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This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
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, nearly thirty-five years after its inception, the fourth edition contains an extensive new introduction by Moraga, along with a previously unpublished statement by Gloria Anzaldúa. The new edition also includes visual artists whose work was produced during the same period as Bridge, including Betye Saar, Ana Mendieta, and Yolanda López, as well as current contributor biographies. 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.
Reissued here, nearly thirty-five years after its inception, the fourth edition contains an extensive new introduction by Moraga, along with a previously unpublished statement by Gloria Anzaldúa. The new edition also includes visual artists whose work was produced during the same period as Bridge, including Betye Saar, Ana Mendieta, and Yolanda López, as well as current contributor biographies. 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.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
687 people are currently reading
45480 people want to read
About the author
Cherríe L. Moraga
32 books362 followersCherríe Lawrence Moraga is a Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at Stanford University in the Department of Drama and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Her works explore the ways in which gender, sexuality and race intersect in the lives of women of color.
Moraga was one of the few writers to write and introduce the theory on Chicana lesbianism. Her interests include the intersections of gender, sexuality, and race, particularly in cultural production by women of color. There are not many women of color writing about issues that queer women of color face today: therefore, her work is very notable and important to the new generations. In the 1980s her works started to be published. Since she is one of the first and few Chicana/Lesbian writers of our time, she set the stage for younger generations of other minority writers and activists.
Moraga has taught courses in dramatic arts and writing at various universities across the United States and is currently an artist in residence at Stanford University. Her play, Watsonville: Some Place Not Here, performed at the Brava Theatre Company of San Francisco in May, 1996, won the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Fund for New American Plays Award, from the Kennedy center for the Performing Arts. Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde and Moraga started Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press in 1983, a group which did not discriminate against homosexuality, class, or race. it is the first publisher dedicated to the writing of women of color in the United States.
Moraga is currently involved in a Theatre communications group and was the recipient of the NEA Theatre Playwriting Fellowship Award Her plays and publications have won and received national recognition including a TCG Theatre Residency Grant, a National Endowment for the art fellowship for play writing and two Fund for New American Plays Awards in 1993. She was awarded the United States artist Rockefeller Fellowship for literature in 2007.In 2008 she won a Creative Work Fund Award. The following year, in 2009 she received a Gerbode-Hewlett foundation grant for play writing.
(from Wikipedia)
Moraga was one of the few writers to write and introduce the theory on Chicana lesbianism. Her interests include the intersections of gender, sexuality, and race, particularly in cultural production by women of color. There are not many women of color writing about issues that queer women of color face today: therefore, her work is very notable and important to the new generations. In the 1980s her works started to be published. Since she is one of the first and few Chicana/Lesbian writers of our time, she set the stage for younger generations of other minority writers and activists.
Moraga has taught courses in dramatic arts and writing at various universities across the United States and is currently an artist in residence at Stanford University. Her play, Watsonville: Some Place Not Here, performed at the Brava Theatre Company of San Francisco in May, 1996, won the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Fund for New American Plays Award, from the Kennedy center for the Performing Arts. Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde and Moraga started Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press in 1983, a group which did not discriminate against homosexuality, class, or race. it is the first publisher dedicated to the writing of women of color in the United States.
Moraga is currently involved in a Theatre communications group and was the recipient of the NEA Theatre Playwriting Fellowship Award Her plays and publications have won and received national recognition including a TCG Theatre Residency Grant, a National Endowment for the art fellowship for play writing and two Fund for New American Plays Awards in 1993. She was awarded the United States artist Rockefeller Fellowship for literature in 2007.In 2008 she won a Creative Work Fund Award. The following year, in 2009 she received a Gerbode-Hewlett foundation grant for play writing.
(from Wikipedia)
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December 4, 2013
Without getting too personal, I have to admit I grew up with identity issues.I guess most women of colour living in the West do have such moments, especially seeing as how we are under-represented in many areas of society. Not only that, we also have to contend with stereotypes and being caught between cultures. As such, this book was very important to me. It is an anthology featuring different types of works (poems, speeches, short stories) by gay and straight women of colour (African-American, Asian, Native American, Latina). What I found surprising is how all these groups of women have similar problems despite their ethnic differences.
The book is indeed radical. It is very candid and unapologetic. It's also exhorting. It talks about the frustration that women of colour have faced when their concerns and experiences have not been included in traditional feminist theory.
I found the book to be very inspirational. It was actually written over 30 years ago so things have changed quite a bit but some of the concerns remain the same.The main change I have seen is women of colour gaining awareness of themselves, their place in society and their strength. As Mitsuye Yamada says, "I would like to think that my new awareness is going to make me more visible than ever."
Gloria Anzaldua encourages women of colour to write and share their stories and concerns. One of her quotes was so beautiful: "Pen, I feel right at home in your ink doing a pirouette, stirring the cobwebs, leaving my signature on the windowpanes. Pen, how could I ever have feared you. You are quite housebroken but it's your wildness I am in love with."
Despite the book being aimed at women of colour, I believe it is a good book for all women to read. Very educational and enlightening.
The book is indeed radical. It is very candid and unapologetic. It's also exhorting. It talks about the frustration that women of colour have faced when their concerns and experiences have not been included in traditional feminist theory.
I found the book to be very inspirational. It was actually written over 30 years ago so things have changed quite a bit but some of the concerns remain the same.The main change I have seen is women of colour gaining awareness of themselves, their place in society and their strength. As Mitsuye Yamada says, "I would like to think that my new awareness is going to make me more visible than ever."
Gloria Anzaldua encourages women of colour to write and share their stories and concerns. One of her quotes was so beautiful: "Pen, I feel right at home in your ink doing a pirouette, stirring the cobwebs, leaving my signature on the windowpanes. Pen, how could I ever have feared you. You are quite housebroken but it's your wildness I am in love with."
