Feminist Magazine - Wednesday, June 3, 2026

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1. I
2. This is Feminist Magazine, a weekly radical radio show and podcast produced by a diverse collective of feminists.
3. And every week we bring you a mix of intersectional stories and guests to help you resist and engage.
4. Because we want you to know a little bit more about Feminist Magazine, who we are and how we do it,
5. and why you'll want to support Feminist Radio on the air on KPFK every week.
6. And I'm Lynn Harris-Ballin, your host today, and this is what feminism can sound like.
7. If we had been a straight couple, then I would have gotten her Social Security.
8. as it was. I lost, I didn't get anything. Studies show that lesbian, gay, bisexual,
9. transgender and queer seniors are much more likely than their straight counterparts to be alone and
10. isolated as they age. Housing and support for these elders is a growing need and the issue
11. is not just confined to the United States. From a government's perspective, they are confused
12. about whether to put them in the male or female older people's home.
13. On this edition, we'll visit Jakarta, Indonesia, and Los Angeles, California, to hear stories of building housing and community for LGBTQ seniors.
14. I'm Jen Chien, and this is Making Contact, a program connecting people, vital ideas, and important information.
15. In recent years, much progress has been made in the fight for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people.
16. You can see a lot of this shift reflected in popular media.
17. All this marriage equality news is so exciting. New York.
18. It's going to be insane.
19. Isabel's already consulting on like seven different gay weddings.
20. It's historic.
21. From TV shows like Glee and Ellen.
22. So, you know, on my show, what I like to do is I like to promote kindness and equal rights.
23. And I don't like labels and I don't see color.
24. I'm like a cocker spaniel in that way.
25. To pop stars like Frank Ocean, Scissor Sisters and Lady Gaga.
26. Make them love me.
27. No, no.
28. Oh, it's a, it's a bad religion.
29. Let's have a kinky.
30. I want to have a kinky.
31. Lock the door.
32. All right.
33. Let's have a kinky.
34. Way, ain't no other way.
35. Ooh, there ain't no other way.
36. Baby, I was born this way.
37. Right, chat, baby, I was born this way.
38. Don't be a drag, just be a queen.
39. Don't be a drag, just be a queen.
40. But there's something missing from pop culture's portrayal of the LGBTQ community.
41. With all the shiny young faces on display, LGBTQ elders have been relegated to the sidelines.
42. Many of the cultural and political gains we see today are due to the efforts of a generation that's now aging,
43. often in isolation and obscurity According to research LGBTQ elders are twice as likely to be single and four times as likely to be childless than their heterosexual counterparts
44. For those that are partnered, legal discrimination can mean difficulty accessing partner benefits,
45. and many queer elders do not have good relationships with their families of origin.
46. So, as they age, lifelines of support and care can dwindle.
47. Fear of homophobia, discrimination, or abuse can lead many LGBTQ elders to stay isolated,
48. even as they face difficulties with health care and with housing.
49. Very often, LGBT older adults find that they are not welcome in so-called mainstream aging programs,
50. and so they don't have the sense of community that often comes with group-based social services.
51. We also know, unfortunately, that even within the LGBT community itself,
52. older people often feel isolated and don't find the sense of community that they need.
53. Michael Adams, executive director of SAGE, Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders,
54. spoke in 2011 at the nation's first summit on LGBTQ housing issues.
55. We know that, in general, LGBT older folks face particular challenges,
56. And we can lump those challenges into three general areas in terms of stigma, being disconnected from traditional family structures, and in terms of unequal treatment under the law.
57. What all of those factors build toward is, in many cases, particularly heightened sense of an experience of isolation among LGBT older people, which heightens the importance of community and place.
58. So for LGBT elders, it's fair to say that welcoming and supportive housing is not just a luxury, it's in fact a necessity.
59. And it goes beyond the particulars of housing and a roof over one's head into what's important in terms of providing community for many people who, as they age, find that in very short supply.
60. Awareness of the need for affordable and culturally competent care is growing,
61. with housing developments for LGBTQ elders in the works in multiple cities.
62. We go now to Los Angeles, where in 2007, a nonprofit called Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing
63. built the nation's first affordable housing development for LGBTQ seniors.
