Cherríe Moraga
Encyclopedia
Cherríe L. Moraga is a Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet
, essayist, and playwright
.
. She earned her Bachelor's degree from Immaculate Heart College
in Los Angeles, California
and her Master's from San Francisco State University
in 1980. Of both Anglo
and Mexican American
heritage, her writing focuses on her experiences as a Chicana lesbian
.
Moraga has taught courses in drama
tic arts and writing
at various universities across the United States and is currently an artist in residence at Stanford University
. Her play, Watsonville: Some Place Not Here, performed at the Brava Theatre Company of San Francisco in May, 1996, won the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Fund for New American Plays Award. Barbara Smith
, Audre Lorde
and Moraga started Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press
, the first publisher dedicated to the writing of women of color in the United States
.
She is perhaps best known for co-editing, with Gloria Anzaldúa, the anthology of feminist thought This Bridge Called My Back
: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Along with Ana Castillo
and Norma Alarcon
, she adapted this anthology into the Spanish-language Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos. Writings in the anthology, along with works by other prominent feminists of color, call for a greater prominence within feminism for race-related subjectivities, and ultimately laid the foundation for third wave feminism or Third World Feminism in the USA. Her first sole-authored book, Loving in the War Years: lo que nunca pasó por sus labios (1983), a combination of autobiographically modulated prose and poetry, is also an influential critical work among Chicana feminists and other feminists of color, and among scholars working in Chicano Studies.
Cherrie Moraga was named a 2007 USA Rockefeller Fellow and granted $50,000 by United States Artists
, an arts advocacy foundation dedicated to the support and promotion of America's top living artists.
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, essayist, and playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
.
Biography
Moraga was born in Whittier, CaliforniaWhittier, California
Whittier is a city in Los Angeles County, California about southeast of Los Angeles. The city had a population of 85,331 at the 2010 census, up from 83,680 as of the 2000 census, and encompasses 14.7 square miles . Like nearby Montebello, the city constitutes part of the Gateway Cities...
. She earned her Bachelor's degree from Immaculate Heart College
Immaculate Heart College
Immaculate Heart College was a private, Catholic college located in Los Angeles, California.The college was established in 1916 by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ten years after they had founded Immaculate Heart High School on the property....
in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
and her Master's from San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
in 1980. Of both Anglo
Anglo
Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to the Angles, England or the English people, as in the terms Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-American, Anglo-Celtic, Anglo-African and Anglo-Indian. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British Isles descent in The Americas, Australia and...
and Mexican American
Mexican American
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States...
heritage, her writing focuses on her experiences as a Chicana lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
.
Moraga has taught courses in drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
tic arts and writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
at various universities across the United States and is currently an artist in residence at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. Her play, Watsonville: Some Place Not Here, performed at the Brava Theatre Company of San Francisco in May, 1996, won the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Fund for New American Plays Award. Barbara Smith
Barbara Smith
Barbara Smith in Cleveland is an American, lesbian feminist who has played a significant role in building and sustaining Black Feminism in the United States. Since the early 1970s she has been active as an innovative critic, teacher, lecturer, author, independent scholar, and publisher of Black...
, Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde was a Caribbean-American writer, poet and activist.-Life:...
and Moraga started Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press
Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press
Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press was an activist feminist press started in 1980 by author Barbara Smith at the suggestion of her friend, poet Audre Lorde.-Beginnings:...
, the first publisher dedicated to the writing of women of color in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
She is perhaps best known for co-editing, with Gloria Anzaldúa, the anthology of feminist thought This Bridge Called My Back
This Bridge Called My Back
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color is a feminist anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. The anthology was first published in 1981 by Persephone Press, and the second edition was published in 1984 by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press...