Despite the book being aimed at women of colour, I believe it is a good book for all women to read. Very educational and enlightening.
May 21, 2008
don't try to read queer theory or anything on your gender studies syllabus without reading this book first. because that shit all came from this shit, no matter what all the white queer theorists try to tell you.
but seriously. theoretically, the trajectory is there. these women came up with what we all now understand as the reality that multiplicity is how each of us navigate the world (ok some other folks did it too, for sure) and those multiplicities occur simultaneously, both internally and externally, at all times. i've been in academic situations where students think that foucault or paolo friere or judith butler came up with this. yikes.
these are the words that are most at risk of being lost in gender/queer/sexuality academia today, so make sure you are reading it before getting deep into these fields! make sure your favorite theorists today are quoting moraga and lorde and p. smith and barbara ramsey! (ps. for all you haters judith butler does this. :P )
thankfully, the coolest voices out there in queer theory today are folks writing from a post-colonial queer perspective who are down with this shit. who are not forgetting these crucial voices when necessarily calling for the renegotiation of identity politics.
next, read "Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color" also edited by Moraga
but seriously. theoretically, the trajectory is there. these women came up with what we all now understand as the reality that multiplicity is how each of us navigate the world (ok some other folks did it too, for sure) and those multiplicities occur simultaneously, both internally and externally, at all times. i've been in academic situations where students think that foucault or paolo friere or judith butler came up with this. yikes.
these are the words that are most at risk of being lost in gender/queer/sexuality academia today, so make sure you are reading it before getting deep into these fields! make sure your favorite theorists today are quoting moraga and lorde and p. smith and barbara ramsey! (ps. for all you haters judith butler does this. :P )
thankfully, the coolest voices out there in queer theory today are folks writing from a post-colonial queer perspective who are down with this shit. who are not forgetting these crucial voices when necessarily calling for the renegotiation of identity politics.
next, read "Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color" also edited by Moraga
August 3, 2014
This anthology by radical, feminist and mostly lesbian Women of Colour has the aura of a revolutionary moment. I loved the range of styles, especially the wonderful poems and prose poems, and generally the directness that gave it the feeling of a drama, the feeling of being in a room with the contributors. Much of what is said, of course, is still being said now, and I am aware that white feminists have cherry picked and weaponised words from this collection against women of colour. Nonetheless, keeping the context and the drift of a challenge to we white feminists to shake off the cosy mantle of the oppressor, I will echo a few of the most thrilling lines from the performance.
"Without an emotional, heartfelt grappling with the source of our own oppression, without naming the enemy within and outside of us, no authentic, non-hierarchical connection among oppressed groups can take place" - Cherrie Moraga
Moraga notes that white women's groups have not seemed to feel a lack when women of colour were absent, and thus have not made efforts to be inclusive. This is an indictment of how feminism has been understood by white women. Native writer Chrystos says "I no longer believe that feminism is a tool which can eliminate racism"
Mitsuye Yamada writes that especially for Asian women 'passive resistance' is not possible as such behaviour confirms stereotypes about Asian women. For this reason, their anger makes white women most angry. She shares that every time she speaks to white women groups it is as if women like her have never been heard before. She notes that women in her life agree on feminism as an ideal but are disappointed with women's movement as is. She bears witness to some acts of racism, for example, when she campaigned for the Fair Housing Bill a church friend asked her 'why are you doing this? haven't we treated you well?' revealing that even third of forth generation Asian Americans are expected to act as a guests in the US, just as women of colour are expected to act as guests in feminism.
Barbara Cameron is forthright on internalised racism, confessing her negative feelings about Black, Asian Chicano and other groups which have come 'from TV & who knows where' and also racism among Indians about 'half-blood' people for example. She gives a neat description of the weird way white people behave at parties, describing the books they have read about your culture and so on, while the 'third world people' and/or gay people in the room all affect 'sophistication' by 'talking to white people'. Like many contributors, she laments the racism among white lesbian feminists and the burden placed on her and other Women of Colour to eliminate racism and to educate White women.
Gabriel Daniels writes about Anais Nin's maid Millicent Fredericks who came from Antigua. Nin could not get past the idea of her as black, exotic (to be painted by 'a Gauguin'), suffering, poor, but she was a teacher in her home country and her work enabled Nin's, as Daniels' poem beautifully and painfully highlights.
A point of particular present relevance is well put by doris davenport - 'racism' is like a slimy disease and when accused liberals pull out their creds to show they do not have it. Her theory is that white supremacy in white women arises from an inferiority complex caused by our own powerlessness under patriarchy.
Some of the writers, for example Cherrie Moraga herself, are able to 'pass' for white and can choose to identify as women of colour, a choice which Moraga is painfully aware others do not share, and which she identifies as a risk to those who have no choice. Mirtha Quintanales talk of the 'perils of passing' (as cultural/ethnic erasure - which she says should be easier for lesbians to understand) but this discourse can shade painfully into anti-blackness and the collapse of solidarity, as keeps on happening. (White feminists can all too easily fall into the trap of being anti-black when non-black-women-of-colour claim they are being victimised by black women, as it taps into our so easily provoked white-tears. White folks: anti-blackness can occur in all sorts of spaces. Stay accountable.)
I loved the interview with Barbara & Beverly Smith on Black feminism. They mention things like white women expressing pride at their decision not to finish school, while black women have no choice and must be twice as qualified to get half as far. They are amused by the 'click' white women mention when they realise they are oppressed as women. Black women are all too conscious from their earliest memories, they say. Also they bear witness to white lesbians accusing black lesbians of being 'male-identified' because they are concerned with issues of racism that affect men! Along with many of the contributors, they critique lesbian separatism (which must have been in vogue) as racist or at least problematic because it ignores structural inequalities other than (hetero)sexism and leaves out huge groups of oppressed people. And again, the choice is not often available to women of colour. Also, the need for collaboration: "Any kind of separatism is a dead end... forming principled coalitions around specific issues is very important." However, as others point out, separatist groups have intermediate use as safe spaces...
