This Bridge Called My Back, Fortieth Anniversary Edition

Writings by Radical Women of Color

Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781438488295
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Feminism & Feminist Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

IV

Between the Lines

On Culture, Class, and Homophobia

Between the Lines

On Culture, Class, and Homophobia

I do not believe/our wants have made all our lies/holy.

—Audre Lorde¹

What lies between the lines are the things that women of color do not tell each other. There are reasons for our silences: the change in generation between mother and daughter, the language barriers between us, our sexual identity, the educational opportunities we had or missed, the specific cultural history of our race, the physical conditions of our bodies and our labor.

As Audre Lorde states in the preceding section, “Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged.” It is critical now that Third World feminists begin to speak directly to the specific issues that separate us. We cannot afford to throw ourselves haphazardly under the rubric of “Third World Feminism” only to discover later that there are serious differences between us which could collapse our dreams, rather than fuse alliances.

As Third World women, we understand the importance, yet limitations of race ideology to describe our total experience. Culture differences get subsumed when we speak of “race” as an isolated issue: where does the Black Puerto Rican sister stake out her alliance in this country, with the Black community or the Latina? And color alone cannot define her status in society. How do we compare the struggle of the middle-class Black woman with those of the light-skinned Latina welfare mother? Further, how each of us perceives our ability to be radical against this oppressive state is largely affected by our economic privilege and our specific history of colonization in the US. Some of us were brought here centuries ago as slaves, others had our land of birthright taken away from us, some of us are the daughters and granddaughters of immigrants, others of us are still newly immigrated to the US.

Repeated throughout this section is each woman’s desire to have all of her sisters of color actively identified and involved as feminists. One of the biggest sources of separation among women of color in terms of feminism has been homophobia. This fear that we (whatever our sexuality) breathe in every day in our communities never fully allows us to feel invulnerable to attack on our own streets, and sometimes even in the homes we grew up in (let alone in the white man’s world). So often it is the fear of lesbianism which causes many of us to feel our politics and passion are being ignored or discounted by other Third World people. “There’s nothing to be compared with how you feel when you’re cut cold by your own …” (Barbara Smith). But we refuse to make a choice between our cultural identity and sexual identity, between our race and our femaleness. We even claim lesbianism as an “act of resistance” (Clarke) against the same forces that silence us as people of color.

We write letters home to Ma.

Surfacing from these pages again and again is the genuine sense of loss and pain we feel when we are denied our home because of our desire to free ourselves as specifically female persons. So, we turn to each other for strength and sustenance. We write letters to each other incessantly. Across a kitchen table, Third World feminist strategy is plotted. We talk long hours into the night. It is when this midnight oil is burning, in those after hours, that we secretly reclaim our goddesses and our female-identified cultural tradition. “I got myself home, lit me some candles … put on some Dinah and Aretha …” (Rushin).

The difference that we have feared to mention because of our urgent need for solidarity with each other begins to be spoken to on these pages, but also the similarities that so often go unrecognized—that a light-skinned Latina could feel “at home” and “safe” (Morales) among her Afro-American sisters—that among many of us there is a deep-rooted identification and affinity which we were not, logically, supposed to feel toward each other living in segregated white-america.

We turn to each other to make family and even there, after the exhilaration of our first discovery of each other subsides, we are forced to confront our own lack of resources as Third World women living in the US. Without money, without institutions, without one community center to call our own we so often never get as far as dreamed while plotting in our kitchens. We disappoint each other. Sometimes we even die on each other. How to reconcile with the death of a friend, the death of a spirit?

We begin by speaking directly to the deaths and disappointments. Here we begin to fill in the spaces of silence between us. For between these seemingly irreconcilable lines—the class lines, the politically correct lines, the daily lines we run down to each other to keep difference and desire at a distance—the truth of our connection lies.

“Just keep saying it, Girl, you’ll get whole” (Rushin).

Note

1.“Between Ourselves,” The Black Unicorn (New York: Norton, 1978), 112.

The Other Heritage

Rosario Morales

For June Jordan and Teish and all other Black women at the San Francisco Poetry Workshop; January 1980.

