Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios

by Latina Feminist Group, Luz del Alba Acevedo (Editor), Norma Alarcon (Editor), Celia Alvarez (Editor), Ruth Behar (Editor)

Overview

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822383284
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	09/18/2001
Series:	Latin America Otherwise
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	2 MB

Table of Contents

About the Series ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: Papelitos Guardados: Theorizing Latinidades Through Testimonio 1

I. Geneaologies of Empowerment 25

Certified Organic Intellectual / Aurora Levins Morales 27

My Father’s Hands / Yvette Gisele Flores-Oritz 33

Vignettes of a Working-Class Puerto Rican Girl in Brooklyn, New York / Celia Alvarez 39

Silence Begins at Home / Patricia Zavella 43

You Speak Spanish Because You Are Jewish? / Rina Benmayor 55

Getting There Cuando No Hay Camino / Norma E. Cantú 60

Reflection and Rebirth: The Evolving Life of a Latina Academic / Iris Ofelia López 69

Mi Primera Amiguita: Carmelita / Gloria Holguín Cuádraz 86

The House That Mamá Biela Built / Daisy Cocco de Filippis 90

Lightning / Mirtha N. Quintanales 96

My Name Is This Story / Aurora Levins Morales 100

Resisting the Alcemy of Erasure: Journey to Labor Ideas / Clara Lomas 104

Esta Risa No Es de Loca / Caridad Souza 114

A Esconditas: A Chicana Feminist Teacher Who Writes/A Chicana Feminist Writer Who Teaches / Norma E. Cantú 123

Canto de Mi Madre/Canto de Mi Padre / Inés Hernández Avila 132

Daughter of Bootstrap / Luz del Alba Acevedo 139

Beyond Survival: A Politics/Poetics of Puerto Rican Consciousness / Liza Fiol-Matta 148

I Can Fly: Of Dreams and Other Nonfictions / Eliana Rivero 156

II. Alchemies of Erasure 167

The Christmas Present / Caridad Souza 169

Snapshots from My Daze in School / Celia Alvarez 177

Point of Departure / Mirtha N. Quintanales 185

Another Way to Grow Up Puerto Rican / Liza Fiol-Matta 192

El Beso / Ruth Behar 196

The Prize of a New Cadillac / Yvette Gisele Flores-Ortiz 201

La Tra(d)ición / Latina Anónima 204

Between Perfection and Invisibility / Latina Anónima 207

Diary of La Llorona with a Ph. D. / Gloria Holguín Cuádraz 212

Welcome to the Ivory Tower / Latina Anónima 218

I Still Don’t Know Why / Latina Anónima 224

Lessons Learned from an Assistant Professor / Gloria Holguían Cuádraz 227

Don’t You Like Being in the University? / Latina Anónima 229

Temporary Latina / Ruth Behar 231

Dispelling the Sombras, Grito mi nombre con rayos de luz / Inés Hernández Avila 238

Biting Through / Latina Anónima 245

Sand from Varadero Beach / Ruth Behar 247

Speaking Among Friends: Whose Empowerment, Whose Resistance? / Luz del Alba Acevedo 250

III. The Body Re/members 263

Reading the Body / Norma E. Cantú 264

Missing Body / Caridad Souza 266

Malabareando/Juggling / Liza Fiol-Matta 269

Migraine/Jacqueca / Norma E. Cantú 271

The Wart / Daisy Cocco de Filippis 273

Why My Ears Aren't Pierced / Ruth Behar 275

Night Terrors / Latina Anónima 277

La Princesa / Latina Anónima 286

Forced by Circumstance / Norma Alarcón 289

Let Me Sleep / Latina Anónima 291

Depression / Mirtha N. Quintanales 293

Desde el Diván: Testimonios from the Couch / Yvette Giselle Flores-Ortiz 294

Telling to Live: Devoro la Mentira, Resucitando Mi Ser / Inés Hernández Avila 298

IV. Passion, Desires, and Celebrations 303

Shameless Desire / Aurora Levins Morales 305

La Cosa / Ruth Behar 307

Boleros / Eliana Rivero 309

A Working-Class Bruja’s Fears and Desires / Norma E. Cantú 314

Aún / Yvette Gisele Flores-Ortiz 318

The Names I Used to Call Your/The Names I Do Call You / Eliana Rivero 319

Plátanos and Palms / Rina Benmayor 321

Three Penny Opera or Eve’s Symphony in B Minor / Daisy Cocco de Filippis 323

Descubrimiento(s) / Celia Alvarez 327

Entre Nosotras / Latina Anónima 331

Pisco and Cranberry / Eliana Rivero 334

De lo que es Amor; de lo que es Vida / Inés Hernández Avila 336

Eating Mango / Liza Fiol-Matta 344

Everyday Grace / Mirtha N. Quintanales 345

Tenemos que Swguir Luchando / Patricia Zavella 348

Select Bibliography 357

About the Authors 373

What People are Saying About This

Angela Y. Davis

Twenty years after the publication of This Bridge Called My Back, this stunning collection of writings by Latina feminists raises the stakes of collaboration across race, class, nation, and sexuality. Telling to Live challenges prevailing research practices and forges a model of deep collaboration for future generations of scholars.--Angela Y. Davis, author of Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

