Ana Castillo

"machismo is an exaggerated demonstration of male virility that is inherent in most cultures, but is exemplified most in the United States by their own Anglo leaders, who in the past decade maintained an olympic trillion-dollar defense budget."

"After extricating our imaginations from the tight reigns of patriarchal imperialism, our next step is to bring others into the fold. Quite the contrary to our so-called assimilation as "Hispanics," I firmly believe, along with many women of conscientización in the Americas, that U.S. society must eventually acculturate our mestiza vision. Our collective memories and present analyses along these lines hold the antidote to that profound sense of alienation many experience in white dominant society."

"according to las feministas, feminism was "a very dynamic aspect of the Chicana's heritage and not at all foreign to her nature."" Contrary to ethnographic data that portrays Chicanas as submissive followers who are solely designated to preserve the culture, the feminists did not see herself or other women of her culture as such. While the feminist dialogue remained among the activists in el Movimiento, one sees in Encuentro Femenil that there indeed existed a solid initiative toward Chicana feminist thought, that is, recognition of sexism as a primary early on as the late 1960s. Clarifying the differences between the needs of the Anglo feminist and the feministas was part of the early feminista's tasks."

"The feminista also wanted a bicultural and bilingual child care that would validate their children's culture and perhaps ward off an inferiority complex before they had a chance to start public school; traditionally, monolingual and anglocentric schools had alienated children, causing them great psychological damage."

"The early feminista understood the erroneous conceptions of the white woman's movement that equated sexism to racism because she was experiencing its compounding effects in her daily life."

"When i say ours was a love affair, it is an expression of nostalgia and melancholy for the depth of our empathy. (p39)"

"We said nothing for several minutes. Our minds weighed like ripened fruit on the branch. When one is confronted by the mirror, the spirit trembles. (p49)"

"Destiny is not a metaphysical confrontation with one's self, rather, society has knit its pattern so tight that a confrontation with it is inevitable. (p59)"

"...[we] had abruptly appeared in Mexico as two snags in its patterns. Society could do no more than snip us out. How revolting we were, susceptible to ridiculw, abuse, disrespect. We would have hoped for respect as human beings, but the only respect granted a woman is that which a gentleman bestows upon the lady. Clearly, we were no ladies. What was our greatest transgression? We travelled alone. (The assumption here is that neither served as a legitimate companion for the other.) (p59)"

"Two of my role models are Ana Castillo and Denise Chavez, who draw on their backgrounds for the work they do. They are fearless. I look at them and know I have no excuse. For years I wondered who had given Castillo permission to write? I wanted to ask her in person. By the time I met her, I realized she gave herself permission."

"It is perhaps hardest for women to overcome the internalized message drummed into us that we are nothing without a man. "i wish i could have convinced you how beautiful you are," wrote Ana Castillo to her friend Alicia in her epistolary novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters. But, she despaired, "they were only the words of another woman," and "meanwhile [you felt] you bore no resemblance to the ideal of any man you encountered anywhere." These stories tell us how far we will have to travel before women are at the center of our own lives, before our thinking is changed enough to allow us to live with integrity, meaning with wholeness, with no sense of guilt, disloyalty, shame for living and being ourselves."

"Working-class women's literature, women of color, specifically Latina women's writing like my friend Ana Castillo's, or my friend Cherrie Moraga's, Helena Viramontes's, Elena Poniatowska's, and Marguerite Duval's sends me all the way to my typewriter as much as Manuel Puig's stories."

"Ana is not only a wonderful writer, she exudes an assurance that's contagious; when I'm near her I feel, Hey! Writing about our world is important. We can help each other. She makes me feel good. Other times she reminds me of the sacredness of writing, that it's a vocation, something I usually try to hide."

"The works of Chicana lesbian writers Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherrie Moraga, Emma Pérez, Ana Castillo, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Carla Trujillo, and many others bring out the pain and isolation, but, as important, their joys, self-respect, courage, and dignity."

"Chicanas share a topography of multiple identities, and definitions of Chicana feminism remain contested. Instead of feminism per se, Ana Castillo calls for a mestiza consciousness or Xicanisma, an uncompromising commitment to social justice rooted in a woman-centered, indigenous past. Again with her global vision, Anzaldúa's construction of "the new mestiza" encompasses all women of color. In the preface to Making Face, Making Soul, she holds out a message of hope. "We are continuing in the direction of honoring others' ways, of sharing knowledge and personal power through writing (art) and activism, of injecting into our cultures new ways, feminist ways, mestiza ways.""