Women Authors From The United States

"Up to now, the U.S. women's liberation movement has been mainly concerned with sexism and ignored or denied the importance of racism. For the Chicana, the three types of oppression cannot be separated. They are all a part of the same system, they are three faces of the same enemy."

"We have to fight together because there is a common enemy. Especially if you are up against an administration being divisive, I think everybody has to come together and form an alliance or a set of goals together. There are various forms of working together. A coalition is one, a network is another, an alliance is yet another. And they are not the same; some of them are short-term, and some are long-term."

"The revolutionary Chicana does not identify with the so-called women's liberation movement in the United States because up to now that movement has been dominated by white women of middle class background."

"We will not win our liberation struggle unless the women move together with the men rather than against them. We must work to convince the men that our struggle will become stronger if women are not limited to a few, special roles. We also have the right to expect that our most enlightened men will join in the fight against sexism; it should not be our battle alone."

"They perceive how our oppressor uses "machismo" against us-for example, by appealing to a Chicano's sense of supposed manhood in order to get him to kill Vietnamese. Sexism is a useful tool to the colonizer; the men are oppressed but they can beat and mistreat women, who thus serve as targets for a frustration that might otherwise become revolutionary. Some men understand very well that the full participation of women is needed if our people are to win the liberation struggle."

"No “Oppression Olympics”!"

"The truth is that we need to reexamine and redefine our culture. Some of us do not believe that in our culture, femininity has always meant: weak, passive delicate looking... in other words, qualities that inflate the male ego. The women of La Raza is traditionally a fighter and revolutionary."

"revolution means turning things upside down and taking another look at what is taken for granted. So revolution means new ideas about relations between men and women, too."

"The history and problems of La Chicana are similar to those of Latin-American women. Although the native Indian women of the Americas was, before the Spanish conquest, far from being completely free, she often participated more fully in the life of the society than did her sister under Spanish rule. The coming of the European, with his Catholic Church and feudal social system, was a turning point. Our roots lie in the act of rape: the rape of women, the rape of an entire continent and its people."

"Today we can say that the Chicana suffers from a triple oppression. She is oppressed by the forces of racism, imperialism and sexism."

"We do not want a few Chicanas to get better jobs, higher salaries, while everyone else continues to be exploited."

"Cornel West, the African American philosopher and writer, spoke recently in San Francisco talking about the importance of linkages. For example, he said gay and lesbian rights are an issue in the African American community. They aren’t separate, outside of the community. Just because the issue is not welfare, or racism, or gangs, that doesn’t mean it’s not a Black community issue. I think that’s a very useful and important way to look at things. I know a lot of Latinos wouldn’t agree that gay and lesbian rights are a Latino issue. But we need to work for this understanding and make it clear that the issue is not a problem for a bunch of people outside the Latino community who happen to be gay or lesbian. It’s inside our community. Taking that kind of position is the only way that in fact makes sense."

"That is the true Raza tradition, a communal tradition"

"Revolutionary Chicanas want the liberation of our people and of all oppressed peoples. We do not want to become page-girls in President Richard Nixon's Congress the most recent bone tossed to "women's liberation.""

"The Chicana may be working 16 hours a day to support for her children, but she will still be viewed as a sexual object rather than a human being. Unless she is over the age of 35 or 40, she will be seen more as a face and body than as a fellow worker and fellow victim of oppression."

"I didn’t want to be ahead, I wanted to be with the people in the moment. But, you end up being ahead because you’re different. That’s the irony of it."

"Women do both, raise a family and participate in the struggle, we have to make them connect."

"All over the country today, La Raza is in motion. A spirit of awakening runs through the big city barrios, small towns, colleges and universities, the countryside. Our people are refusing to be filled with shame any longer, they are refusing to be oppressed, they are demanding liberation and a decent life...They are working on problems like working conditions and pay, education, welfare rights, housing, child care, police brutality. They are forming groups of women with names like Las Chicanas and Las Adelitas."

"…it’s just another front in the battle against racism. And that’s what it was, because New Mexico was much more colonial than any other area, but it was all the same damn racism. And so I never felt like I was breaking any life pattern; I was just shifting to another front.…"

"I come up with a concept and might doodle a little bit to get some ideas flowing, but I mostly write and take notes. I write an outline. In a way, I feel like I can make the art fit the story that needs to be told, so I start with the story first."

"By the time I get to coloring it’s usually the last step and I’m a little creatively tapped out. So I don’t spend a ton of time building a concept for the coloring, but I do love seeing things take final form. A lot of it is thinking about the scene, what the mood is, and how to light it. By that point I’ve spent enough time with the book I already know what I want to achieve when I get to it."

"we know that more Chicanas must become involved. It is our job as Chicanas to wake them up, encourage them to see that they have a responsibility larger than their immediate families-a responsibility to the whole familia of La Raza, the whole family of oppressed peoples. And a responsibility to their own un-used talents, brain, energy."

"One handy distinction is to think of coalitions being built around issues, and ideology being a worldview. An ideology is a set of ideas that explains what makes society tick and what its values are. You don’t have to agree on that with other people in order to fight for health care, housing, affirmative action, or whatever. You do have to agree with somebody’s ideology, I think, if you’re going to join certain kinds of organizations that demand ideological unity, from the Boy Scouts to the Communist Party. But coalitions, networks, and alliances should never make the mistake of demanding ideological unity. They can expect unity around an issue."