Much of the work shares positive aspects of Black/Latin@/Native/Asian culture in contrast to homogenized white American materiality - bland, mass-produced and soulless, celebrating togetherness, music, dance, food and just affirming joy in connection of articulating shared oppression and spending time with people they relate to.
Merle Woo charts generational learning: although her mother does not support her activism especially against heterosexism, Woo says that she could not have got where she was without the example of her mother's strength. She is proud to see her own 16 year old daughter 'going for what she wants'. Familial solidarity gave her a sense of self against the racism she experienced, including as a writer, for example a white woman poet criticized her and mentioned 'looking for universal themes' as an argument against addressing race. Of course we know, universal = white.
Gloria Anzaldua and others point out that poverty means no time to write: "forget a room of one's own, write in the kitchen". Like Merle Woo, she worries about misrepresenting her mother as a villain when, like all people of colour, she was a victim of the white supremacy that distorted her treatment of her dark-skinned daughter. Anzaldua writes lovingly about writing as (strategic essentialism!) reclamation of subjectivity. As does Nellie Wong, talking to herself, encouraging herself, summing up the wave behind her, driving her to write.
The range of the material is huge. Angles I did not expect included Norma Alarcon on Malintzin and Latinas' reactions to the male myth, and Anzaldua & Luisah Teish on spirituality & breaking out of the rationalist paradigm: "The biggest problem that we have had was believing somebody else's story about us"
Andrea Canaan mentions that white women have been seen as enemies by black women due to internalised, race-inflected misogyny: 'she seduces black men and cries rape', obviously in order to call for a change of attitude. Another expression of the impulse to move-beyond-dividing-difference (which white feminists have sometimes used against Women of Colour)
Pat Parker sees the forces of imperialism "up against the wall" this in 1980. Rather than revolution, imperialism blazed forth with renewed force and refreshed narratives of security against terrorists. Parker reads for us the encouragement to enlist: 'be a good American' "The equation is being laid out in front of us. Good American = Support imperialism and war. To this I must declare - I am not a good American. I do not wish to have the world colonized, bombarded, and plundered in order to eat steak"
Chrystos closes the collection. Like the work of other Indian/Native contributors, her words express internal conflict, a morass of grief, pride, anger, the will to go on fighting, faith and hope and love in community. Well, the fight goes on…
"Without an emotional, heartfelt grappling with the source of our own oppression, without naming the enemy within and outside of us, no authentic, non-hierarchical connection among oppressed groups can take place" - Cherrie Moraga
Moraga notes that white women's groups have not seemed to feel a lack when women of colour were absent, and thus have not made efforts to be inclusive. This is an indictment of how feminism has been understood by white women. Native writer Chrystos says "I no longer believe that feminism is a tool which can eliminate racism"
Mitsuye Yamada writes that especially for Asian women 'passive resistance' is not possible as such behaviour confirms stereotypes about Asian women. For this reason, their anger makes white women most angry. She shares that every time she speaks to white women groups it is as if women like her have never been heard before. She notes that women in her life agree on feminism as an ideal but are disappointed with women's movement as is. She bears witness to some acts of racism, for example, when she campaigned for the Fair Housing Bill a church friend asked her 'why are you doing this? haven't we treated you well?' revealing that even third of forth generation Asian Americans are expected to act as a guests in the US, just as women of colour are expected to act as guests in feminism.
Barbara Cameron is forthright on internalised racism, confessing her negative feelings about Black, Asian Chicano and other groups which have come 'from TV & who knows where' and also racism among Indians about 'half-blood' people for example. She gives a neat description of the weird way white people behave at parties, describing the books they have read about your culture and so on, while the 'third world people' and/or gay people in the room all affect 'sophistication' by 'talking to white people'. Like many contributors, she laments the racism among white lesbian feminists and the burden placed on her and other Women of Colour to eliminate racism and to educate White women.
Gabriel Daniels writes about Anais Nin's maid Millicent Fredericks who came from Antigua. Nin could not get past the idea of her as black, exotic (to be painted by 'a Gauguin'), suffering, poor, but she was a teacher in her home country and her work enabled Nin's, as Daniels' poem beautifully and painfully highlights.
A point of particular present relevance is well put by doris davenport - 'racism' is like a slimy disease and when accused liberals pull out their creds to show they do not have it. Her theory is that white supremacy in white women arises from an inferiority complex caused by our own powerlessness under patriarchy.
Some of the writers, for example Cherrie Moraga herself, are able to 'pass' for white and can choose to identify as women of colour, a choice which Moraga is painfully aware others do not share, and which she identifies as a risk to those who have no choice. Mirtha Quintanales talk of the 'perils of passing' (as cultural/ethnic erasure - which she says should be easier for lesbians to understand) but this discourse can shade painfully into anti-blackness and the collapse of solidarity, as keeps on happening. (White feminists can all too easily fall into the trap of being anti-black when non-black-women-of-colour claim they are being victimised by black women, as it taps into our so easily provoked white-tears. White folks: anti-blackness can occur in all sorts of spaces. Stay accountable.)
I loved the interview with Barbara & Beverly Smith on Black feminism. They mention things like white women expressing pride at their decision not to finish school, while black women have no choice and must be twice as qualified to get half as far. They are amused by the 'click' white women mention when they realise they are oppressed as women. Black women are all too conscious from their earliest memories, they say. Also they bear witness to white lesbians accusing black lesbians of being 'male-identified' because they are concerned with issues of racism that affect men! Along with many of the contributors, they critique lesbian separatism (which must have been in vogue) as racist or at least problematic because it ignores structural inequalities other than (hetero)sexism and leaves out huge groups of oppressed people. And again, the choice is not often available to women of colour. Also, the need for collaboration: "Any kind of separatism is a dead end... forming principled coalitions around specific issues is very important." However, as others point out, separatist groups have intermediate use as safe spaces...
