Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios

Description

Telling to Live embodies the vision that compelled Latina feminists to engage their differences and find common ground. Its contributors reflect varied class, religious, ethnic, racial, linguistic, sexual, and national backgrounds. Yet in one way or another they are all professional producers of testimonios—or life stories—whether as poets, oral historians, literary scholars, ethnographers, or psychologists. Through coalitional politics, these women have forged feminist political stances about generating knowledge through experience. Reclaiming testimonio as a tool for understanding the complexities of Latina identity, they compare how each made the journey to become credentialed creative thinkers and writers. Telling to Live unleashes the clarifying power of sharing these stories. The complex and rich tapestry of narratives that comprises this book introduces us to an intergenerational group of Latina women who negotiate their place in U.S. society at the cusp of the twenty-first century. These are the stories of women who struggled to reach the echelons of higher education, often against great odds, and constructed relationships of sustenance and creativity along the way. The stories, poetry, memoirs, and reflections of this diverse group of Puerto Rican, Chicana, Native American, Mexican, Cuban, Dominican, Sephardic, mixed-heritage, and Central American women provide new perspectives on feminist theorizing, perspectives located in the borderlands of Latino cultures. This often heart wrenching, sometimes playful, yet always insightful collection will interest those who wish to understand the challenges U.S. society poses for women of complex cultural heritages who strive to carve out their own spaces in the ivory tower. Contributors. Luz del Alba Acevedo, Norma Alarcón, Celia Alvarez, Ruth Behar, Rina Benmayor, Norma E. Cantú, Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Gloria Holguín Cuádraz, Liza Fiol-Matta, Yvette Flores-Ortiz, Inés Hernández-Avila, Aurora Levins Morales, Clara Lomas, Iris Ofelia López, Mirtha N. Quintanales, Eliana Rivero, Caridad Souza, Patricia Zavella Cover Title Copyright Contents About the Series Acknowledgments Introduction: Papelitos Guardados:Theorizing Latinidades Through Testimonio I GENEALOGIES OF EMPOWERMENT Certified Organic Intellectual Vignettes of a Working-Class Puerto Rican Girl in Brooklyn, New York Silence Begins at Home You Speak Spanish Because You Are Jewish? Getting There Cuando No Hay Camino Reflection and Rebirth: The Evolving Life of a Latina Academic Mi Primera Amiguita: Carmelita The House That Mamá Biela Built Lightning My Name Is This Story Resisting the Alchemy of Erasure: Journey to Labor Ideas Esta Risa No Es de Loca A Escondidas: A Chicana Feminist Teacher Who Writes/A Chicana FeministWriter Who Teaches Canto de Mi Madre/Canto de Mi Padre Daughter of Bootstrap Beyond Survival: A Politics/Poetics of Puerto Rican Consciousness I Can Fly: Of Dreams and Other Nonfictions II ALCHEMIES OF ERASURE The Christmas Present Snapshots from My Daze in School Point of Departure Another Way to Grow Up Puerto Rican El Beso The Prize of a New Cadillac La Tra(d)ición Between Perfection and Invisibility Diary of La Llorona with a Ph.D. Welcome to the Ivory Tower I Still Don’t Know Why Lessons Learned from an Assistant Professor Zgloria holguín cuádraz Don’t You Like Being in the University? Temporary Latina Dispelling the Sombras, Grito mi nombre con rayos de luz Biting Through Sand from Varadero Beach Speaking Among Friends: Whose Empowerment, Whose Resistance? III THE BODY RE/MEMBERS Reading the Body Missing Body Malabareando/Juggling Migraine/Jaqueca The Wart Why My Ears Aren’t Pierced Night Terrors La Princesa Forced by Circumstance Let Me Sleep Depression Desde el Diván: Testimonios from the Couch Telling To Live: Devoro la Mentira, Resucitando Mi Ser IV PASSION, DESIRES, AND CELEBRATIONS Shameless Desire La Cosa Boleros A Working-class Bruja’s Fears and Desires Aún The Names I Used to Call You/The Names I Do Call You Plátanos and Palms Three Penny Opera or Eve’s Symphony in B Minor Descubrimiento(s) Entre Nosotras Pisco and Cranberry De lo que es Amor, de lo que es Vida Eating Mango Everyday Grace Tenemos que Seguir Luchando Select Bibliography About the Authors