Take My Word

Autobiographical Innovations of Ethnic American Working Women

Anne E. Goldman

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780520200968
• eBook ISBN: 9780520916364
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism Theory
• Index: Literature

In an innovative critique of traditional approaches to autobiography, Anne E. Goldman convincingly demonstrates that ethnic women can and do speak for themselves, even in the most unlikely contexts. Citing a wide variety of nontraditional texts—including the cookbooks of Nuevo Mexicanas, African American memoirs of midwifery and healing, and Jewish women's histories of the garment industry—Goldman illustrates how American women have asserted their ethnic identities and made their voices heard over and sometimes against the interests of publishers, editors, and readers. While the dominant culture has interpreted works of ethnic literature as representative of a people rather than an individual, the working women of this study insist upon their own agency in narrating rich and complicated self-portraits.


In an innovative critique of traditional approaches to autobiography, Anne E. Goldman convincingly demonstrates that ethnic women can and do speak for themselves, even in the most unlikely contexts. Citing a wide variety of nontraditional texts—including

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction Autobiography, Ethnography, and History: A Model for Reading
• Chapter One “I yam what I yam”
• Chapter Two “Same Boat, Different Stops”
• Chapter Three Is That What She Said?
• Chapter Four “You might not like this what I’m fixin to say now”
• Chapter Five “Such a lady”
• Chapter Six “I was there in the front lines, though I may not always have been visible”
• Coda
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index