Much of the work shares positive aspects of Black/Latin@/Native/Asian culture in contrast to homogenized white American materiality - bland, mass-produced and soulless, celebrating togetherness, music, dance, food and just affirming joy in connection of articulating shared oppression and spending time with people they relate to.
Merle Woo charts generational learning: although her mother does not support her activism especially against heterosexism, Woo says that she could not have got where she was without the example of her mother's strength. She is proud to see her own 16 year old daughter 'going for what she wants'. Familial solidarity gave her a sense of self against the racism she experienced, including as a writer, for example a white woman poet criticized her and mentioned 'looking for universal themes' as an argument against addressing race. Of course we know, universal = white.
Gloria Anzaldua and others point out that poverty means no time to write: "forget a room of one's own, write in the kitchen". Like Merle Woo, she worries about misrepresenting her mother as a villain when, like all people of colour, she was a victim of the white supremacy that distorted her treatment of her dark-skinned daughter. Anzaldua writes lovingly about writing as (strategic essentialism!) reclamation of subjectivity. As does Nellie Wong, talking to herself, encouraging herself, summing up the wave behind her, driving her to write.
The range of the material is huge. Angles I did not expect included Norma Alarcon on Malintzin and Latinas' reactions to the male myth, and Anzaldua & Luisah Teish on spirituality & breaking out of the rationalist paradigm: "The biggest problem that we have had was believing somebody else's story about us"
Andrea Canaan mentions that white women have been seen as enemies by black women due to internalised, race-inflected misogyny: 'she seduces black men and cries rape', obviously in order to call for a change of attitude. Another expression of the impulse to move-beyond-dividing-difference (which white feminists have sometimes used against Women of Colour)
Pat Parker sees the forces of imperialism "up against the wall" this in 1980. Rather than revolution, imperialism blazed forth with renewed force and refreshed narratives of security against terrorists. Parker reads for us the encouragement to enlist: 'be a good American' "The equation is being laid out in front of us. Good American = Support imperialism and war. To this I must declare - I am not a good American. I do not wish to have the world colonized, bombarded, and plundered in order to eat steak"
Chrystos closes the collection. Like the work of other Indian/Native contributors, her words express internal conflict, a morass of grief, pride, anger, the will to go on fighting, faith and hope and love in community. Well, the fight goes on…
July 5, 2020
Before I began this book, I was thinking about why I find it important to read older works of theory/critical essays (Fanon, Cesaire, hooks, Davis, Memmi, Lorde, etc.) rather than more recent texts. I identified three reasons, all of which apply to this text as well:
1. Many theories/ideas that come to be academic mainstream originated by Black and Brown folk outside of/in opposition to the academy. See DuBois regarding the slave trade and Black Reconstruction, various Black Power/Black Feminist folks and a slew of ideas about prisons, race, policing, etc. I find that reading the sanitized, post-academic treatment of the work erases the fact that these ideas were living ideas routed in experiential knowledge, and that the assertion the ideas was itself part of the struggle.
2. These remain foundational texts. The current generation of radical thinkers draw heavily and are indebted to these texts. Before reading their words, I would like to have a common set of information with them to assess their ideas.
3. Because these ideas are counter to the dominant discourse, they are erased and must be rediscovered every generation. Radical thought, given its liminal status, is inherently lonely. A key component of developing radical consciousness is realizing that folks in generations before you thought similar thoughts, that these ideas are part of a long, hidden tradition. In this way, seeking older texts is about linking generations of folks struggling against power structures together, a search for chosen cross-generational linkages and knowledge transmission.
This Bridge satisfies all of these things. It also does much more. It centers a theory of radical transformative justice in repairing family and community relations (what do I claim of my mother?). It pushes past materialist critiques to embrace critiques of spiritual and emotional alienation due to hierarchy (how to live with a rapist god). It roots radical consciousness in an inability to reconcile what one observes in childhood with what one is told. It skewers other radical movements for their failures: the racism and classism in the feminist movement, the homophobia and sexism in various race-based movements, the limited nature of separatist movements, etc,
It’s also just really well written. These essays almost all hold up. Most of them remain sharp critiques of dominant discourse even 40 years later.
1. Many theories/ideas that come to be academic mainstream originated by Black and Brown folk outside of/in opposition to the academy. See DuBois regarding the slave trade and Black Reconstruction, various Black Power/Black Feminist folks and a slew of ideas about prisons, race, policing, etc. I find that reading the sanitized, post-academic treatment of the work erases the fact that these ideas were living ideas routed in experiential knowledge, and that the assertion the ideas was itself part of the struggle.
2. These remain foundational texts. The current generation of radical thinkers draw heavily and are indebted to these texts. Before reading their words, I would like to have a common set of information with them to assess their ideas.
3. Because these ideas are counter to the dominant discourse, they are erased and must be rediscovered every generation. Radical thought, given its liminal status, is inherently lonely. A key component of developing radical consciousness is realizing that folks in generations before you thought similar thoughts, that these ideas are part of a long, hidden tradition. In this way, seeking older texts is about linking generations of folks struggling against power structures together, a search for chosen cross-generational linkages and knowledge transmission.
This Bridge satisfies all of these things. It also does much more. It centers a theory of radical transformative justice in repairing family and community relations (what do I claim of my mother?). It pushes past materialist critiques to embrace critiques of spiritual and emotional alienation due to hierarchy (how to live with a rapist god). It roots radical consciousness in an inability to reconcile what one observes in childhood with what one is told. It skewers other radical movements for their failures: the racism and classism in the feminist movement, the homophobia and sexism in various race-based movements, the limited nature of separatist movements, etc,
It’s also just really well written. These essays almost all hold up. Most of them remain sharp critiques of dominant discourse even 40 years later.
