Telling to Live
Latina Feminist Testimonios
Latina Feminist Group author Norma E Cantu editor Ruth Behar editor Rina Benmayor editor Norma Alarcon editor Luz del Alba Acevedo editor Celia Alvarez editor Gloria Holguin Cuadraz editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Duke University Press
Published:18th Sep '01
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
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
“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
“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 *
“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 *
"[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 *
ISBN: 9780822327554
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 939g
400 pages