64. It's called Triangle Square.
65. Reporter Lena Nozizwe visited the five-story apartment complex,
66. and she brings us this story.
67. Hello.
68. Rosie.
69. It's snack time for Rosie.
70. And to the casual observer, this domestic scene between a doting cat owner
71. and her fat and furry feline is nothing more than ordinary.
72. Only the blonde-haired woman with a twinkle in her eye
73. and cat food in her hand believes it's more like a miracle.
74. My name is Alice Hope Herman.
75. I'm 77 years old. I lived with my partner Sylvia for 45 years. She died three months, almost to the day, before I found my home here at Triangle Square.
76. Triangle Square in Hollywood, California is the country's first affordable housing complex designed specifically with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, seniors in mind.
77. It was built in 2007 just a couple of blocks away from the fabled intersection of Hollywood and Vine The 10 waiting list to get a spot at Triangle Square is not surprising considering that there are an estimated 3 million LGBT seniors 65 years or older in the United States
78. That number is expected to grow by another million by 2030,
79. numbers that only highlight the need for places like Triangle Square.
80. That's Sylvia when she was younger.
81. Very Audrey Hepburn.
82. Triangle Square is not at all where she imagined that she would end up back in the mid-60s,
83. when an uptown Alice began a relationship with a downtown Sylvia in New York City.
84. When Sylvia and I started out, she had pretty much grown up from the time she was around 17 in Greenwich Village.
85. She knew the bar scene.
86. She used to go out with the guys in the mafia.
87. I thought, I didn't know there were gay people in Greenwich,
88. which I didn't know what a gay person was.
89. I was married, I got married, okay?
90. And I married my high school sweetheart.
91. And two years after we were married, I realized I was gay,
92. but I didn't know what it meant.
93. So I was what they called uptown,
94. because I was going to college.
95. I went to libraries.
96. Sylvia went to after-hours clubs.
97. and bars. I mean, two completely different worlds. I gave her what she needed, which was stability.
98. To her, I was like a rock. To me, she was like a cloud. The cloud spent a lifetime ascending in
99. the business world and became a successful chief financial officer in the garment district,
100. while the rock, Alice, was a teacher and then a social worker. She says they were successful
101. enough that after 40 plus years together, they managed to put $500,000 in the bank,
102. and she says they created a beautiful home in LA's San Fernando Valley.
103. But then in 2007, Sylvia fainted in their home. It was hospitalized.
104. And what she would ever say to me, this house, just let me come home, please. I just want to
105. come home. This couple, who had already been together in sickness and in health,
106. got married by a rabbi in the hospital. Days later, Sylvia died.
107. If we had been a straight couple, then I would have gotten her Social Security, which I can say was more than twice as much as mine, which is what you get when you're a straight couple.
108. The partner gets the higher of the two checks.
109. As it was, I lost, I didn't get anything.
110. Hospital bills decimated their savings.
111. Alice was forced to leave the home they shared,
112. and given her age and income, it was difficult to find housing.
113. But then through word of mouth, she found out about Triangle Square,
114. and it was exactly what she was looking for.
115. She says it's safe, affordable, and allows her to keep the cats, including Rosie,
116. that she once shared with her beloved Sylvia.
117. My birth name is Wayne, and I go under Miss Rosie.
118. I am transgender, and I live at Triangle Square, and I am 72 years old.
119. Another Rosie, more specifically Miss Rosie, also found shelter at Triangle Square.
120. It was not the death of a partner, but intolerant neighbors who brought Miss Rosie to Triangle Square, also in 2007.
121. The transgender senior got tired of sneering neighbors I lived over near Gower and Sunset and I was there for 30 years
122. But when I'd go get dressed up in my apartment and walk down the hall, I'd get looks and sneered
123. at and everything. And, you know, it just made me feel uncomfortable. Once she moved into Triangle
124. square she immediately felt at home. Her one-bedroom apartment is now complete with
125. enough wigs to make Dolly Parton envious. Right here is my little short one here that
126. that's my Susan Boyle look. And there are his and hers closets. One female closet and one male
127. closet. I have a hard enough time with just the female closets. The kind of acceptance Miss Rosie
128. has found a triangle square, no matter what she wears, has been a long time coming. That was not
129. the case where she grew up in Indiana. When I was a child, I used to dress up my mom's clothes up in
130. the attic, and sometimes I'd get punished by my parents, and then I would get mad, and I said,
131. well, I want to run away home to become a woman, you know, and disappear as a man.
