical Edition is currently available.  The emotional and intellectual impact of the book is disorienting and powerful...all languages are spoken, and survival depends on understanding all modes of thought. In the borderlands new creatures come into being. Anzaldúa celebrates this "new mestiza" in bold, experimental writing. -- The Village Voice Anzaldúa's pulsating weaving of innovative poetry with sparse informative prose brings us deep into the insider/outsider consciousness of the borderlands; that ancient and contemporary, crashing and blending world that divides and unites America. -- Women's Review of Books

This critical edition of text that changed the course of Chicanx, queer, and feminist theory breathes new life into the themes still present in today's political and social climate.  At the same time this book offers insight into the construction of Anzaldúa's philosophies.  Borderlands was first published in 1987 after an organic composition process, mixing prose and poetry and integrating personal memories with a philosophical search for a consciousness-raising and coalition-building method for the oppressed. Conceptually innovative, visionary, and rebellious at the time, Borderlands has continued to be studied as a distinctive creative work and a spiritual guidebook to heal and empower Chicanxs, queer communities of color, and other marginalized groups. Rooted in Gloria Anzaldúa's experience as a Chicana, a lesbian, an activist, and a writer, the essays and poems in Borderlands/La Frontera, her first book and signature work, remap our understanding of "borders" as psychic, social, and cultural terrains that we inhabit and that inhabit all of us.  Drawing heavily on archival research and a comprehensive literature review, this critical edition elucidates Anzaldúa's complex composition process and its centrality in the development of her philosophy and contextualizes the book within her theories and writings before and after its 1987 publication. It opens with two introductory studies; offers a corrected text, explanatory footnotes, translations, and four archival appendices; and closes with an updated bibliography of Anzaldúa's works, an extensive scholarly bibliography on Borderlands, and her biography. It also featuress features an afterword by noted Anzaldúa scholar AnaLouise Keating. Imagine Borderlands as a timeless pyramid of ideas that has been added to, deconstructed, reconstructed, transcribed, translated, and trans-interpreted by every generation of Chicanx and non-Chicanx feminist scholars in the thirty-five years since its publication. This critical edition offers both a painstakingly articulated scholarly scaffolding around Anzaldúa's original text and a bridge into the life and memory of the author who designed the blueprint of that pyramid. -- Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Professor of Chicana/o Studies, English, and Gender Studies, UCLA Vivancos-Pérez takes readers by the hand in this straightforward, well-crafted edition, offering a detailed introduction describing the eminent author's iterative process of writing Borderlands. The archival documents--including unpublished poetry and essays with Anzaldúa's own annotations--add flavor, temperament, and in-depth insight into the complex philosopher's early writings. Scholars, students, family, soul-mates, and friends of Anzaldúa (myself included) will be thrilled with this long-awaited, noteworthy critical edition. -- Emma Pérez, author of The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History Ricardo F. Vivancos-Pérez's meticulous archival work and Norma Elia Cantú's life experience and expertise converge to offer a stunning resource for Anzaldúa scholars; for writers, artivists, and activists inspired by her work; and for everyone. Hereafter, no study of Borderlands will be complete without this beautiful, essential reference. -- Paola Bacchetta, Professor of Gender & Women's Studies, UC Berkeley Readers will delight in the new pathways to Anzaldúan thought thanks to the work of the editors. Whether coming to Anzaldúan thought for the first time or returning again to a much-treasured Borderlands, the editors' loving care will enable us all to hear her call--no hay más que cambiar ... there's nothing else to do but change. -- Nancy Tuana, author of Beyond Philosophy: Nietzsche, Foucault, Anzaldúa

