This Bridge Called My Back

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This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color was a ground-breaking feminist anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. The anthology was first published in 1981 by Persephone Press, and the second edition was published in 1984 by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.^[1] The book is currently out in its third edition, published by Third Woman Press. This Bridge centered the experiences of women of color, offering a serious challenge to white feminists who made claims to solidarity based on sisterhood. Writings in the anthology, along with works by other prominent feminists of color, call for more a greater prominence within feminism for race-related subjectivities, and ultimately laid the foundation for third wave feminism.

This Bridge "offered a rich and diverse account of the experience and analyses of women of color; with its collective ethos, its politics of rage and regeneration, and its mix of poetry, critique, fiction and testimony, it challenged the boundaries of feminist and academic discourse."^[2] This Bridge has become "one of the most cited books in feminist theorizing" (emphasis in original)^[3]

Anthologists Moraga and Anzaldúa stated in the preface that they expected the book to act as a catalyst, "not as a definitive statement on Third World Feminism" in the United States.^[4] They also expressed a desire to "express to all women, especially white, middle class women, the experiences which divide us as feminists ...we want to create a definition that expands what "feminist" means.^[5]

Teresa de Lauretis noted that This Bridge and All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies (1982) created a "shift in feminist consciousness" by making "available to all feminists the feelings, the analyses, and the political positions of feminists of color, and their critiques of white or mainstream feminism."^[6]

Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, and Norma Alarcon adapted this anthology into the Spanish-language Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos. In 2002, AnaLouise Keating and Gloria Anzaldúa edited an anthology (this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation) that examined the impact of This Bridge twenty years later while trying to continue the discussion started by Anzaldúa and Moraga in 1981.

[edit] Contributors

• Gloria E. Anzaldúa
• Toni Cade Bambara
• Ana Castillo
• Chrystos
• Combahee River Collective
• Audre Lorde
• Cherríe Moraga
• Barbara Smith
• Beverly Smith
• Max Wolf Valerio

[edit] See also

• Chicana feminism
• Black feminism
• Third-world feminism

[edit] References

1. ^ Short, Kayann. "Coming to the Table: THe Differential Politics of This Bridge called my Back, Genders 19, 1994, pp4-8
2. ^ Heather Love (January 2003). The second time around. The Women's Review of Books: A feminist guide to good reading. A review of This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation edited by Gloria E. Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating. New York: Routledge, 2002.
3. ^ Aenerud, Rebecca "Thinking Again: This Bridge Called My Back and the Challenge to Whiteness" in AnaLouise Keating (2002). This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation, 71. 
4. ^ Anzaldúa & Moraga, This Bridge Called My Back, Persephone Press, Author Preface p xxvi
5. ^ Anzaldúa & Moraga, This Bridge Called My Back, Persephone Press, Author Preface p xxiii
6. ^ de Lauretis, Teresa "The Technology of Gender" in Rakow, Lana (1987). Feminist Communication Theory: Selections in Context, 221.