This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

Chapter 4, “Between the Lines: On Culture, Class, and Homophobia,” focuses on the differences among Third World women, particularly in regards to class, sexuality, and culture. “The Other Heritage” by Rosario Morales, along with “I Come with No Illusions” and “I Paid Very Hard for My Immigrant Ignorance” by Mirtha Quintanales, look at a Latina, immigrant perspective in the US and trying to piece together what different identity labels really mean. “The Other Heritage” provides the perspective of a mixed heritage Jewish Puerto Rican woman living in the US, whereas “I Paid Very Hard for My Immigrant Ignorance” examines Quintanales’s biculturality and sexuality. In providing these various examples for the ways in which immigrant status, ethnic background, gender, and sexuality can intersect, the reader is able to consider the many insidious forms of oppression.

Kate Rushin’s narrative essays, “The Tired Poem: Last Letter from a Typical (Unemployed) Black Professional Woman” and “To Be Continued…,” portray the ways Rushin experiences misogyny specifically as a Black woman. Additionally, “Across the Kitchen Table: A Sister-to-Sister Dialogue,” a transcript of Barbara Smith and Beverly Smith in conversation, along with “Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance” by Cheryl Clarke, shed light on the way their homosexuality is received within the Black community. These details add the experiences of women of color who are not considered immigrants, as the experiences of Black women in America is one that has a long and treacherous history. These pieces also discusses how homophobia and sexism are perpetuated within the Black community specifically, and the challenge of women who are simultaneously trying to work with their fellow Black community members while also grappling with the oppression that is perpetuated by them. Barbara Smith puts it succinctly in “Across the Kitchen Table” when she says, “there’s nothing to compare to how you feel when you’re cut cold by your own” (121).

Barbara Noda explores the differences throughout time in “Lowriding Through the Women’s Movement,” reflecting on the passage of time and the death of friends in the Third World feminist circles. “Letter to Ma” by Merle Woo speaks to generational differences in an Asian American context through personal examples of how she interacts with her mother. While Noda is more so reflecting on an era that’s passed, Woo is elaborating on how her Third World feminism has been built on the suffering of her foremothers:

Because of your life, because of the physical security you have given me… I saw myself as having worth; now I begin to love myself more, see our potential, and fight for that kind of social change that will affirm me, my race, my sex, my heritage (140).

The women’s different understandings of women’s rights between generations are painted as an evolution, rather than having been invented by marginalized communities. This evolution is significant because the ideas of women of color were erased from history as being unimportant, and so it can make it challenging to trace the ancestry of such movements as Third World feminism, and it’s easier for people to attribute those roots to well-known white historical actors.

“Earth-Lover, Survivor, Musician” by Naomi Littlebear Morena achieves an insight into Third World voices out there who may not feel able to partake in activism and activism-related writing. She realizes she wrote the book about her life in the barrio during an unbalanced time in her life, she “wrote that book as a brown woman’s retort to white people” (155) rather than as a way of uplifting her spirit and that of her community. This piece recognizes that the Third World women featured were able to write and contribute to and publish this book, reflecting their privileges of time and money and education—a benefit many other Third World women in the US do not possess. For many of these women, having the energy and opportunity to contribute to such a piece is simply a luxury they feel they cannot afford in the face of their immediate needs.