Literary Nonfiction. Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. LGBT Studies. Fourth Edition. Rooted in Gloria Anzaldúa's experience as a Chicana, a lesbian, an activist, and a writer, the essays and poems in this volume profoundly challenged, and continue to challenge, how we think about identity. BORDERLANDS/LA FRONTERA remaps our understanding of what a "border" is, presenting it not as a simple divide between here and there, us and them, but as a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us. This twenty-fifth anniversary edition features a new introduction by scholars Norma Cantú (University of Texas at San Antonio) and Aída Hurtado (University of California at Santa Cruz) as well as a revised critical bibliography. "The emotional and intellectual impact of the book is disorienting and powerful...all languages are spoken, and survival depends on understanding all modes of thought. In the borderlands new creatures come into being. Anzaldúa celebrates this 'new mestiza' in bold, experimental writing."--The Village Voice "Anzaldúa's pulsating weaving of innovative poetry with sparse informative prose brings us deep into the insider/outsider consciousness of the borderlands; that ancient and contemporary, crashing and blending world that divides and unites America."--Women's Review of Books

Second edition of Gloria Anzaldúa's major work, with a new critical introduction by Chicano Studies scholar and new reflections by Anzaldúa.

In this provocative collection of essays, award-winning poet, novelist, scholar, andactivist/curandera Ana Castillo becomes a voice for Mexic-Amerindian women silenced forhundreds of years by the dual censorship of being female and brown-skinned. In it Castillo uses the term"Xicanisma" to replace "Chicana feminism," including mestiza women on both sides of the border: theworking poor, wives and mothers whose cultural roots have been ignored as completely as have been theirdesires, dreams, and struggles to be heard. In her exquisitely written, superbly imagistic prose, she aims toinform, raise consciousness, and incite Chicanas--and all caring people--to change mainstream society fromone of exclusion to inclusion.

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.

Named the 2009 AAUP Best of the Best - Outstanding Book Distinction The history of Mexican Americans spans more than five centuries and varies from region to region across the United States. Yet most of our history books devote at most a chapter to Chicano history, with even less attention to the story of Chicanas. 500 Years of Chicana Women's History offers a powerful antidote to this omission with a vivid, pictorial account of struggle and survival, resilience and achievement, discrimination and identity. The bilingual text, along with hundreds of photos and other images, ranges from female-centered stories of pre-Columbian Mexico to profiles of contemporary social justice activists, labor leaders, youth organizers, artists, and environmentalists, among others.  With a distinguished, seventeen-member advisory board, the book presents a remarkable combination of scholarship and youthful appeal. In the section on jobs held by Mexicanas under U.S. rule in the 1800s, for example, readers learn about flamboyant Doña Tules, who owned a popular gambling saloon in Santa Fe, and Eulalia Arrilla de Pérez, a respected curandera (healer) in the San Diego area. Also covered are the "repatriation" campaigns" of the Midwest during the Depression that deported both adults and children, 75 percent of whom were U.S.-born and knew nothing of Mexico. Other stories include those of the garment, laundry, and cannery worker strikes, told from the perspective of Chicanas on the ground. From the women who fought and died in the Mexican Revolution to those marching with their young children today for immigrant rights, every story draws inspiration. Like the editor's previous book, 500 Years of Chicano History (still in print after 30 years), this thoroughly enriching view of Chicana women's history promises to become a classic.

The first book-length study of women's involvement in the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, ¡Chicana Power! tells the powerful story of the emergence of Chicana feminism within student and community-based organizations throughout southern California and the Southwest. As Chicanos engaged in widespread protest in their struggle for social justice, civil rights, and self-determination, women in el movimiento became increasingly militant about the gap between the rhetoric of equality and the organizational culture that suppressed women's leadership and subjected women to chauvinism, discrimination, and sexual harassment. Based on rich oral histories and extensive archival research, Maylei Blackwell analyzes the struggles over gender and sexuality within the Chicano Movement and illustrates how those struggles produced new forms of racial consciousness, gender awareness, and political identities. ¡Chicana Power! provides a critical genealogy of pioneering Chicana activist and theorist Anna NietoGomez and the Hijas de Cuauhtémoc, one of the first Latina feminist organizations, who together with other Chicana activists forged an autonomous space for women's political participation and challenged the gendered confines of Chicano nationalism in the movement and in the formation of the field of Chicana studies. She uncovers the multifaceted vision of liberation that continues to reverberate today as contemporary activists, artists, and intellectuals, both grassroots and academic, struggle for, revise, and rework the political legacy of Chicana feminism.