January 13, 2016
It's sad to say that it's taken me 24 years to deeply connect with a book. This book feels like a war has been waged inside of me. It feels painful, uncomfortable, yet beautiful all at the same time as I realize that with every turn of the page there are more and more women like me. Strong, willfull, feeling. This is the book I've been waiting for.
January 25, 2008
This is a book I will always be reading, when I'm not lending it out. Way fucking radical, this collection of essays from amazing strong women folk explores race, sexuality, language, love, hate and discrimination. The editors, Gloria Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga, are two of my favorite writers. They put my experience, fears and hopes into words. Ladies of color this ones for you, even if like me you only have some color. This book changed my life. I would also recommend this to white people, but it might scare the shit out of you.
February 10, 2023
An academic read but my goodness did my white privilege get called out repeatedly in a variety of ways I've never thought of - in the best way. I need to hear these bitter truths from people of color to better myself.
This anthology features poetry, photography, essays, interviews, and speeches from Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American feminists and activists from all backgrounds. The contributors are natural born American citizens as well as immigrants to the country.
I highly recommend it, but it's best read in small parts. 3-5 essays at a time, absorb it, read a few more, etc.
This anthology features poetry, photography, essays, interviews, and speeches from Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American feminists and activists from all backgrounds. The contributors are natural born American citizens as well as immigrants to the country.
I highly recommend it, but it's best read in small parts. 3-5 essays at a time, absorb it, read a few more, etc.
January 9, 2021
It took me months but I finally finished! It's not a book you necessarily sit down and read in one sitting, it takes some time to pause and reflect. Some pieces I went back and re-read as I tried to absorb them. What's interesting reading this book in 2020 is that a lot of these pieces were foundational or groundbreaking back in the day - Combahee River Collective statement, for one - and now reflect more widely accepted truths. I also appreciated the poems/art interspersed throughout, giving both space for reflection and diferent ways of expressing the same sentiment found in the essays.
January 3, 2017
Tw: Transmisogyny mention
First things first: Like most books with various perspectives/articles, it's unlikely that as the reader we'll enjoy/like every essay/article/poem, etc. Although there were a hand full of pieces that I thought were incredibly well done, and made very important points, I really couldn't get past the fact that there were no (openly) trans women involved. Basically, this book was originally published in the 80's and at that point in time, all the contributors identified as (cisgender) women. In 2015, the fourth edition was released, with an update on the authors where we find out some have (since the original publishing) come out as trans men, yet their articles remained. Honestly, if they had kept the original articles, but had added some pieces from trans woman, I wouldn't have complained. Or, if they had removed the pieces that were written by men, that would have been fine too. But to leave articles written by dudes in a book that's supposed to be about womanhood, is super messed up. Not to mention the fact that to continue to sell/advertise the book as for and by women, is to misgender the trans men who have contributed. It's also really sad to see a book that went so far out of it's way to include so many women with different experiences, leave out trans women of color, especially when twoc face multiple forms of oppression and marginalization and have so little representation as is. To leave them out, but to include trans men, is just truly heart breaking all around, and made this book a major disappointment.
First things first: Like most books with various perspectives/articles, it's unlikely that as the reader we'll enjoy/like every essay/article/poem, etc. Although there were a hand full of pieces that I thought were incredibly well done, and made very important points, I really couldn't get past the fact that there were no (openly) trans women involved. Basically, this book was originally published in the 80's and at that point in time, all the contributors identified as (cisgender) women. In 2015, the fourth edition was released, with an update on the authors where we find out some have (since the original publishing) come out as trans men, yet their articles remained. Honestly, if they had kept the original articles, but had added some pieces from trans woman, I wouldn't have complained. Or, if they had removed the pieces that were written by men, that would have been fine too. But to leave articles written by dudes in a book that's supposed to be about womanhood, is super messed up. Not to mention the fact that to continue to sell/advertise the book as for and by women, is to misgender the trans men who have contributed. It's also really sad to see a book that went so far out of it's way to include so many women with different experiences, leave out trans women of color, especially when twoc face multiple forms of oppression and marginalization and have so little representation as is. To leave them out, but to include trans men, is just truly heart breaking all around, and made this book a major disappointment.
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February 10, 2010My favorite piece is the conversation between twin sisters Beverly and Barbara Smith -- all the layers of complexity, understanding, awareness, and even hints of conflict and contradiction! And that’s the amazing thing about the book -- that the whole thing functions as an extended conversation between radical women of color, and reading it we got to sense, experience, question, gasping in awareness and expression, the way the essays sometimes read like poetry and the poetry like essays and the manifestos like something in between and the editors weave quotes from the essays into their introductions and this all makes it speak both inside and outside the texts and even the parts that are now dated still shine in emotion and commitment, the clumsier pieces illuminate and sometimes the clumsiness becomes part of the analysis, this drive towards clarity that sometimes ends, or sometimes clarity ends this drive. All of that. What I’m saying is that everything feels so engaged -- in the conversation, in the work to challenge and invoke differences and build analysis towards substantive change.
August 20, 2008
This Bridge Called My Back is, unquestionably, one of the most influential books of my life. It would be an impossible task to attempt to quantify what I experienced/got/learned from this book. That being said:
This Bridge Called My Back is an anthology of essays, theory,fiction, poetry, and the fusion of all four written by radical women of color. The analysis and honesty with which this book is written creates an endless source of reflection, lesson and/or connection.
Although this book came out in the 80s, it is as relevant today as it was then. With contributers such as Audre Lorde, Cherríe Moraga, Barbara Smith, and Gloria Anzaldúa, this book offers clear critique, analysis, and illustration to learn from, to be inspired by, and to challenge.
