Cherríe Moraga (born September 25, 1952) is a

Chicana Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

writer,

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

, and

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

. She is part of the faculty at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

in the Department of English. Moraga is also a founding member of the social justice activist group La Red Chicana Indígena which is an organization of Chicanas fighting for education, culture rights, and Indigenous Rights.

Early life

Moraga was born on September 25, 1952 in

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...

. In her article "La Guera" Moraga wrote of her experiences growing up as a child of a white man and a Mexican woman, stating that "it is frightening to acknowledge that I have internalized a

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagoni ...

and

classism Class discrimination, also known as classism, is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes, behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper class at the expense ...

, where the object of oppression not only someone outside of my skin, but the someone inside my skin." Moraga has cited her mother as her main inspiration to become a writer, stating that she was an eminent storyteller. She attended Immaculate Heart College in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

, gaining a graduated bachelor's degree in English in 1974. Soon after attending, she enrolled in a writing class at the Women's Building and produced her first lesbian poems. In 1977 she moved to San Francisco where she supported herself as a waitress, became politically active as a burgeoning feminist, and discovered the feminism of

women of color The term "person of color" ( : people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered " white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the ...

. She earned her

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in Feminist Writings from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different ...

in 1980.

Writing and themes

Moraga has been credited as one of the few writers to write and introduce the theory of Chicana

lesbianism A lesbian is a homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with fema ...

. Themes in her writing include the intersections of gender, sexuality, and race, particularly in cultural production by women of color. Moraga's work was featured in

tatiana de la tierra Tatiana de la tierra (May 14, 1961 – July 31, 2012) was a Columbian writer, poet and activist. She was the author of the first international Latina lesbian magazine '' Esto no tiene nombre.'' Early life Tatiana de la tierra was born in Villavic ...

's Latina lesbian magazine '' Esto no tiene nombre'', which sought to inform and empower Latina lesbians through the work of writers like Moraga.

Sexuality

Moraga is openly gay, having come out as a lesbian after her college years. In "La Guera" Moraga compared the discrimination she experienced as a lesbian to her mother's experiences being a poor, uneducated Mexican woman, stating that “My lesbianism is the avenue through which I have learned the most about silence and oppression, and it continues to be the most tactile reminder to me that we are not free human beings”. After

coming out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

, Moraga began writing more heavily and became involved with the feminist movement. In ''Loving in the War Years'', Moraga cites '' Capitalist Patriarchy: A Case for Socialist Feminism'' as an inspiration when realizing her intersecting identity as a Chicana lesbian, saying, "The appearance of these sisters' words ''in print'', as lesbians of color, suddenly made it viable for me to put my Chicana ''and'' lesbian self in the center of my movement."

Career

Literature and writing

Moraga co-edited the anthology ''

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, first published in 1981 by Persephone Press. The second edition was published in 1983 by Kitchen Table: ...

: Writings by Radical Women of Color'' with

Gloria Anzaldúa Gloria may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music Christian liturgy and music * Gloria in excelsis Deo, the Greater Doxology, a hymn of praise * Gloria Patri, the Lesser Doxology, a short hymn of praise ** Gloria (Handel) ** Gloria (Jenkins ...

. The first edition was published in 1981 by Persephone Press. In 1983 Barbara Smith,

Audre Lorde Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...

and Moraga started Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, which has been credited as the first publisher dedicated to the writing of

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. Kitchen Table published the second edition of ''This Bridge Called My Back''. In 1986, the book won the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award for that year. Along with

Ana Castillo Ana Castillo (born June 15, 1953) is a Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Considered one of the leading voices in Chicana experience, Castillo is known for her experimen ...

and

Norma Alarcón Norma Alarcón (born November 30, 1943) is a Chicana author and publisher in the United States. She is the founder of Third Woman Press and a major figure in Chicana feminism. She is Professor Emerita of Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of ...