Chicana Feminisms presents new essays on Chicana feminist thought by scholars, creative writers, and artists. This volume moves the field of Chicana feminist theory forward by examining feminist creative expression, the politics of representation, and the realities of Chicana life. Drawing on anthropology, folklore, history, literature, and psychology, the distinguished contributors combine scholarly analysis, personal observations, interviews, letters, visual art, and poetry. The collection is structured as a series of dynamic dialogues: each of the main pieces is followed by an essay responding to or elaborating on its claims. The broad range of perspectives included here highlights the diversity of Chicana experience, particularly the ways it is made more complex by differences in class, age, sexual orientation, language, and region. Together the essayists enact the contentious, passionate conversations that define Chicana feminisms. The contributors contemplate a number of facets of Chicana experience: life on the Mexico-U.S. border, bilingualism, the problems posed by a culture of repressive sexuality, the ranchera song, and domesticana artistic production. They also look at Chicana feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, the history of Chicanas in the larger Chicano movement, autobiographical writing, and the interplay between gender and ethnicity in the movie Lone Star. Some of the essays are expansive; others--such as Norma Cantú's discussion of the writing of her fictionalized memoir Canícula--are intimate. All are committed to the transformative powers of critical inquiry and feminist theory. Contributors. Norma Alarcón, Gabriela F. Arredondo, Ruth Behar, Maylei Blackwell, Norma E. Cantú, Sergio de la Mora, Ann duCille, Michelle Fine, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Rebecca M. Gámez, Jennifer González, Ellie Hernández, Aída Hurtado, Claire Joysmith, Norma Klahn, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Olga Nájera-Ramírez, Anna Nieto Gomez, Renato Rosaldo, Elba Rosario Sánchez, Marcia Stephenson, Jose Manuel Valenzuela, Patricia Zavella

Born in the Río Grande Valley of south Texas, independent scholar and creative writer Gloria Anzaldúa was an internationally acclaimed cultural theorist. As the author of Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Anzaldúa played a major role in shaping contemporary Chicano/a and lesbian/queer theories and identities. As an editor of three anthologies, including the groundbreaking This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, she played an equally vital role in developing an inclusionary, multicultural feminist movement. A versatile author, Anzaldúa published poetry, theoretical essays, short stories, autobiographical narratives, interviews, and children's books. Her work, which has been included in more than 100 anthologies to date, has helped to transform academic fields including American, Chicano/a, composition, ethnic, literary, and women's studies. This reader--which provides a representative sample of the poetry, prose, fiction, and experimental autobiographical writing that Anzaldúa produced during her thirty-year career--demonstrates the breadth and philosophical depth of her work. While the reader contains much of Anzaldúa's published writing (including several pieces now out of print), more than half the material has never before been published. This newly available work offers fresh insights into crucial aspects of Anzaldúa's life and career, including her upbringing, education, teaching experiences, writing practice and aesthetics, lifelong health struggles, and interest in visual art, as well as her theories of disability, multiculturalism, pedagogy, and spiritual activism. The pieces are arranged chronologically; each one is preceded by a brief introduction. The collection includes a glossary of Anzaldúa's key terms and concepts, a timeline of her life, primary and secondary bibliographies, and a detailed index.

Since the 1980s Chicana writers including Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, and Alma Luz Villanueva have reworked iconic Mexican cultural symbols such as mother earth goddesses and La Llorona (the Wailing Woman of Mexican folklore), re-imagining them as powerful female figures. After reading the works of Chicana writers who created bold, powerful, and openly sexual female characters, Debra J. Blake wondered how everyday Mexican American women would characterize their own lives in relation to the writers' radical reconfigurations of female sexuality and gender roles. To find out, Blake gathered oral histories from working-class and semiprofessional U.S. Mexicanas. In Chicana Sexuality and Gender, she compares the self-representations of these women with fictional and artistic representations by academic-affiliated, professional intellectual Chicana writers and visual artists, including Alma M. López and Yolanda López. Blake looks at how the Chicana professional intellectuals and the U.S. Mexicana women refigure confining and demeaning constructions of female gender roles and racial, ethnic, and sexual identities. She organizes her analysis around re-imaginings of La Virgen de Guadalupe, La Llorona, indigenous Mexica goddesses, and La Malinche, the indigenous interpreter for Hernán Cortés during the Spanish conquest. In doing so, Blake reveals how the professional intellectuals and the working-class and semiprofessional women rework or invoke the female icons to confront the repression of female sexuality, limiting gender roles, inequality in male and female relationships, and violence against women. While the representational strategies of the two groups of women are significantly different and the U.S. Mexicanas would not necessarily call themselves feminists, Blake nonetheless illuminates a continuum of Chicana feminist thinking, showing how both groups of women expand lifestyle choices and promote the health and well-being of women of Mexican origin or descent.

