Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism (Live Girls) [Paperback]

Daisy Hernandez (Editor), Ed.S. Bushra Rehman (Editor), Cherrie Moraga (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Live Girls | Publication Date: July 29, 2002

It has been decades since women of color first turned feminism upside down, exposing the ‘70s feminist movement as exclusive, white, and unaware of the concerns and issues of women of color from around the globe. Now a new generation of brilliant, outspoken women of color is speaking to the concerns of a new feminism, and to their place in it. Daisy Hernandez of Ms. magazine and poet Bushra Rehman have collected a diverse, lively group of emerging writers who speak to their experience—to the strength and rigidity of community and religion, to borders and divisions, both internal and external—and address issues that take feminism into the twenty-first century. One writer describes herself as a “mixed brown girl, Sri-Lankan and New England mill-town white trash,” and clearly delineates the organizing differences between whites and women of color: “We do not kick ass the way the white girls do, in meetings of NOW or riot grrl. For us, it’s all about family.” A Korean-American woman struggles to create her own identity in a traditional community: “Yam-ja-neh means nice, sweet, compliant. I’ve heard it used many times by my parents’ friends who don’t know shit about me.” An Arab-American feminist deconstructs the “quaint vision” of Middle-Eastern women with which most Americans feel comfortable. This impressive array of first-person accounts adds a much-needed fresh dimension to the ongoing dialogue between race and gender, and gives voice to the women who are creating and shaping the feminism of the future.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Ms. magazine columnist Hernandez and former Muslim poet Rehman, both feminist activists, have assembled a broad collection of essays by young women writers, academics, and activists from a range of cultures and sexual orientations. A few essays have a very specialized focus, describing such experiences as a Chicana with HIV and a Native American woman participating in the typically male War Dance ceremony. More often the contributors look more generally at their lives and families and consider how these experiences have influenced their understanding of feminism. Several writers critique "white, middle class feminism" for failing to take into account the impact of classism and racism on women of color. One essay discusses the impact of gentrification on poor, single mothers; another tells of the author's immigrant mother turning to sex work to support her daughters. Cultural and religious customs are discussed by a Nigerian woman who comes to the United States for college and by an Indian American woman who is expected to pursue an arranged marriage. These are very personal, interesting, and readable essays. Recommended for large public and academic libraries. JDebra Moore, Cerritos Coll., Norwalk, CA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Daisey Hernandez and Bushra Rehman, self-described as a "Catholic Cuban-Colombian girl from New Jersey" and a "Pakistani Muslim girl from Queens," offer various perspectives--their own and others--of life lived as young feminists of color, exploring commonalities and cultural differences and examining macho cultures and American capitalism. The collection takes its title from an essay by Cristina Tzintzun, whose Mexican mother and white father personified the colonial experience. The essays explore four major themes: family and community; mothers; cultural customs; and talking back to white feminists, men, mothers, liberals, and others. These women express a more radical, racialized feminism that broadens the movement beyond its early incarnation. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 403 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press (July 29, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580050670
• ISBN-13: 978-1580050678
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #34 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Women's Studies > Feminist Theory

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I've Got Your Back!, August 17, 2003

By 

C. Montoya-Humphrey (Forest Hills, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism (Live Girls) (Paperback)

One day, after four months working in a largely white-staffed major chain bookstore, I discovered this book on the shelf. By the end, I was left wishing I had been able to submit a piece and hoping that I would one day find these other women.

I was excited to see the inclusion of American Indian women; we are all too often tossed aside- not only by anti-Indianist mainstream society, but by other people of color themselves. Hernandez' book is not only hers, not only the contributors', but all women of color's. These are individual voices of passionate and determined women of color, which are the real voices of feminism today, not the pedagogical discourse with which all women's studies majors are bombarded.

I enjoyed the stories of other queer women of color. I do not believe that these should be difficult to understand or relate to by straight women, after all, are not all queer women forced by society to understand the stories and trials of heterosexuality? I applaud Hernandez, not only for including the stories of queer women of color, but celebrating them as well.

At the United States Student Association, when someone calls "Holla Back," the room resounds with "I've got your back!" To all the women of color in the world- the editor and contributors of this book have got yours.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Edgy Third Wave Book, November 7, 2004

By 

J. Aragon "Feminist Educator" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism (Live Girls) (Paperback)

Colonize This will make some readers uncomfortable to the contributors' honesty and in some cases anger. The various entries bring race to the center stage and this in itself will cause some readers to shift uncomfortably as they re-think their own particular privilege.

This book is ideal in a women's studies classroom or ethnic studies, english, or sociology. I think the book would be best served by also reading _This Bridge Called My Back_, since so many of the contributors refer to _Bridge_ as causing their "click" of feminism.

Colonize This isn't your typical academic tome, but a personal (and political) book that should cause some lively debate.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, December 28, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism (Live Girls) (Paperback)

After reading colonize this I was filled with a sense of all the possibilities of life, a sense of courage and a feeling that being a woman of color was not a life-sentence. Instead the women who wrote in this book made me feel that I didn't have to fit into someone else's mold of what it was I should be. Instead I could choose to love and live and learn the way that I felt was right what my heart told me.