I forgot I forgot the other heritage the other strain refrain the silver thread thru my sound the ebony sheen to my life to the look of things to the sound of how I grew up which was in Harlem right down in Spanish Harlem El Barrio and bounded I always say to foreigners from Minnesota Ohio and Illinois bounded on the North by Italians and on the South by Black Harlem A library in each of these almost forbidden places so no wonder I didn’t take off with books till I hit the South Bronx What I didn’t forget was the look of Ithaca Rochester Minneapolis and Salt Lake bleached bleeded and bleached the street full of white ghosts like Chinese visions And the first time Dick and I drove back thru New York past Amsterdam Avenue right thru the heart of Harlem I breathed again safe brown and black walking the streets safe My mami taught me my teacher taught me everybody taught me watch out black smelly savage keep out of the way I did too so how come I come to feel safe! when I hit Harlem when I hit a city with enough color when a city gets moved in on when Main Street Vermont looks mottled agouti black and brown and white when the sounds of the english Black folk speak and the sounds of Spanish wiggle thru the clean lit air I still shy and start from black men from about thirteen on but then I shy and start from all men starting from when they think to be men and so do the things men do my mami taught me that and that stuck but then I learnt that on my own too I got myself a clean clear sense of danger that’s what smells not black skin but danger stalking the streets for me I can smell it a mile away wafting to me in the breeze I keep downwind raise my head to sniff the air I only muse and rest my neck when in the herd and in the day and loping thru people traffic on the streets surrounded by the sounds of wheeled traffic in the streets I think and plan and forget and forget to look but not alone and not at nite I lift my head I sniff I smell the danger and the wheel and run long before he thinks maybe she looks about right a morsel for my appetite I bound away and pant safe for this time safe but all I feel when I sit down with you black woman the only danger in my air is from some whirring voice inside that always says you don’t belong and if you don’t utter just just right they will know you don’t belong and toss you out and I feel that every time with every group of any color no matter what they speak but what I feel inside nowhere near that grating prating voice is well OK! this sounds just right this here music is music to my ears here I hear something that feels like oh like Carlos Gardel moaning his tangoes like the special beat caribbean drums do I forgot this heritage african Black up here in this cold place the sound of african in english of drums in these musics I forgot I breathed you with my air and declared fine and when you’re not there I look and ask for where you’ve gone but I know I know why I forgot I’m not supposed to remember what I do remember is to walk in straight and white into the store and say good morning in my see how white how upper class how refined and kind voice all crisp with consonants bristling with syllables protective coloring in racist fields looks white and crisp like cabbage looks tidy like laid out gardens like white aprons on black dresses like please and thank you and you’re welcome like neat and clean and see I swept and scrubbed and polished ain’t I nice que hay de criticar will I do will I pass will you let me thru will they let me be not see me here beneath my skin behind my voice crouched and quiet and so so still not see not hear me there where I crouch hiding my eyes my indian bones my spanish sounds muttering mierda que gente fría y fea se creen gran cosa aí escupe chica en su carifresca en su carifea méate ahí en el piso feo y frío yo valgo más que un piso limpio yo valgo más yo valgo cágate en l’alfombra chica arráncale el pelo yo quiero salir de aquí yo quiero salir de tí yo quiero salir you see she’s me she’s the me says safe sarita safe when I see you many and black around the table behind me in the big room and up in front June Jordan how you belt it out and how I take it in right to where she sits brown and golden and when she and I laughed big last nite I was not “too loud” I was not “too much” I was just right just me just brown and pink and full of drums inside beating rhythm for my feet my tongue my eyes my hands my arms swinging and smacking I was just right just right just right sépanlo niñas m’hijas trigueñas bellas sépalo June Jordan mujer feroz aquí me quedo y aquí estoy right!

The Tired Poem: Last Letter from a Typical (Unemployed) Black Professional Woman

Kate Rushin

So it’s a gorgeous afternoon in the park.
It’s so nice you forget your Attitude
(the one your mama taught you)
the one that says: Don’t mess with me.
You forget until you hear all this whistling and
lip-smacking. You whip around and say,
“I ain’t no damn dog.” It’s a young guy.
His mouth drops open. “Excuse me, Sister.
How you doin’?” You lie and smile and say,
“I’m doing good, everything’s cool, Brother.”