132. As it turns out, she grew up and ran away to the military.
133. She didn't have the Susan Boyle wig back then, so it was with a mop on her head that she impersonated a woman during an Army talent show.
134. And she won.
135. In 1964, after five years of military service, Miss Rosie decided to make the full transition to living as a woman after a visit to a bar.
136. I was telling the barmaid about the situation I did in the Army.
137. She said, come over to my house and I'll dress you up.
138. And when she dressed me up with the real makeup, real hair, the whole works,
139. I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, oh my God, this is really me.
140. I thought I was just an ordinary homosexual or queer at that time.
141. I did not even know the word gay was, you know, or transgender or anything like that.
142. Miss Rosie says there weren't many jobs in the 60s for a newly minted woman,
143. and that's what she says led her to the streets of San Francisco.
144. In this dirty old part of the city.
145. And when I was doing this, while I was going through the transitioning,
146. I had no job, and I was a prostitute back in the 60s.
147. And guys that I'd pick up thinking I'm a real woman.
148. Now my girl, you're so young and pretty.
149. And then when they get down to the nitty gritty, they would find out that I'm a man and I've had guns on me.
150. I've had knives pulled on me.
151. It's a wonder I'm still alive today.
152. She survived San Francisco and then Los Angeles until she says she quit prostitution after a police beating during a bust.
153. In 2001, she would face another serious threat to her life, HIV.
154. I take three, four, five, six, seven, eight pills per day at one time in the mornings.
155. And just as Miss Rosie survived the streets, she says she will survive HIV.
156. I am not going to let HIV or anything to stop me from doing anything I want to do.
157. As many as a third of the apartments at Triangle Square are devoted to seniors who are HIV positive.
158. Because of their health status, those seniors get preferential treatment when they apply to be residents.
159. The non-profit Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing, or GLEH, runs Triangle Square and provides other services there,
160. including nutrition guidance, financial planning, and recreational activities.
161. I'm given activities that are based in community. We go to the theater, we go wherever.
162. We go to museums and to Chinatown or wherever, or to the beach.
163. A person has to have a link so that their mind stays alive.
164. The link to life on this night is a gathering of Triangle Square residents, supporters, and administrators.
165. The event is focused on fundraising, but it is also an opportunity for Eric Harrison,
166. the executive director of GLEH, to celebrate the pioneering success of Triangle Square.
167. You know, we have had such a tremendous amount of support this past year.
168. Resident Alice Herman shows just how important Triangle Square is to her
169. as she mixes and mingles with the fundraising crowd
170. and tries her luck at the community room's pool table.
171. Did you get it in?
172. These places are needed.
173. It's hard to get old in many ways.
174. It's more difficult to be old and gay,
175. especially when you've lived a life where you've been hurt because you were gay,
176. where you've been frowned on or hurt or beat up or arrested.
177. Look at the things that have happened to people.
178. At least here they can walk through the halls and know they're safe.
179. This is a beautiful place, just a beautiful place to be.
180. Yeah.
181. Ms. Rosie, who's lived through arrest and beating, says she never wants to leave this safety zone.
182. And I'm hoping that this will be the last place I ever be because I love this place.
183. I get to tell my story over and over again.
184. When you get to be my age, or maybe even when you're younger, you've got a history.
185. You've got a life.
186. The one person you shared your history with is no longer there.
187. What happens to the history?
188. What happens to the life I had?
189. How does it stay alive if it's only inside me, in my head?
190. Here I get to tell my story.
191. Alice and Miss Rosie are sharing their histories in a place that's making history of its own.
192. For Making Contact, I'm Lennon Ozizwe.
193. We're going to take a short break.
194. When we come back, we'll hear about a unique housing project for transgender seniors in Jakarta, Indonesia.
195. If you'd like more information or for a CD copy of this program, please call 510-251-1332, extension 108.
196. That's 510-251-1332, extension 108.
197. because of generous donations from listeners like you
198. this show is distributed for free to radio stations in the US
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203. our handle is making underscore content
204. I sorry We head now to Indonesia
205. where just as in the U.S.,
206. LGBTQ elders face unique challenges as they age.
207. Traditionally, elderly people in Indonesia are cared for by their families,
208. but that's not the case for the country's large transgender community.