"ours is an age of intensified empire-building in which no war is unthinkable."

"For Esmeralda Santiago, the impetus to develop a new tradition of Puerto Rican authors comes from her beginnings in literature, back in her childhood when she spent time in the backyard of a family member’s house in el campo. There, she listened to relatives tell trovas – oral tradition in rhyme. She also credits her dad’s love for poetry and Puerto Rican authors Julia de Burgos, Manuel Alonso, and Luis Palés Matos with sparking her interest."

"Julia de Burgos, the poet of love and nationhood"

"I wrote this book for my teenage self, so it’s all about themes that were important to my young self: questioning your identity and gender, but also your creative aspirations and the person you want to be."

"we wander through the streets of our memory/looking for julia de burgos/in the concrete of our tongue"

"Frances and Sebastian accept each other right from the get go, and the world the characters live in is one that is willing to change. I think you buy it because it’s wrapped in this fairy tale theme and playing off these Disney Princess movie tropes. It would be a lot harder if I went for a strict historical theme."

"Julia de Burgos wrote: "That my grandfather was a slave/is my grief;/had he been a master/that would have been my shame.""

"The fact is, nothing could be more truly Chicana than the Chicana who wants to be more than a wife, mother, housekeeper. That limited concept of women did not exist under our Indian ancestors for whom the woman was a creative person in the broadest sense and central to the cultural life of the tribe. Later in Mexican history, we find that the woman has played every possible role-including that of fighter on the front lines."

"Getting back to the Boricua's issue/what history do you know?/Ever heard of/Agueybana/Pedro Albizu Campos/Palés Matos/Rafael Betances/Arturo Alfonso Schomburg/Francisco Oller/Julia De Burgos/Rafael Hernández/Segundo Ruiz Belvis/Enrique Laguerre/Mariana Bracetti/Pedro Pietri/Still havING problems figuring me out?/Or is it that you just don't know/who you are?"

"The collection is also a question: who is Margarita? Margarita is an intoxicating drink, a flower back home in Puerto Rico, the title of a traditional "danza" that was a favorite of my mother and the name of a woman I love. Margarita is all of these and none. Margarita is my muse, Margarita is my poetry, Margarita is my imaginary lover, Margarita is my Self. And as you read these you may ask yourself: who is Julia? Julia de Burgos is our greatest woman poet in Puerto Rico, Julia is a teacher, Julia is an idol, Julia is a friend. But Julia is, most of all, Margarita. We are all Margaritas and have a Julia within."

"I never strongly identified with Puerto Rican writers from Puerto Rico. My writing comes from a different sensibility...I have, however, read and liked very much Julia de Burgos and José Luis González and Magali García Ramis."

"Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos and Uruguayan Delmira Agustini are united in an unexpected way, de Burgos searching for desire and love and Agustini searching for freedom to love. Linked for the first time when speaking from the perspective of and about the history of love and absence, recreating the adventures of those lost, either on an abandoned island or an abandoned body, placing the poetry of these two women in the same section is the starting point"

"Sigue siendo poema Julia de Burgos;/la burguesa del cosmos, que no es burguesa/como quieren los hombres, pues se sonríe/mucho más que al espejo, al río y la selva"

"la gran muerte espera recogerme en sus astros."

"Julia de Burgos is the eldest of thirteen children, a bottomless spring of emotion, a boundless heart full of desires, a beautiful and eloquent woman who generously spills her spirit onto page after page...Julia de Burgos, the glowing poet of sensual rivers and waves crashing against sea walls, is drowning slowly in despair. I who am also poeta, puertorriqueña, needing both love and art, fighting political battles by day and demons by night, I have stood at the brink of that river of sorrows, tempted by oblivion. I live in a far more generous life, created for me by the labor of countless women, thirty years of collective agitation, thirty years of wrestling with the culture and consciousness of women and men. I do not face her terrible choices, the punishments meted out to passionate creative women of her day."

"The year 1998 would bring the 150th anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as well as the 100th anniversary of the Spanish-American War, both landmarks of imperialist expansion"

"Que nadie me profane la muerte con sollozos"

"¿Cómo podrán callarme/cuando todos los ecos del universo sean/sinfonías en mi frente?"

"La palabra no puede con mi carga de angustia,/y no cabe en mi verso mi dolor exaltado."

"¿Dónde comienza aquel momento triste/que ahogó la danza de mi espíritu"

"¡Oh amor entretenido en astros y palomas,/cómo en rocío feliz cruzas mi alma!"

"In looking at the Puerto Rican movement as a whole and the positive contributions that we made in the seventies and early eighties, first we need to point out that we built on our legacy of struggle. We stood on the shoulders of such Nationalists as Ramón Emeterio Betances, Pedro Albizu Campos, Lolita Lebrón, and such communists as Luisa Capetillo, Jesús Colón, Bernardo Vega, Julia de Burgos, Juana Colón, Evelina Antonetti, Antonio Corretjer, Genoveva Clemente, Gerena Valentín, and many others."

"Que sea nuestra vida presente de todo./Que busque futuro tan sólo en el alma./Que ensaye verdades. Que sienta en idea./Que siempre se extienda cortando distancias"

"Fui estrella en tus brazos derramada"

"Me he sentido llegar allí donde se mueren/las canciones felices"

"No temas la mirada que vaciará mi corazón en ti"

"No se cuándo ni dónde/pero se que vendrás."