This book (along with La Frontera/Borderlands: The New Mestiza, also by Gloria Anzaldúa) is, hands down, one of the top books that shaped my perspectives on race, class, gender, sexuality, language, colonization, and immigration. It is consistently named as one of the most influential books of countless people in my life, and continues to influence their lives, art, and organizing. READ IT.
This Bridge Called My Back is an anthology of essays, theory,fiction, poetry, and the fusion of all four written by radical women of color. The analysis and honesty with which this book is written creates an endless source of reflection, lesson and/or connection.
Although this book came out in the 80s, it is as relevant today as it was then. With contributers such as Audre Lorde, Cherríe Moraga, Barbara Smith, and Gloria Anzaldúa, this book offers clear critique, analysis, and illustration to learn from, to be inspired by, and to challenge.
This book (along with La Frontera/Borderlands: The New Mestiza, also by Gloria Anzaldúa) is, hands down, one of the top books that shaped my perspectives on race, class, gender, sexuality, language, colonization, and immigration. It is consistently named as one of the most influential books of countless people in my life, and continues to influence their lives, art, and organizing. READ IT.
December 4, 2013
A great intro to intersectionality: how race, gender, sexuality, immigration status, language, and class interact with each other in the lives of women of color in the US. An anthology of personal experience in poems, theory, essays, letters, and interviews.
This book must have been groundbreaking when it came out in 1981. The authors repeatedly write about how they could find nothing in contemporary literature on race and gender that spoke to the complexities of oppression and resistance in their lives. Without a cannon to fall back on, they decided to take the task on themselves. "This Bridge Called My Back" is an important read both for its (still relevant) analysis, and as a primary source critique of second wave feminism that was dominated by the needs and interests of middle class, white heterosexual women.
A few really great essays, but the book is best taken as a whole.
This book must have been groundbreaking when it came out in 1981. The authors repeatedly write about how they could find nothing in contemporary literature on race and gender that spoke to the complexities of oppression and resistance in their lives. Without a cannon to fall back on, they decided to take the task on themselves. "This Bridge Called My Back" is an important read both for its (still relevant) analysis, and as a primary source critique of second wave feminism that was dominated by the needs and interests of middle class, white heterosexual women.
A few really great essays, but the book is best taken as a whole.
August 2, 2007
Even the revised and updated 2002 version is hard to find, but I would encourage everyone to seek out a copy of this book because the strength, fire and passion of the writing is not to be missed. Everything these women write is still pertinent today - about the intersectionality of oppressions, the racism in the white feminist movement, the crucial need for solidarity across race, class, and gender lines . . . . I think this book should be required reading in all women's studies classes.
January 3, 2010
More than any other I've ever read, this book changed my life.
August 2, 2024
Truly a very insightful and interesting read that I would highly recommend for anyone who considers themselves a feminist
February 16, 2025
[...] I want your wildness, want the boy who left on a freight carI remember back in 2016 when this was on every other recommended reading list. Now a democrat is in the White House and election time is almost upon us in the US of A, and contextualizing a number of the issues contained within this book as being still relevant to the conversation gets you castigated as a Russian psyop in certain corners of the 'net. In any case, 43 years and four editions later, I'm watching pro-Palestine protestors being thrown around by cops on the campus of my alma mater, dealing with the fallout of one of my coworkers killing herself, continuing my hormone therapy transition, and all the while the rent spikes and the temperatures keep going up. There's a lot that's changed, and I agree with Moraga that a more international TBCMB would have not only been a wonder to behold, but have maintained a firmer grip on relevance (as well as may have come out with more than a few translations). And yet, what is not relevant about Black Lives Matter, the fall of Roe vs Wade, the mass targeting of literature having primarily to do with the childhoods of Black and queer folks in public libraries, the continued funding of genocide overseas, the continued funding of devastation of indigenous environments at home, the continued funding of school to prison to no vote pipeline for millions of people of color, and yet no money for public transportation. And yet no money for healthcare. And yet no money for education and climate renewal and accessibility, for the long COVID, for the elderly with neither children nor pension, for the maintenance of wheelchair storage in airplanes, least till they all fall apart in the sky to the tune of millions of dollars of stock buybacks. Long story short, will your voting save you when I myself doubt that my being union steward will be enough? Technology has tied together this world more than ever before, and the slide into AI is easy with both the underpaid labor and the environmental cost swallowed up by the imperial hegemony. Still, on with the protests and the strikes, the crowdfunding and the communications, the rallying around the human beings rather than their cost on the open market. Your normalcy under kyrirarchy may buy you some time, but until the folks of this anthology are free, none of us are.
I want a boy who cried because his mother is dead
& his daddy's gone crazy
I don't want this man who cut off his hair
joined the government
to be safe [...]
-Chrystos, "He Saw"
The reason racism is a feminist issue is easily explained by the inherent definition of feminism. Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women, as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything less than this is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement.
-Barbara Smith, Frontiers 5, no. 1 (1980)
In our religiously permeated and oriented indo-hispanic minds, it is often the case that devotion is equated with obedience and vice versa, particularly for women and children, so that disobedience is seen as lack of devout allegiance, and not necessarily as a radical questioning of our forms of life. This factor makes it almost impossible to sense a shift from obedience to devotion; they have been one and the same for hundreds of years. As such, we are a greater unconscious prey to subjugation which we then proceed to call devotion/love.P.S. I'm glad I acquired this for the place I librarian at. We're the closest library in 30 miles that makes it available to the public.
-Norma Alarcón, 'Chicana's Feminist Literature'
So I can't afford to just walk around that I individually am going to be locked up for no reason. I have to make sure that nobody can be locked up for no reason. You have to eliminate the fear not only in yourself but the real basis for that fear.