Feminist Waves, Feminist Generations challenges the static figuring of feminist generations that positions the second wave of feminist scholars against a homogeneous third wave. Based on life stories from contemporary feminist scholars, this volume emphasizes how feminism develops unevenly over time and across institutions and, ultimately, offers a new paradigm for theorizing the intersections between generations and feminist waves of thought.   Contributors: Sam Bullington, U of Missouri; Susan Cahn, SUNY Buffalo; Dawn Rae Davis, U of Minnesota; Lisa J. Disch, U of Minnesota; Sara Evans, U of Minnesota; Elizabeth Faue, Wayne State U; Roderick A. Ferguson, U of Minnesota; Peter Hennen, Ohio State U at Newark; Wendy Leo Moore, Texas A&M U; Toni McNaron, U of Minnesota; Jean M. O'Brien, U of Minnesota; Felicity Schaeffer-Grabiel, U of California, Santa Cruz; Anne Firor Scott, Duke U; Janet D. Spector, U of Minnesota; Amanda Lock Swarr, U of Washington, Seatt≤ Miglena Todorova, U of Minnesota.   Hokulani K. Aikau is assistant professor of indigenous politics in the department of political science at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Karla A. Erickson is assistant professor of sociology at Grinnell College. Jennifer L. Pierce is associate professor of American studies at the University of Minnesota.

An updated edition combining two classic works of Chicana and queer literatures, with a new introduction by renowned writer and luminary, Cherríe Moraga. In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, this updated edition of Loving in the War Years combines Moraga's classic memoir with The Last Generation: Poetry and Prose, originally published in 1993, along with additional writings from the late 1990s,  The result is a synergy of signature works crucial to the development of the intersectional politics we know today. Cherríe Moraga's powerful memoir remains as urgent as ever. She explores the contradictions and complexities of her Chicana and lesbian identities, moving gracefully between poetry and prose, Spanish and English, personal narratives and political theory. Moraga recounts navigating the world largely as an outsider in her early years, circling the interconnected societies around her from a distant yet observant perspective. Ultimately, however, her writing serves as a bridge between her cultures, languages, family, and herself, enabling her to look inward to forge connections from what had heretofore been inaccessible parts of her interior world. A touchstone for artists and activists, the works combine to show how deep self-awareness and compassionate engagement with one's radically changing surroundings are key to building global solidarity among people and political movements. 

A new approach to feminist thought that challenges current critical theories. In a work with far-reaching implications, Chela Sandoval does no less than revise the genealogy of theory over the past thirty years, inserting what she terms "U.S. Third World feminism" into the narrative in a way that thoroughly alters our perspective on contemporary culture and subjectivity. What Sandoval has identified is a language, a rhetoric of resistance to postmodern cultural conditions. U.S. liberation movements of the post-World War II era generated specific modes of oppositional consciousness. Out of these emerged a new activity of consciousness and language Sandoval calls the "methodology of the oppressed." This methodology--born of the strains of the cultural and identity struggles that currently mark global exchange--holds out the possibility of a new historical moment, a new citizen-subject, and a new form of alliance consciousness and politics. Utilizing semiotics and U.S. Third World feminist criticism, Sandoval demonstrates how this methodology mobilizes love as a category of critical analysis. Rendering this approach in all its specifics, Methodology of the Oppressed gives rise to an alternative mode of criticism opening new perspectives on any theoretical, literary, aesthetic, social movement, or psychic expression.

Essay begins on page 198. For online version, go to full eBook. Select format. Download full text. Enter page number.