: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Along with Ana Castillo
Ana Castillo
Ana Castillo is a Mexican-American Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, and essayist.- Life and career :Castillo was born and raised in an inner city barrio of Chicago, Illinois. After completing undergraduate studies, she immediately began teaching college courses...
and Norma Alarcon
Norma Alarcón
Norma Alarcón is a Chicana author, professor, and publisher in the United States. She is the founder of Third Woman Press and a major figure in Chicana feminism.-Biography and Schooling:...
, she adapted this anthology into the Spanish-language Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos. Writings in the anthology, along with works by other prominent feminists of color, call for a greater prominence within feminism for race-related subjectivities, and ultimately laid the foundation for third wave feminism or Third World Feminism in the USA. Her first sole-authored book, Loving in the War Years: lo que nunca pasó por sus labios (1983), a combination of autobiographically modulated prose and poetry, is also an influential critical work among Chicana feminists and other feminists of color, and among scholars working in Chicano Studies.
Cherrie Moraga was named a 2007 USA Rockefeller Fellow and granted $50,000 by United States Artists
United States Artists
United States Artists is an independent nonprofit and nongovernmental philanthropic organization based in Los Angeles, California and dedicated to supporting the work of living American artists by the granting of cash awards, called USA Fellowships...
, an arts advocacy foundation dedicated to the support and promotion of America's top living artists.
Selected bibliography
- Watsonville: Some Place Not Here; Circle in the dirt: el pueblo de East Palo Alto (2002). Albuquerque: West End Press. ISBN 0970534450.
- The Hungry Woman (2001). Albuquerque: West End Press. ISBN 097053440X
- Waiting in the Wings: Portrait of a Queer Motherhood (1997) IthacaIthaca, New YorkThe city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...
: Firebrand BooksFirebrand BooksFirebrand Books, was established in the early 1980s by Nancy K. Bereano---a lesbian/feminist activist in Ithaca, NY. It is a feminist and lesbian publishing house and among the many which grew out of the Women's Press Movement. Other presses of that period include Naiad Books, Persephone and...
. ISBN 1563410931. - "Art in America Con Acento" (1994). Anthologized in Women Writing Resistance : essays on Latin America and the Caribbean (2003). Cambridge, Massachusetts: South End PressSouth End PressSouth End Press is a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 by Michael Albert, Lydia Sargent, John Schall, Pat Walker, Juliet Schor, Mary Lea, Joe Bowring, and Dave Millikan, among others, in Boston's South End...
. ISBN 0896087085. - Heroes and Saints and Other Plays (1994). Albuquerque: West End Press. ISBN 0931122740.
- The Last Generation: Prose and Poetry (1993). Boston: South End PressSouth End PressSouth End Press is a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 by Michael Albert, Lydia Sargent, John Schall, Pat Walker, Juliet Schor, Mary Lea, Joe Bowring, and Dave Millikan, among others, in Boston's South End...
. ISBN 0896084671 - The Sexuality of Latinas (co-editor, 1993). Berkeley: Third Woman Press. ISBN 0943219000.
- Shadow of a Man (1992)
- Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos (co-editor, 1988). San Francisco: ism press. ISBN 0910383197.
- Giving Up the Ghost: Teatro in Two Acts (1986). Los Angeles: West End Press. ISBN 0931122430.
- Cuentos: Stories By Latinas (co-editor, 1983). New YorkNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
: Kitchen Table: Women of Color PressKitchen Table: Women of Color PressKitchen Table: Women of Color Press was an activist feminist press started in 1980 by author Barbara Smith at the suggestion of her friend, poet Audre Lorde.-Beginnings:...
. ISBN 0913175013. - Loving in the War Years: Lo que nunca pasó por sus labios (1983). Boston: South End PressSouth End PressSouth End Press is a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 by Michael Albert, Lydia Sargent, John Schall, Pat Walker, Juliet Schor, Mary Lea, Joe Bowring, and Dave Millikan, among others, in Boston's South End...