-Luisah Teish, 'O.K. Mama, Who the Hell Am I?: An Interview with Luisah Teish'
November 30, 2018
What a revelation it was to reread This Bridge Called My Back. Edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, this collection of writings by “Radical Women of Color,” cracked open the manicured shell of white feminism, revealing its racist, homophobic underbelly. Published in 1981, the book challenged white feminists claims to solidarity, putting forth instead a model of feminism that embraced intersectionality and recognized the multiple identities that exist within each woman, and within each community. It gave a platform to a powerful panoply of voices and experiences hereto relegated to the periphery of the movement.
Organized loosely by topic, the book combines poetry, memoir, epistles, and essays. No one genre or voice claims authority, but Moraga and Anzaldua form the guiding intelligences and passionate center of the book. I first encountered the book for the first time as an undergrad, and it challenged me, a straight, white girl, cocooned within middle-class privilege, to acknowledge my unconscious complicity in my sisters’ oppression. It also allowed me to embrace my own repressed artistic identity, and to recognize that my “self” too, was not in fact singular, but a multiplicity.
Traducción de Lis Arévalo
Qué revelación fue leer Este puente, mi espalda. Editado por Cherríe Moraga y Gloria Anzaldua, esta colección escrita por “Mujeres Radicales de Color” rompió la manicurada caparazón del feminismo blanco, revelando sus entrañas racistas y homófobas. Publicado en 1981, el libro desafió los llamados a la solidaridad de las feministas blancas, poniéndolos en contraste con un modelo de feminismo que abrazaba la interseccionalidad y reconocía las múltiples identidades que existen dentro de cada mujer y dentro de cada comunidad. Ofreció así plataforma a una poderosa panoplia de voces y experiencias relegadas a la periferia del movimiento.
Organizado libremente por temas, el libro combina poesía, memorias, epístolas y ensayos. Ningún género o voz se apodera de la autoridad, pero Moraga y Anzaldua destacan como las inteligencias rectoras y el apasionado centro del libro. Me lo encontré por primera vez en el pregrado y me desafió a mí, una muchacha hetero, blanca, encerrada en el privilegio de la clase media, a reconocer mi complicidad inconsciente en la opresión de mis hermanas. También me permitió abrazar mi propia identidad artística reprimida y reconocer que mi «ser» tampoco era singular en realidad, sino una multiplicidad.
http://pasajero.utero.pe/2018/11/22/b...
Organized loosely by topic, the book combines poetry, memoir, epistles, and essays. No one genre or voice claims authority, but Moraga and Anzaldua form the guiding intelligences and passionate center of the book. I first encountered the book for the first time as an undergrad, and it challenged me, a straight, white girl, cocooned within middle-class privilege, to acknowledge my unconscious complicity in my sisters’ oppression. It also allowed me to embrace my own repressed artistic identity, and to recognize that my “self” too, was not in fact singular, but a multiplicity.
Traducción de Lis Arévalo
Qué revelación fue leer Este puente, mi espalda. Editado por Cherríe Moraga y Gloria Anzaldua, esta colección escrita por “Mujeres Radicales de Color” rompió la manicurada caparazón del feminismo blanco, revelando sus entrañas racistas y homófobas. Publicado en 1981, el libro desafió los llamados a la solidaridad de las feministas blancas, poniéndolos en contraste con un modelo de feminismo que abrazaba la interseccionalidad y reconocía las múltiples identidades que existen dentro de cada mujer y dentro de cada comunidad. Ofreció así plataforma a una poderosa panoplia de voces y experiencias relegadas a la periferia del movimiento.
Organizado libremente por temas, el libro combina poesía, memorias, epístolas y ensayos. Ningún género o voz se apodera de la autoridad, pero Moraga y Anzaldua destacan como las inteligencias rectoras y el apasionado centro del libro. Me lo encontré por primera vez en el pregrado y me desafió a mí, una muchacha hetero, blanca, encerrada en el privilegio de la clase media, a reconocer mi complicidad inconsciente en la opresión de mis hermanas. También me permitió abrazar mi propia identidad artística reprimida y reconocer que mi «ser» tampoco era singular en realidad, sino una multiplicidad.
http://pasajero.utero.pe/2018/11/22/b...
April 24, 2014
Definitely a book worthy of the praise that inspired me to purchase it. At first I struggled with names and references made and inaccurately claimed that Warsan Shire was mentioned when it was another name I was attempting to articulate (feminist fail).
I feel more knowledgable and confident after reading the writings of so many wonderful feminists. My favourite section happens to be a poem which I plan to recite to white feminist "allies" who aggressively shun intersectionality.
Read this book. xoxo
I feel more knowledgable and confident after reading the writings of so many wonderful feminists. My favourite section happens to be a poem which I plan to recite to white feminist "allies" who aggressively shun intersectionality.
Read this book. xoxo
March 27, 2015
I'm so happy to have read this book which is a foundation of third wave (read: women of color) feminism. Some of the stories are really dense and full of language that we don't really use anymore, like "Third World feminists," but the poems in particular were quite mesmerizing and profound. This book has been on my to-read list for a while, and I'm glad I finally got around to it.
June 11, 2007
This book is the single most important book in the feminist canon. Read it now.
August 17, 2017
"I wonder why there are women born with silver spoons
in their mouths
Women who have never known a day of hunger
Women who have never changed their own bed linen
And I wonder why there are women who must work
Women who must clean other women's houses
Women who must shell shrimps for pennies a day
Women who must sew other women's clothes
Who must cook
Who must die
In childbirth
In dreams"
in their mouths
Women who have never known a day of hunger
Women who have never changed their own bed linen
And I wonder why there are women who must work
Women who must clean other women's houses
Women who must shell shrimps for pennies a day
Women who must sew other women's clothes
Who must cook
Who must die
In childbirth
In dreams"
March 3, 2016
I read this during my undergrad degree, and remember being deeply impressed. Certainly a key text, and one that remains relevant and insightful.
