Essays on Latinx and Caribbean identity and on globalization by renowned women writers, including Julia Alvarez, Edwidge Danticat, and Jamaica Kincaid
Women Writing Resistance: Essays on Latin America and the Caribbean gathers the voices of sixteen acclaimed writer-activists for a one-of-a-kind collection. Through poetry and essays, writers from the Anglophone, Hispanic, and Francophone Caribbean, including Puertorriqueñas and Cubanas, grapple with their hybrid American political identities. Gloria Anzaldúa, the founder of Chicana queer theory; Rigoberta Menchú, the first Indigenous person to win a Nobel Peace Prize; and Michelle Cliff, a searing and poignant chronicler of colonialism and racism, among many others, highlight how women can collaborate across class, race, and nationality to lead a new wave of resistance against neoliberalism, patriarchy, state terrorism, and white supremacy.
“A wonderful compilation of works by Latinx writers commemorating the past and aspiring to change the future.”
—Library Journal
“Bless these voices, these powerhouses of the Americas, my teachers, my heroes. May this book travel near and far and inspire others to resist. Thank you for restoring courage in an era of fear, purpose in a season of confusion, and, in these times of censorship, an obligation to speak.”
—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street
“Women Writing Resistance has been reborn in a crucial time in herstory, as belonging, identity, and what it means to be American have once again taken center stage. . . . Empowering to read and process.”
—Raquel Cepeda, filmmaker and author of Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina
“Timely, compelling, and nuanced, this anthology invites us to discover what resistance has meant to women and to steward that gift through meaningful action in our own lives.”
—Ashley Perez, author of Out of Darkness
“A big, bold inspiration now. . . .These women will set your soul on fire.”
—Achy Obejas, author of The Tower of Antilles
“A powerful reminder of how much we can learn from listening to each other’s stories . . . .stories that compel, that inspire—stories that need to be heard to envision a more inclusive future.”
—Nicole Caso, director of the Spanish Studies Program, Bard College
Acknowledgments
Preface by Elizabeth Martinez
Introduction by Jennifer Browdy
Part One: Re-Envisioning History
1 Revision (Aurora Levins Morales)
2 We Are Ugly, but We Are Here (Edwidge Danticat)
3 The Silent Witness (Raquel Partnoy)
4 And What Would It Be Like? (Michelle Cliff)
5 Everthing I Kept: Reflections of an “Anthropoeta” (Ruth Behar)
6 The Dream of Nunca Más: Healing the Wounds (Emma Sepúlveda)
Part Two: The Politics of Language and Identity
7 Language as an Instrument of Domination (Rosario Castellanos)
8 Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Wrtiers (Gloria Anzaldúa)
9 Las aeious (Ruth Irupé Sanabria)
10 Art in América con Acento (Cherríe Moraga)
11 The Myth of the Latin Woman (Judith Ortiz Cofer)
12 The Quincentenary Conference and the Earth Summit, 1992 (Rigoberta Menchú)
Part Three: Strategies of Resistance
13 A Massacre in Mexico (Elena Poniatowska)
14 A Small Place (Jamaica Kincaid)
15 One Precious Moment (Margaret Randall)
16 On Being Shorter: How Our Testimonial Texts Defy the Academy (Alicia Partnoy)
17 Death in the Desert: The Women of Ciudad Juárez
18: I Came To Help: Resistance Writ Small (Julia Alvarez)
Selected Bibliography
Permissions
About the Editor and Contributors
Index