Julia Alvarez

Telling to Live is a groundbreaking text-important in its outreach, inclusiveness, and power-that expands, qualifies, complicates, and illuminates the ground of our discourse the way the best texts do-through transformative narratives, stories, and poems that resist the neat paradigms and -isms of our time. It is also a text that will fill an alarming gap in the academy, where silence or simplification of Latina perspectives still prevails.--Julia Alvarez, author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Editorial Reviews

For a while in the late 1980s, it seemed as if all of Duke University's English Department had gone public with the complications and heartbreaks of the life of the star academic. After Duke's mainly white English Department finished telling their stories, the confessional narratives of academics have had a continued, and much more important, role as a genre where those marginalized by the academy for reasons of race or ethnicity tell about their complicated entry and then incorporation into the university system. In Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios, the 18 women of the Latina Feminist group, formed in 1993 and including Ruth Behar and Eliana Rivero, discuss immigrant and working class childhoods, developing a love of reading, an avoidance of K-12 teaching in order to partake of the larger promises of the (mostly literature-based) university positions. (Nov.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

"I write as much to discover as to explain," playwright Arthur Miller once declared. The same might be said for the authors of this groundbreaking anthology. Educators all, the 18 women whom the Latina Feminist Group comprises came together in 1993 to discuss their cultural and political identities. The group represents a diverse cross-section: lesbian, bisexual, celibate, and straight; working class and bourgeois; Christian, Jewish, and atheist; and of diverse national origins and skin colors. Its purpose was the exchange of testimonios, or what contributor Aurora Levins Morales calls "truth telling from personal knowledge." And what an array of truths they reveal. More than 60 essays, poems, and short stories explain how sexual harassment and violence stifle those who dream of educational and professional achievement; how anti-Semitism forces Jews of Spanish descent to feel uncomfortable owning their dual identities; and how ethnic prejudice collides with class indignities for low-income Tejanas, leaving them distrustful, depressed, and fearful. Throughout, sisterhood is celebrated, but not blindly. Competition between women is assailed, as is antifeminist backlash. Although the collection requires some knowledge of Spanish, it should be required reading for all women's studies, American studies, and American history students. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries. Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

"Groundbreaking. . . . [It] should be required reading for all women's studies, American studies, and American history students. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries."-- "Library Journal"

"Telling to Live may be one of the most important books published in the last few decades. Latinas collectively have not had a book like this before that features so many different backgrounds and cultures. . . . The inclusion of all these mix-and-match identifications is what qualifies this book to be required reading in women's studies classes all across the globe. . . . Even if you are not of Latin descent, anyone who identifies with hardship and triumph in their own lives will connect with Telling to Live. Que vivan las Feministas Latinas!"--Jocelyn Climent "Bust"

"[A] rare and important collection of autobiographical narratives, snapshots, short stories, poems, and dialogues."--Amanda Davis "Aztlán"

"Poignant. . . . Insofar as accomplishing their stated goal, to explore the complex intersections of race, class, gender, nationality, ethnicity, and sexuality with regard to coalition building, Telling to Live is a highly successfully undertaking. . . . [A] laudable enterprise with far-reaching implications for those of us hoping to one day embark upon similar paths paved by the trail-blazing accomplishments of these testimoniadoras."--Marie Sarita Gaytán " Latino Studies"

"Telling to Live is a groundbreaking text--important in its outreach, inclusiveness, and power--that expands, qualifies, complicates, and illuminates the ground of our discourse the way the best texts do--through transformative narratives, stories, and poems that resist the neat paradigms and -isms of our time. It is also a text that will fill an alarming gap in the academy, where silence or simplification of Latina perspectives still prevails."--Julia Alvarez, author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

"Twenty years after the publication of This Bridge Called My Back, this stunning collection of writings by Latina feminists raises the stakes of collaboration across race, class, nation, and sexuality. Telling to Live challenges prevailing research practices and forges a model of deep collaboration for future generations of scholars."--Angela Y. Davis, author of Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

From the Publisher

“Telling to Live may be one of the most important books published in the last few decades. Latinas collectively have not had a book like this before that features so many different backgrounds and cultures. . . . The inclusion of all these mix-and-match identifications is what qualifies this book to be required reading in women’s studies classes all across the globe. . . . Even if you are not of Latin descent, anyone who identifies with hardship and triumph in their own lives will connect with Telling to Live. Que vivan las Feministas Latinas!

Bust - Jocelyn Climent

"[A] rare and important collection of autobiographical narratives, snapshots, short stories, poems, and dialogues."

Aztlán - Amanda Davis

"Poignant. . . . Insofar as accomplishing their stated goal, to explore the complex intersections of race, class, gender, nationality, ethnicity, and sexuality with regard to coalition building, Telling to Live is a highly successfully undertaking. . . . [A] laudable enterprise with far-reaching implications for those of us hoping to one day embark upon similar paths paved by the trail-blazing accomplishments of these testimoniadoras."

Latino Studies - Marie Sarita Gaytán

"Poignant. . . . Insofar as accomplishing their stated goal, to explore the complex intersections of race, class, gender, nationality, ethnicity, and sexuality with regard to coalition building, Telling to Live is a highly successfully undertaking. . . . [A] laudable enterprise with far-reaching implications for those of us hoping to one day embark upon similar paths paved by the trail-blazing accomplishments of these testimoniadoras."

Latino Studies - Marie Sarita Gaytán