209. They're often rejected by their family members,
210. and many elderly transgender people who used to survive as prostitutes end up begging on the streets.
211. In response, a group of women decided to take action
212. and are building a home specifically for elderly transgender residents.
213. From Jakarta, Rebecca Henschke reports.
214. This story was originally broadcast on Free Speech Radio News.
215. We're walking down a dirt road up to a very small pink house at the end of the alleyway.
216. It's a very suburban part of Jakarta, on the outskirts of the city.
217. There are chickens running around and children playing, and it's a very dusty road.
218. It's here that Indonesia's first old people's home for transgender people,
219. or waria as they're known in Indonesia, is being built.
220. Selamat pagi.
221. Selamat pagi.
222. Selamat siang.
223. In the doorway, two elderly transgender women whose teeth are missing call out good morning.
224. Inside, Yuliana Sretablaut is looking into a mirror
225. while a friend is going through the daily ritual of applying her heavy makeup.
226. Thick white foundation, fake eyelashes, bright red lipstick
227. and a long black wig that is tied into a bun at the back.
228. I realised that I was a transgender person when I was in grade 5 at school.
229. I lived in a village in an isolated area on the island of Papua.
230. There was no one there that was transgender or gay.
231. But suddenly, I started feeling attracted to men when I was around 11 years old.
232. I thought, what is this feeling? Is it an illness?
233. It was not till I was 18 years old when a friend at university,
234. who was also transgender, took me to Jakarta to the prostitution beat for Varya,
235. that I realized that there was this whole other world that existed.
236. I was so confused. There were so many people like me dressed up so beautifully.
237. How did you feel when you realized you were not alone?
238. I felt like weight had been lifted from me
239. because I saw that if we wear beautiful clothes and got makeup,
240. you could easily attract guys and be paid money for it.
241. So you get satisfied, get to be beautiful, and you earn money.
242. Transgender people in Indonesia find it hard to find jobs,
243. and 17-year-old Yuli ended up doing what many other warriors do,
244. working as a prostitute on the streets,
245. a world she says was harsh and violent.
246. She says she was regularly abused and not paid by customers
247. and they had to run away from the police or Islamic vigilante groups
248. that tried to beat them.
249. It was during this time that she heard her parents had died.
250. I didn't go home for the funeral because my family hated me.
251. They said because of what I had done my parents had died
252. My brother is a policeman.
253. He was very angry and he wanted to shoot me
254. because he said I had shamed my family.
255. They said, in our family, we have never had anyone like you.
256. How could you turn out like this?
257. Because my family had high hopes for me
258. because I got very good grades all through school.
259. Your brother was really prepared to shoot you?
260. Yes, he's put a pistol to my head and he wanted to shoot.
261. They shaved my head, but I managed to run away back to Jakarta.
262. I really hated myself at that time and I decided that I would spend the rest of my life
263. showing the world and particularly my family that even though I'm transgender,
264. I can do good and they would be proud of me.
265. She went on to be the first waria to gain a law degree at a leading Islamic university
266. and is now doing her master's in law.
267. She is now a high-profile leader of Indonesia's large transgender community,
268. who fondly call her Mama Yuli.
269. As a mother to the community, she decided she needed to do something
270. to support graying waria rejected by their family and society.
271. As they get older, people become even more scared of Wadia.
272. We can't sell ourselves in the same way young Wadia can.
273. From a government's perspective, they are confused about whether to put them in the male or female older people's home.
274. And the families certainly do not want to look after them.
275. So I see many of them struggling, begging on the streets, living under bridges.
276. I really feel sad seeing them like that.
277. And no one is paying attention to this issue.
278. And my house was not big enough to house many.
279. So she's now renovating her two-bedroom house that also doubles as a beauty salon.
280. Yuli takes me out the back of the house where building is taking place.
281. A second floor is being put on and the bathroom is being extended.
282. She already has a waiting list of 800 waria who want to move in.
283. At the moment, the house is home to three elderly waria.
284. Photos of them as young, beautiful models line the walls,
285. and cabinets are full of their beauty pageant trophies.