, Moraga adapted this anthology into the Spanish-language ''Este puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos''. Later that same year Moraga's first sole-authored book, ''Loving in the War Years: lo que nunca pasó por sus labios,'' was published. In 2007 Moraga was named a 2007 USA Rockefeller Fellow and granted $50,000 by United States Artists. She won a Creative Work Fund Award in 2008, and the Gerbode-Hewlett Foundation Grant for Playwriting in 2009. Moraga has reflected on her experiences with feminist writing and activism in an oral history conducted by the Voices of Feminism Oral History Project.

Still Loving in the (Still) War Years

In 2009 Moraga published the essay “Still Loving in the (Still) War Years: On Keeping Queer Queer", which critiqued the mainstreaming of LGBT politics through an emphasis on same-sex marriage. In the essay she also discussed transgender people in queer communities and critiqued the increasing inclusion of trans issues in LGBT politics. She argues that young people are being pressured into transitioning by the larger queer culture, expressing fear that “the transgender movement at large, and plain ole peer pressure, will preempt young people from residing in that queer, gender-ambivalent site for as long and as deeply as is necessary.” Some community members such as Morgan Collado and Francisco Galarte responded by emphasizing how this invalidated and dismissed the lived experience of young people who decide to transition.Collado, Morgan. 2016. “XQsí Magazine — On Actually Keeping Queer Queer: A Response to Cherrie Moraga.” Accessed July 17. http://xqsimagazine.com/2012/04/13/on-actually-keeping-queer-queer-a-response-to-cherrie-moraga/. Galarte, Francisco J. 2014. “TRANSGENDER CHICAN@ POETICS: Contesting, Interrogating, and Transforming Chicana/o Studies.” ''Chicana/Latina Studies'' 13 (2): 118–39. In this essay Moraga goes further to lament what she sees as the loss of butch and lesbian culture to those who choose to transition, stating that she “ oesnot want to keep losing ermacha daughters to manhood through any cultural mandates that are not of our own making.” In response to this, Galarte argued that “Moraga’s text forces transgender folks to bear the burden of proving loyalty to a nation as well as being the figure that is the exemplar of race, sex, and gender abjection and liberation". She was also criticized for her refusal to address transgender women in the essay. https://openjournals.neu.edu/nuwriting/home/article/download/58/44/

Theater

From 1994 to 2002, Moraga published a couple of volumes of plays through West End Press of Albuquerque, NM. Moraga has taught courses in

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

tic arts and writing at various universities across the United States and is currently an artist in residence at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

. She has written and produced numerous theater productions. She is currently involved in a theatre communications group and was the recipient of the NEA Theatre Playwriting Fellowship Award. In 2009 she received a Gerbode-Hewlett foundation grant for play writing. ''Watsonville: Some Place Not Here'' Moraga's 1996 play, '' Watsonville: Some Place Not Here'' was commissioned by the Brava Theatre Center with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and had its world premiere at the Brava Theater May 25, 1996. It won the

Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...

and was winner of the Fund for New American Plays Award from the Kennedy center for the Performing Arts.VG/Voices from the Gaps Project: Merideth R. Cleary and Erin E. Fergusson
/ref>

Select bibliography

Books

*''Loving in the War Years: Lo que nunca pasó por sus labios'' (1983). Boston:

South End Press South End Press was a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 by Michael Albert, Lydia Sargent, Juliet Schor, among others, in Boston's South End. It published books written by political a ...

. . *''Cuentos: Stories By Latinas'' (co-editor, 1983).

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. . * ''

: Writings by Radical Women of Color'' (1986, co-editor) **''Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos'' (co-editor, 1988). San Francisco: ism press. . *''The Last Generation: Prose and Poetry'' (1993). Boston:

. *''Heroes and Saints and Other Plays'' (1994). Albuquerque: West End Press. . *''Waiting in the Wings: Portrait of a Queer Motherhood'' (1997)

Ithaca Ithaca most commonly refers to: *Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey'' *Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca *Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College Ithaca, Ithaka ...