Zanna wrote an excellent review of it in 2014, so go read that...
Zanna wrote an excellent review of it in 2014, so go read that...
November 24, 2014
You haven't read anything until you have read this,
the brave poetry that comes along breaks you apart and pulls you together.
the brave poetry that comes along breaks you apart and pulls you together.
April 24, 2022
Lloré leyendo éste y La Voz de la Mujer .
No es "El gran texto teórico académico", son textos poéticos, de memorias y autobiografías de un dolor muy humano, pero a la vez marginal, de los márgenes de la sociedad, de las individuas que son excluidas de la sociedad (o son forzadas a encajar). Y rabia.
Las autoras son en su mayoría estadounidense pero justamente por su condición de outsiders says experiencias pueden resonar mas allá de EE. UU. son hijas de inmigrantes latinoamericanas, afroamericanas, indígenas norteamericanas, asiáticas, lesbianas...
También se usa el término tercermundista de una forma muy particular que no es la habitual.
No es "El gran texto teórico académico", son textos poéticos, de memorias y autobiografías de un dolor muy humano, pero a la vez marginal, de los márgenes de la sociedad, de las individuas que son excluidas de la sociedad (o son forzadas a encajar). Y rabia.
Las autoras son en su mayoría estadounidense pero justamente por su condición de outsiders says experiencias pueden resonar mas allá de EE. UU. son hijas de inmigrantes latinoamericanas, afroamericanas, indígenas norteamericanas, asiáticas, lesbianas...
También se usa el término tercermundista de una forma muy particular que no es la habitual.
August 7, 2019
Just incredible, obviously. Even when they contradict one another, each piece is just so rich and powerful. Cherríe Moraga's introductions to the sections, especially talking about lesbianism as an orientation towards women and how that made her a feminist, are breath-taking, and Audre Lorde fucks me up every time in the absolute best ways. Some of it maybe might seem dated to people, or the historical context might mean you miss some things (I don't know that the editor's added notes giving that context are honestly all that helpful in this regard,) but regardless, it's absolutely a required read and I want to go out and buy copies of it for every single woman I know.
January 15, 2020
makes me feel whole
April 3, 2017
I've been reading this book sporadically since college; usually the essays that I needed for papers, etc.
This is my first time reading it through in one go. It's a lovely and surreal experience to revisit the kinds of ideas and writers that influenced my conception of radical feminism over the years. It was interesting for me to experience how far the feminist movement has come, and how we're still doing the same work and having the same conversations 30+ years later. It's frustrating and illuminating and motivating. Some of the attitudes and essays in this collection were challenging, in that great way that forces you to challenge your ideas and preconceived conceptions while others were infuriating and in many ways obsolete. I was able to track my own progress in how I used to think about intersectional feminism and how I am today with regards to my reaction reading these essays.
I don't know what my feminism would be without this book and especially without the work of Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa whose work provided me with one of the most influential frameworks when thinking about the different intersections of feminism. Their voice, in many ways, gave me my voice, or at least the beginning.
Needless to say I highly recommend this book. Especially as a "classic" that has managed to age well in many ways.
This is my first time reading it through in one go. It's a lovely and surreal experience to revisit the kinds of ideas and writers that influenced my conception of radical feminism over the years. It was interesting for me to experience how far the feminist movement has come, and how we're still doing the same work and having the same conversations 30+ years later. It's frustrating and illuminating and motivating. Some of the attitudes and essays in this collection were challenging, in that great way that forces you to challenge your ideas and preconceived conceptions while others were infuriating and in many ways obsolete. I was able to track my own progress in how I used to think about intersectional feminism and how I am today with regards to my reaction reading these essays.
I don't know what my feminism would be without this book and especially without the work of Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa whose work provided me with one of the most influential frameworks when thinking about the different intersections of feminism. Their voice, in many ways, gave me my voice, or at least the beginning.
Needless to say I highly recommend this book. Especially as a "classic" that has managed to age well in many ways.
September 27, 2019
POPSUGAR 2017 Reading Challenge prompt 'A book with a red spine'
I am deeply moved by the Native and Latina perspectives here. Jo Carillo's Beyond the Cliffs of Abiquiu particularly struck me, as I live in Albuquerque, and I know just the type of white person that the poem is about. I ride my bike past the store named Bilagaanas. "White people." And yeah, it's all white people who shop there for the "Authentic Navajo Hopi Zuni Indian made real live Laguna Santa Ana Santo Domingo artifacts."
It makes me laugh, but it also makes me horribly sad.
I am deeply moved by the Native and Latina perspectives here. Jo Carillo's Beyond the Cliffs of Abiquiu particularly struck me, as I live in Albuquerque, and I know just the type of white person that the poem is about. I ride my bike past the store named Bilagaanas. "White people." And yeah, it's all white people who shop there for the "Authentic Navajo Hopi Zuni Indian made real live Laguna Santa Ana Santo Domingo artifacts."
It makes me laugh, but it also makes me horribly sad.
October 13, 2017
This is a really important and seminal text in the studies of feminism, racism and homophobia, and it's amazing how so much of it is still relevant today. I'm really glad I've read this book and I think it's a great resource to going about being critical of wider society and also of ourselves. I don't agree with all of it (definitely some transmisogyny and other issues) but I agree with the vast majority of it and I definitely recommend this book, it's shook me to my core.
May 24, 2007
Identity politics examined. Womyn of Color from the 1960s and 70s share their perspective on life and the struggle of the movement. Absolutely on of my guides to finding myself and place in the US. It's a book that leads to discoveries and confirmations of self.
Must read for any womyn of color.
Must read for any womyn of color.
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