286. Yoti Maya is nearly 70 years old and has lost all her teeth.
287. She was disowned by her family when she was a teenager.
288. My mother opened my door and found me in bed cuddling with a man.
289. And she told my dad, and he called all my family together and said,
290. I don't want this in my family, so you must leave the house now.
291. If you lived or died, I don't care.
292. You just have to get out of the house.
293. I was just a teenager, and they threw me out of the house at night
294. with nothing but the clothes I was wearing.
295. I was crying.
296. I was young, and I didn't have a job.
297. But I accepted my fate.
298. Yoti says she eventually found work as a chef on ships
299. and has travelled across Asia
300. She's now the cook for the nursing home
301. The home also holds training sessions for elderly transgender people
302. so they can get skills to live independently
303. Hello, my name is Mbak Sri
304. 73-year-old Mbak Sri teaches sewing
305. and warns the younger waria that they can live off their looks forever I tell them all young waria need to get formal education in their chosen field No one else is going to be looking after us We need to create our own profession and provide
306. for ourselves. Sri says the three of them, despite their age, remain young at heart.
307. She jokes that Yotimaya has four boyfriends
308. and they hold a weekly karaoke night
309. where the elderly waria take turns performing their favourite tracks.
310. Yuli's positive contributions to the community
311. are making an impact beyond the transgender community.
312. Recently, her brother, who had threatened to shoot her,
313. visited the old people's home.
314. He did not come in, but just walked around and he started to cry.
315. He said, I never thought you would change and become a good person.
316. It doesn't matter that you are a warrior,
317. but you have become a role model for your community
318. and you are providing a home for those in your community in need.
319. Our family is very proud of you, he said.
320. we couldn't accept you as a prostitute
321. but you have become a good person
322. he said that the past was the past
323. but as a brother I'm very proud of you
324. a few days later
325. I had my law graduation
326. and he came along
327. he couldn't say anything at the celebration
328. he couldn't speak
329. because he was just crying.
330. Not long after that he died.
331. I went to his funeral and he had left me a message
332. that I must continue to be a good person.
333. Yuli, Yoti and Sri continue their efforts to support ageing transgender people
334. and recently they received a grant from the Indonesian government
335. so that they could complete the first floor of the old people's home.
336. In Jakarta, Indonesia, I'm Rebecca Henschke.
337. races, creeds, and colors
338. to gather and disseminate information
339. on the causes of conflict
340. between any and all of such groups
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342. compatible with the purposes of this corporation
343. to promote the study of political and economic problems
344. and of the causes of religious, philosophical,
345. and racial antagonisms.
346. That is our mission.
347. You're listening to Feminist Magazine on KPFK on 90.7 FM and kpfk.org.
348. This bridge called my back. It's an amazing celebration. I mean, it's hard to believe that it's
349. been 40 years since the groundbreaking anthology, This Bridge Called My Back, Writings by Radical
350. Women of Color, edited by Sherry Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, was first published. Today,
351. we're honored to be joined by co-editor Sherry Moraga, who's an iconic Chicana writer, feminist
352. activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. And also joining me as a guest co-host today
353. is Wanda Alacon, who's an assistant professor of practice in gender and women's studies
354. at the University of Arizona. Welcome both to Feminist Magazine.
355. Thank you. It's good to be here.
356. Thank you. It's great to be here.
357. So, Cherie, for listeners who may not be familiar with the anthology or who may need a reminder,
358. Can you just start by telling us about some of the stellar contributors and describing just a little bit of like the depth and the breadth of the voices and visions included in this amazing anthology?
359. Well, that's kind of a huge question.
360. Yeah.
361. You know, originally, I guess what I have to say is when we started this project in the late 70s,
362. And Gloria and I were very unpublished writers.
363. So when you're saying who are sort of the kind of like best known figures, et cetera,
364. I think it's important to say is that our initial impetus to do this had very little to do with that.
365. It had very little to do with people necessarily that were well known.
366. But we ended up getting some very key black feminist support at that time.
367. and the people that come to my mind right now
368. are of course Audre Lorde
369. Tony K. Bambara who wrote the foreword
370. and Barbara Smith
371. who was a key member
372. of the Combahee River Collective
373. so those black sisters
374. really and locally
375. and I say locally because I was in the Bay Area
376. at that time
377. Pat Parker, many people aren't aware
378. of Pat Parker's work but
379. just fierce
380. black lesbian writer
381. and also very connected with Audre Lorde.
