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El Laberinto, 1971-1987
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Si, son mis comadres. Something my mother had with her women friends and sisters. coming home. For once, I didn't have to choose between being a lesbian and being Chicana; between being a feminist and having a family. I Have Dreamed of a Bridge (San Francisco, California -- September 25, 1980) Literally, for two years now, I have dreamed of a bridge. In writing this conclusion, I fight the myriad voices that live inside me. The voices that stop my pen at every turn of the page. They are the voices that tell me here I should be talking more "materialistically" about the oppression of women of color, that I should be plotting out a "strategy" for Third World Revolution. But what I really want to write about is faith. That without faith, I'd dare not expose myself to the potential betrayal, reflection, and failure that lives throughout the first and last gesture of connection. And yet, so often I have lost touch with the simple faith I know in my blood. My mother. On some very basic level, the woman cannot be shaken from the ground on which she walks. Once at a very critical point in my work on this book, where everything I loved-the people, the writing, the city-all began to cave in on me, feeling such utter despair and self-doubt, I received in the mail a card from my mother. A holy card of St. Anthony de Padua, her patron saint, her "special" saint, wrapped in a plastic cover. She wrote in it: "Dear Cherrie, I am sending you this prayer of St. Anthony. Pray to God to help you with this book." And a cry came up from inside me that I had been sitting on for months, cleaning me out--a faith healer. Her faith in this saint did actually once save her life. That day, it helped me continue the labor of this book. I am not talking here about some lazy faith, where we resign ourselves to the tragic splittings in our lives with an upward turn of the hands or a vicious beating of our breasts. I am talking about believing that we have the power to actually transform our experience, change our lives, save our lives. Otherwise, why this book? It is the faith of activists I am talking about. The materialism in this book lives in the flesh of these women's lives: the exhaustion we feel in our bones at the end of the day, the fire we feel in our hears when we are insulted, the knife we feel in our backs when we are betrayed, the nausea we feel in our bellies when we are afraid, even the hunger we feel between our hips when we long to be touched. Our strategy is how we cope-how we measure and weigh what is to be said and when,what is to be done and how, and to whom and to whom and to whom, daily deciding/risking who it is we can call an ally, call a friend (whatever that person's skin, sex, or sexuality). We are women without a line. We are women who contradict each other. This book is written for all the women in it and all whose lives our lives will touch. We are a family who have first only knew each other in our dreams, who have come together on these pages to make faith a reality and to bring all of our selves to bear down hard on that reality. It is about physical and psychic struggle. it is about intimacy, a desire for life between all of us, not settling for less than freedom even in the most private aspects of our lives. A total vision. For the women in this book, I will lay my body down for that vision. [[bold]]This Bridge Called My Back[[end bold]]. In the dream, I am always met at the river. --Cherrie Moraga ________________________ La Movida de Dr. Benavides Dr. Alfredo Benavides will perform at the Iowa Memorial Union Wheelroom on Saturday, may 1. Admission will be $1. Practicing his graduate school survival skills, Alfredo will provide an evening of entertainment with his vast repertoire of Chicano and Latino music. However, since he is now a full-fledged professor (and not lacking of feria), Benavides will not pocket the profits, but has agreed to make a donation to the local LULAC scholarship fund. In addition to being a scholarship benefit, this event is also being held to commemorate Cinco de Mayo. So bring all your friends for the celebracion y no se les olvide su $1. (Sponsored by the Dept. of Bilingual Ed, LULAC and CIASU.) ________________________ Congratulations, Graduates! We would like to recognize and congratulate the following students who will graduate this spring from the UI: Terry Alexander, in Art; Carrie Bribriesco, in Social Work; Carlos Carrasquillo, in Accounting; Gabriel Cardona, in Electrical Engineering; Patricio Carrasco, in Geography; Teresa Garcia, in Political Studies, Adriana Medina, in Art; Sue Moreno, in General Studies; and Teresa Shump, in Early Childhood and Elementary Education. Dale gas, Hawkeyes(?)! ________________________ NAACP Banquet Features Julian Bond The National Association for the Advancement of Colored, University of Iowa Chapter, will sponsor State Senator Julian Bond of the Georgia State Legislator as the keynote speaker at its first annual Freedom Fund Banquet. The banquet is scheduled for Sunday, May 2 at the Main Ballroom of the UI IMU. Tickets are $5 and $8. 6