Then, five minutes later: “Hey you Sweet Devil.
Hey Girl, come here.” You tense, sigh, calculate.
You know the lean boys and bearded men are
cousins and lovers and friends.
You’ve listened to your uncle, after he’s had a drink,
talking about how he has to scuffle to get by and
how he’d wanted to be an engineer.
You talk to Jocko who wants to be a singer
buy some clothes, get a house for his mother.

The Soc. and Psych. books say you’re domineering and
you’ve been to enough Sisters-Are-Not-Taking-Care-Of-Business
discussions to know where you went wrong. It’s decided
it had to be the day you decided to go to school.
Still, you remember the last time you said “Hey,”
so you keep on walking. “What? You too good to speak?
Don’t nobody want you no way.”

So, you go home, sit on the front steps and listen to your
neighbor’s son brag about girls. He has pictures of them all.
“This real cute one was supposed to go to college.
She knew she could get pregnant. I’ll just say it’s not mine.”

On the back of a picture of a girl in a cap and gown,
written in a child’s round print are the words,
“I love you in my own strange way. Thank you.”

So, you go into the house,
flip through a magazine and there is
An-Ode-To-My-Black-Queen poem.
It’s the kind where The Brother thanks
all of The Sisters who endured.
This thank-you poem is really
no consolation at all, unless, you believe
what the man you met on the train told you
(the Black man who worked for the State
Department and had lived in five countries).
He said, “Dear, you were born to suffer.
Why don’t you give me your address and
I’ll come visit?”

So you try to talk to your friend about the train and
the park and everything and how it all seems connected,
and he says, “You’re just a Typical Black
Professional Woman; some Sisters know how to deal.”
He goes on to say how you have always had the advantage.
You have to stop to think about that one.
Maybe you are supposed to be grateful for the sweaty,
beefy-faced white businessmen who try to pick you up at lunchtime.
You wonder how many times your friend has had pennies thrown at him,

how many times he’s been felt up in the subway,
how many times he’s been cussed out on the street,
how many times he’s been offered $10 for a piece of himself.
$10 for a piece …

So, you’re waiting for the bus and you look up from your book.
A young man is asking if you want to make some money, and
you think how you only get $15 for spending all day with 30 kids.
You remember he could be your brother or cousin.
You begin to explain how $10 wouldn’t pay for
what you’d have to give up. He pushes a handful of sticky,
crumpled dollars in your face. “Why not? You think I can’t pay?
Look at that roll. Don’t tell me you don’t need the money,
’cause I know you do … I’ll give you 15.”

You remember a joke you heard … but it isn’t funny.
You wonder if he would at least give you the money and
not beat you up. Still, you’re very cool and say, “No thanks.
You should look for somebody you care about
who cares about you.” He waves you off.
“Get outta my face. I don’t have time for that.
And remember, you blew it.”

Then your voice gets loud and fills the night street.
Your bus comes, the second shift people file on.
The night watchmen and nurse’s aides look at you like
you’re crazy. “Get on the damn bus.” He turns away.
Your bus pulls off. There is no one on the street but you.
And then, it is very quiet.

To Be Continued …

Kate Rushin

You didn’t think I was going to stand on that corner by myself,
(arms and legs like boards, mouth full of cement) forever, now did you?
Got myself together and grabbed the first cab I saw.
(Blew my budget for the week.)

I got myself home, lit me some candles and some sandalwood,
put on some Dinah and Aretha, took myself a bath,
made myself some grits and eggs,
got on the phone and called up my Girlfriend.

I told her everything that had been going on and you know what she said?
She said, Girl, I know what you mean. I said, for real, don’t you think

I’m crazy?

Listen, she said, only crazy you are is thinking you owe something to

some fool

come walking up in your face, intruding on your life, talking trash.

Think about it. How it sound you feeling ashamed ’cause somebody
come treating you like you was somebody’s pork chop?
Don’t worry about it. When you got something to say, say it.
Just make sure you’re talking to somebody who shows some interest.

Well, I started thinking about what my Girlfriend said,
and then something clicked. Then it all dawned on me.
Me and my Girlfriend you understand,
we been friends for years.

Now, whenever I get uptight, I remember what she told me:
Keep moving. Keep breathing. Stop apologizing and keep on talking.
When you get scared, keep talking anyway. Te...