382. So they were like these key, really important figures for us
383. because when Gloria Anzaldú and I decided to do this collection,
384. it was really because we had been very involved in working
385. really as poets more than anything else, you know,
386. and kind of in the kind of burgeoning women of color cultural movement
387. in the late 70s in the greater Bay Area, San Francisco and Berkeley and Oakland.
388. And through our doing this, you know, work, we were meeting a lot of other women of color writers, in particular, Asian American women like Jenny Lim and Nellie Wong, and beginning to try to also cultivate relations with Native writers, one in particular in the Bay Area with Barbara Cameron.
389. So people that know the book can also know now that some of those writers, like Christos, you know, many of the writers now in the book have national reputations.
390. The people that had the national reputation at that time, as I said, was largely African-American women.
391. So for them, you know, we had this idea of responding to what we understood was what we experienced very kind of brutally, the racism, the white women's movement at that time.
392. and its exclusion, its racism and classism
393. of women of color writers and thinkers and activists.
394. And so the book was originated out of that impulse But once we started it it went someplace in well not entirely different because there still a lot of critique of those issues which remains the case in many ways But what it did is it really gave us an opportunity as women of color from very diverse communities to finally speak together in between the covers of a book
395. And so what I always credit, you know, Audrey and Barbara and, you know, Tony Cade, is they could see they were called to also communicate with us.
396. And by virtue of their visibility, it gave all these other women of color to visibility.
397. and so I always remain really
398. very beholden and grateful
399. to them for that because
400. in a certain way there was a
401. women of color movement happening at least
402. really from the
403. mid 70s really that was
404. intercultural
405. but it didn't have that much visibility
406. because there wasn't that
407. much being documented
408. about it. There was a third world women's alliance
409. that was also in the Bay Area and in New York
410. they were amazing
411. And they had, you know, they had began a publication.
412. And so there was all this stuff burgeoning, you know.
413. But somehow it was this particular book that seems to have lasted over time.
414. 40 years, yeah, you're right, it's a long time.
415. It's, yeah, amazing.
416. And it's such a rich mixture.
417. I mean, there's personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, and also poetry and visual arts.
418. So it's this multi-layered book. And Wanda, just to bring you in, what was your first impression? And I've heard from so many folks and seen so many clips online from people saying how much the book changed their lives. So I wanted to hear from you, you know, before you start bringing in some of your questions, how that was for you.
419. Absolutely. The book is so fundamentally important to my thinking and everything that I do. And I write about Chicana literature. That's primarily what I do. My framework is women of color feminisms and decolonial feminist thought, you know, kind of together.
420. And so that's kind of an unusual combination for some, because there seems to be this sort of like, if you write about Chicana anything, literature, right, then therefore the theories that inform your thinking is Chicana feminism, right?
421. And that's part of the picture. But I find that we lose a lot when we do not think of Chicana feminisms as being part of coalitional histories with women of color.
422. Right. And so in that sense, it is a really fundamental, large, important framework for my thinking that requires both decolonial feminist thinking and women of color feminism.
423. but to answer that first question Lynn I have to say and I was wondering Cherie if how it
424. feels to you to imagine and maybe you got this reception as well but when I first encountered
425. the book myself you know I had trouble with the cover with the image I have to say that my
426. response was not warm I had a hard time with that and so seeing this figure a drawing of a woman
427. and nude on all fours, you know, and this idea of the bridge.