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Si, son mis comadres. Something my mother had with her women friends and sisters. coming home. For once, I didn't have to choose between being a lesbian and being Chicana; between being a feminist and having a family. I Have Dreamed of a Bridge (San Francisco, California -- September 25, 1980) Literally, for two years now, I have dreamed of a bridge. In writing this conclusion, I fight the myriad voices that live inside me. The voices that stop my pen at every turn of the page. They are the voices that tell me here I should be talking more "materialistically" about the oppression of women of color, that I should be plotting out a "strategy" for Third World Revolution. But what I really want to write about is faith. That without faith, I'd dare not expose myself to the potential betrayal, reflection, and failure that lives throughout the first and last gesture of connection. And yet, so often I have lost touch with the simple faith I know in my blood. My mother. On some very basic level, the woman cannot be shaken from the ground on which she walks. Once at a very critical point in my work on this book, where everything I loved-the people, the writing, the city-all began to cave in on me, feeling such utter despair and self-doubt, I received in the mail a card from my mother. A holy card of St. Anthony de Padua, her patron saint, her "special" saint, wrapped in a plastic cover. She wrote in it: "Dear Cherrie, I am sending you this prayer of St. Anthony. Pray to God to help you with this book." And a cry came up from inside me that I had been sitting on for months, cleaning me out--a faith healer. Her faith in this saint did actually once save her life. That day, it helped me continue the labor of this book. I am not talking here about some lazy faith, where we resign ourselves to the tragic splittings in our lives with an upward turn of the hands or a vicious beating of our breasts. I am talking about believing that we have the power to actually transform our experience, change our lives, save our lives. Otherwise, why this book? It is the faith of activists I am talking about. The materialism in this book lives in the flesh of these women's lives: the exhaustion we feel in our bones at the end of the day, the fire we feel in our hears when we are insulted, the knife we feel in our backs when we are betrayed, the nausea we feel in our bellies when we are afraid, even the hunger we feel between our hips when we long to be touched. Our strategy is how we cope-how we measure and weigh what is to be said and when,what is to be done and how, and to whom and to whom and to whom, daily deciding/risking who it is we can call an ally, call a friend (whatever that person's skin, sex, or sexuality). We are women without a line. We are women who contradict each other. This book is written for all the women in it and all whose lives our lives will touch. We are a family who have first only knew each other in our dreams, who have come together on these pages to make faith a reality and to bring all of our selves to bear down hard on that reality. It is about physical and psychic struggle. it is about intimacy, a desire for life between all of us, not settling for less than freedom even in the most private aspects of our lives. A total vision. For the women in this book, I will lay my body down for that vision. [[bold]]This Bridge Called My Back[[end bold]]. In the dream, I am always met at the river. --Cherrie Moraga ________________________ La Movida de Dr. Benavides Dr. Alfredo Benavides will perform at the Iowa Memorial Union Wheelroom on Saturday, may 1. Admission will be $1. Practicing his graduate school survival skills, Alfredo will provide an evening of entertainment with his vast repertoire of Chicano and Latino music. However, since he is now a full-fledged professor (and not lacking of feria), Benavides will not pocket the profits, but has agreed to make a donation to the local LULAC scholarship fund. In addition to being a scholarship benefit, this event is also being held to commemorate Cinco de Mayo. So bring all your friends for the celebracion y no se les olvide su $1. (Sponsored by the Dept. of Bilingual Ed, LULAC and CIASU.) ________________________ Congratulations, Graduates! We would like to recognize and congratulate the following students who will graduate this spring from the UI: Terry Alexander, in Art; Carrie Bribriesco, in Social Work; Carlos Carrasquillo, in Accounting; Gabriel Cardona, in Electrical Engineering; Patricio Carrasco, in Geography; Teresa Garcia, in Political Studies, Adriana Medina, in Art; Sue Moreno, in General Studies; and Teresa Shump, in Early Childhood and Elementary Education. Dale gas, Hawkeyes(?)! ________________________ NAACP Banquet Features Julian Bond The National Association for the Advancement of Colored, University of Iowa Chapter, will sponsor State Senator Julian Bond of the Georgia State Legislator as the keynote speaker at its first annual Freedom Fund Banquet. The banquet is scheduled for Sunday, May 2 at the Main Ballroom of the UI IMU. Tickets are $5 and $8. 6
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