. ISBN 0896081958. - This Bridge Called My Back (co-editor, 1981). Watertown, MassachusettsWatertown, MassachusettsThe Town of Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,915 at the 2010 census.- History :Archeological evidence suggests that Watertown was inhabited for thousands of years before the arrival of settlers from England...
: Persephone Press. ISBN 0943219221
Selected critical works on Cherríe Moraga
- Alarcón, Norma. “The Theoretical Subject(s) of This Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-American Feminism.” Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture and Ideology. Eds. Héctor Calderón and José David Saldívar. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1991. 28-39.
- Allatson, Paul. “‘I May Create a Monster’: Cherríe Moraga’s Hybrid Denial.” Antípodas: Journal of Hispanic and Galician Studies 11-12 (1999/2000): 103-121.
- Allatson, Paul. “Cherríe Moraga.” The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. Vol. 3: 1520-23.
- Gilmore, Leigh. Autobiographics: A Feminist Theory of Women’s Self-Representation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.
- Ikas, Karin Rosa. Chicana Ways: Conversations with Ten Chicana Writers. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2002.
- Negrón-Muntaner, Frances. “Cherríe Moraga.” Latin American Writers on Gay and Lesbian Themes: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Ed. David William Foster. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. 254-62.
- Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. “Cherríe Moraga.” Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 82: Chicano Writers First Series. Eds. Francisco A. Lomelí and Carl R. Shirley. Detroit: Gale/Bruccoli Clark Layman, 1989. 165-77.
- Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. “De-constructing the Lesbian Body: Cherríe Moraga’s Loving in the War Years.” The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry Abelove, Michèle Ana Barale and David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 595-603.
- Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. The Wounded Heart: Writing on Cherríe Moraga. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
Awards
- National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholars Award, 2001.
- David R. Kessler Award. The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, City University of New York. (In honor of contributions to the field of Queer Studies), 2000.
- The First Annual Cara Award. UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center/ Cesar Chavez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction in Chicana/Chicano Studies, 1999.
- The Fund for New American Plays Award, a project of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 1995 and 1991.
- Lifetime Achievement Award, Ellas in Acción, San Francisco, 1995.
- Lesbian Rights Award, Southern California Women for Understanding ("for Outstanding Contributions in Lesbian Literature and for Service to the Lesbian Community"), 1991.
- The National Endowment for the ArtsNational Endowment for the ArtsThe National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Theater Playwrights' Fellowship, 1993. - The PEN West Literary Award for Drama, 1993.
- The (Bay Area Theatre?) Critics' Circle Award for Best Original Script, 1992 (Heroes and Saints).
- The Will Glickman Playwriting Award, 1992.
- The Drama-logue Award for Playwriting, 1992.
- The Outlook Foundation, Literary Award, 1991.
- The California Arts Council Artists in Community Residency Award, 1991-2 /1993-5.
- The American Book AwardAmerican Book AwardThe American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
, Before Columbus FoundationBefore Columbus FoundationThe Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, Victor Hernández Cruz, Shawn Wong and Rudolfo Anaya to be "a multi-ethnic organizing dedicated to promoting a pan-cultural view of America," especially through the promotion of multicultural writers.One of...
, 1986. - The Creative Arts Public Service (CAPS) Grant for Poetry, New York State, 1983.
- The Mac Dowell Colony Fellowship for Poetry, New Hampshire, 1982.
See also
- Black feminismBlack feminismBlack feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class oppression. The Combahee River Collective argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would...
- Chicana feminismChicana feminismChicana feminism, also called Xicanisma, is a group of social theories that analyze the historical, social, political, and economic roles of Mexican American, Chicana, and Hispanic women in the United States.- Overview :...
- Third-world feminism
- List of Mexican American writers
- List of women writers
External links
- Official site
- Cast Out: Queer Lives in Theater (U. Michigan Press, edited by Robin Bernstein) includes Moraga's essay, "And Frida Looks Back: The Art of Latina/o Queer Heroics."