428. I'm like, oh, I struggled with that.
429. And so I don't wanna say I fought it,
430. but you know, but I did resent it, you know,
431. and what helped me so much was reading
432. all the four words you know but also the Kate Russell poem you know the bridge poem because it captures that exhaustion like because we so often do not have the choice
433. You know, we are the bridges in our families. You know, we are the bridges in our communities.
434. I had to kind of work my way through the politics of bridge. Yeah.
435. Well, so now the 2002 version has the Anamendietes image.
436. Yes.
437. And since 2015, the back is standing up.
438. And the back is made of corn.
439. And that was an image right on.
440. Yeah.
441. And the new version has that too, it's a different color.
442. But the corn, the spine,
443. It wasn't until 2002 that the visual images, you know, the multiple visual images in color came in and those were curated by Celia Herrera Rodriguez.
444. And so that idea of the spine also being made of corn representing indigenous women was pretty significant.
445. And if you see there's a drawing of it and it really is that.
446. I love that you have that reaction to the cover.
447. And what's also cool is that if you, I asked Kate Russian, you know, to read that poem again.
448. And, you know, some of the work is live and some of the work was pre-recorded for the event.
449. And she read it in a way I've never heard her read it in my life.
450. What was really impressive to me about it is I remember her reading it 40 years ago.
451. So she was a lot younger.
452. and she had all this like you know kind of like all this you know youthful energy like i always
453. remember the line where she'd say i've done more translating the goddamn un being all pissed off
454. but you know spirited right and now her anger is deep it is deep because it's you know i'm not
455. sure exactly, but I know that Kate's around my age,
456. so it's like at least late 60s deep as a Black woman, you know?
457. And it's impressive to me.
458. It's impressive.
459. In other words, you know, like when you really think about those pieces,
460. that's been an interesting thing to kind of go back
461. and be able to record some of the sisters from the original
462. and just seeing the depth and the complexity of what they know now.
463. so that yeah so that bridge and that idea of this bridge called my back really just came
464. you know i it had come to me when i was in when i was in boston and i when i originally met arva
465. smith and some of the women from gubahi and i happened to to and it was funny so i wrote that
466. piece this bridge called this bridge gets walked over this bridge called my back you know and then
467. many you know a little while later kate had had this poem the bridge poem it wasn't written for
468. the book it was like she had it so it's like it just was perfect you know it's like collective
469. thinking that that is a wonderful I am so curious of about the formation of it you know how it came
470. to be and that's actually a question I had you know did did you ask Donna for the poem or was
471. it already you know there so you've in a way kind of answered one of my secret questions you know
472. It's not a secret.
473. Cherie I love how you said that the 2015 edition that the illustrations that accompany all the subsections now were curated by Celia right And so one of the things that I like to I teach a class called US Servo Feminisms regularly
474. It's one that I teach.
475. I also teach the Gateway, the Introduction to Gender Studies class.
476. And so there is always a unit or two units on Bridge.
477. So I'm always teaching bridge and always trying to find different ways of introducing it or presenting it to students, you know.
478. And and so one way with my lit background is, you know, the form of it.
479. Right. You know how how people have scholars of bridge have called it.
480. It's it's a history or it's an event or it's a it's an archive, you know, that it's not just an anthology.
481. It is an anthology, yes, but it is also historical, an event, some say performance, an archive.
482. I propose it's a soundscape, you know, all these ways of capturing, you know, a coalitional politics, right, you know.
483. And Cindy Cruz would say it's a primer, right, because there's a pedagogy to bridge, you know, right.
484. And to that, we can now add a gallery, right.
485. And I am curious about the early, the drawings, you know, like they're very compelling.
486. the ones in the first editions, you know, the black and white, like, bus stop.
487. Like, I'm just so moved by these images, you know.
488. And I wondered how you made, was it a difficult move to go from that kind of history of Bridge
489. to now featuring, of course, the very important work of these artists of color in the editions?
490. Yeah, the idea, I mean, you know, somebody could do just a study on every edition of Bridge. I mean, the first, within, you know, within two years, the book was redone by Kitchen Table Women of Color Press.
491. that we had to rest the book from the original publishers, Persephone Press,
492. which in the beginning they were wonderful to work with,
493. the white feminist press that had really done,
494. really distributed the book very widely.
495. But when it really came down to it and we wanted rights to the book back
496. because the press was falling apart, it wasn't an easy move.
497. I mean, we had to get lawyers.
498. We had to do all of the typical white capitalist patriarchal stuff, you know.
499. But when we did it, we really wanted to keep the book in print.
500. We moved quickly. And so partly the book is pretty much like the initial, including the artwork.
501. One of the ideas is that at that time when we were doing the book and we were working with Persephone was basically trying to find, you know, a woman of color who could do the illustrations.
