ABSTRACT

In the Trap of Race and Gender: Latina Feminism

The term “feminism “ remains inadequate in encompassing the wide spectrum

of women’s problems. It is in fact heterosexual, middle class and white

women’s feminism. In This Bridge Called My Back, Cherrie Moraga and Gloria

Anzaldua writes:

“We are the colored in a white feminist movement.

We are the feminists among the people of our culture.

We are often the lesbians among the straight.”

The paper will be about Latin American women writers in America who felt that

their voices have been silenced for years by Anglo American feminists and their

patriarchal society. So by postfeminism, the multiple voices began to emerge and

speak for their peculiar situation. The double consciousness applied to the African

Americans by W.E.B Du Bois applies to them as triple consciousness as they are

both colored and women Americans in the racist and misogynist America. But being

set up in the race and gender trap, only some Latin women were brave enough to

escape by their pens or their voices to establish their own discourses. In the words of

Sonia Saldivar-Hull ,it is “feminism on the border” So by presenting different

feminisms like Latina feminism, the paper will demonstrate how ethnicity affects

“being a woman but a colored one” in a multi-cultural state like United States. The

paper will try analyze Latina literature, poetry and short stories, theoretical works by

Latina feminists like Gloria Anzaldua, poets like Lorna Dee Cervantes, novelists like

Sandra Cisneros.... The aim will be to find a common characteristic among Latina

feminists. The paper will try to explore the point that the Latina feminism agendas

specifically pose themselves with stances that are very different from the White Anglo

Saxon feminism of 1960’s. The paper will also explore whether Latina feminism

proposes viewpoints that are radically different from the discourses of other women

of color.