: Firebrand Books. . * ''A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness: Writings, 2000-2010'' (2011) *'' Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir'' (2019). New York: Farrar, Straus, and Girox. .

Theater

* ''Giving up the Ghost'' (1986) * ''Shadow of a Man'' (1990) * ''Coatlicue's Call/ El llamado de Coatlicue'' (1990) * ''Heroes and Saints'' (1992) *''Shadow of a Man'' (1992) * ''Heart of the Earth: A Popol Vuh Story'' (1994) * ''A Circle in the Dirt'' (1995) * '' Watsonville: Some Place Not Here'' (1996) * '' The Hungry Woman'' (1995) * '' Circle in the Dirt'' (2002) * ''Digging Up the Dirt'' (2010) * ''New Fire: To Put Things Right Again'' (2012). * ''The Mathematics of Love'' (2016)

Other works

* "Art in America Con Acento" (1994). Anthologized in ''Women Writing Resistance: essays on Latin America and the Caribbean'' (2003). Cambridge, Massachusetts:

. . *''The Sexuality of Latinas'' (co-editor, 1993). Berkeley: Third Woman Press. .

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. * Vivancos Perez, Ricardo F. ''Radical Chicana Poetics''. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. * 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

Brudner Prize The James Robert Brudner Memorial Prize and Lecture at Yale University celebrates lifetime accomplishment and scholarly contributions in the field of LGBT Studies. It is bestowed annually by the Committee for LGBT Studies at Yale University. Re ...

. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 2013. * United States Artist Rockefeller Fellowship for Literature, 2007. * National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholars Award, 2001. * David R. Kessler Award. CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies (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 Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

Theater Playwrights' Fellowship, 1993. * The PEN West Literary Award for Drama, 1993. * The

Critics' Circle Award The Critics' Circle Theatre Awards, originally called ''Drama'' Theatre Awards up to 1990, are British theatrical awards presented annually for the closing year's theatrical achievements. The winners, from theatre throughout the United Kingdom, ar ...

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 Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...

, Before Columbus Foundation, 1986. * The Creative Arts Public Service (CAPS) Grant for Poetry, New York State, 1983. * The Mac Dowell Colony Fellowship for Poetry, New Hampshire, 1982.

References

* Pignataro, Margarita Elena del Carmen (

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

PhD thesis). "Religious hybridity and female power in "Heart of the Earth: A Popol Vuh Story" and other theatrical works by Cherrie Moraga." ( es, El hibridismo religioso y la fuerza femenina en, translit=Heart of the Earth: A Popul Vuh Story y otras obras teatrales de Cherríe Moraga) (Dissertation/Thesis). 01/2009, . UMI Number: 3353695. - This work has an abstract in English and is written in the Spanish language. *

Notes

External links

Official site

Cast Out: Queer Lives in Theater
(University of Michigan Press, edited by Robin Bernstein) includes Moraga's essay, "And Frida Looks Back: The Art of Latina/o Queer Heroics."
''Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos''
(co-editor, 1988). San Francisco: ism press. (paperback); (hardcover) {{DEFAULTSORT:Moraga, Cherrie 1952 births American academics of Mexican descent American writers of Mexican descent Chicana feminists American feminist writers Hispanic and Latino American dramatists and playwrights Lesbian feminists LGBT Hispanic and Latino American people American lesbian writers Living people Writers from Whittier, California American women dramatists and playwrights Lambda Literary Award winners LGBT dramatists and playwrights American Book Award winners 21st-century LGBT people 21st-century American women

Early life

Writing and themes

Sexuality

Career

Literature and writing

Still Loving in the (Still) War Years

Theater

Select bibliography

Books

Theater

Other works

Selected critical works on Cherríe Moraga

Awards

See also

References

Notes

External links