502. And Janetta Tinker was there. And I mean, I guess she was a Boston.
503. She must have been a Boston based artist. And, you know, she had these beautiful drawings.
504. But by the time we got to 2002, and the book went out of print for a period of time, because after Kitchen Table Press was no longer functioning, then the book went out of print.
505. And then Third Woman Press out of Berkeley, and Norma Alicón was the publisher of Third Woman Press coming out of UC Berkeley.
506. And she, you know, we all knew each other, right?
507. We all knew each other.
508. And Celia had always said, you know, why is it we don't have,
509. you know, this is another language, the visual is another language.
510. Why don't we have representation of the visual artists from that period of time?
511. And she was really right, you know, so we said, OK, do it.
512. So she went and did it.
513. So actually, if you have the 2002 version, that has a whole,
514. you know, centerpiece that has much more work and it's all in color.
515. And when we went to SUNY Press, we wanted that again, but they wouldn't, you know,
516. the cost, right? It's always cost stuff, right? But that work is there now. And it is a,
517. and it does represent a much wider group of artists than the later versions has. But it
518. really is the whole point was, you know, as we're talking about the writers of 1981, who were the
519. visual artists of that period. And Celia, as a visual artist, also has, you know, contextualized
520. that work. And what's also been really kind of hard and interesting about it is that are the
521. number of people that have passed, and particularly the visual artists like Ana Bendieta and Teresa,
522. I can never say her name correctly, I'm sorry. But they, there are, you know, people that passed
523. really early deaths. And there's reference also to Victoria Mercado and Marsha Gomez, and
524. a lot of them died early deaths.
525. So having them there and having them within the context of women of color
526. feminism was really important.
527. I thought the idea to have Ana Mendieta on the 2002 cover was brilliant.
528. You know, just brilliant.
529. And so, you know, but the other people said, oh, no,
530. we need to bring back the body.
531. And, you know, everybody's got ideas, you know.
532. So it's all good.
533. I mean, it's all good.
534. But I think that since you're talking about scholars,
535. I mean, that's something to look at, is to really look at all the additions.
536. and see what they say about us, you know, about women of color movement, about our expressions,
537. et cetera. I'm also really interested in talking about something that you mentioned in the 2015
538. edition about the concept of political memory. And you wrote, in order to ensure that we are not
539. always reimagining ourselves the ever inventors of our revolution how each edition brings that
540. question back can you talk a little bit about that well one thing um with all the additions
541. even since um 1983 one of the titles of one of the the prefaces that i did was called refugees
542. of a world on fire and what i'm finding it's not hard what i'm finding is everything i'm just
543. speaking for myself here, but in contextualizing each of the additions, they seem prophetic,
544. and they're not. They're just true. And I guess that's the horror of it, really, on a certain
545. level. Because if in 82, you can talk about the world being refugees of a world on fire,
546. where are we now? So there's a way in which the 2001, which I wrote 2001, and that title was
547. from inside the first world. And I began writing it on the morning of 9-11, because that happened
548. to be the day that I had put aside to write, right? You know, you have it in your calendar,
549. I'm just going, oh, today's my writing day. And we woke up to the, giving our kids breakfast,
550. you know, and as we had the news on in the morning, and we're seeing the Twin Towers go,
551. right? And so, and the first thing you think, you look at it and you say, you know, the U.S.
552. is completely complicit. That's the first thing that comes to your mind, you know, you're a
553. conscious human being and your kids are looking at it. My son's like eight and he's looking at it
554. and he asked me, who are the bad guys? Who are the bad guys? I don't get it. Who are the bad guys?
555. You know, and it's like, and it's like, and I go, good question. Good question. This is where we
556. start, you know? So the point being is that at every single time there was a new edition,
557. there was something else.
558. I look at them and there's always like this little litany
559. kind of goes on, what are the current issues?
560. And so then you're talking about the war in El Salvador
561. at one period of time you talking about so it like each time then there was the Occupy Movement And so there progressive things that are happening at the same time progressive responses But by and large the degree to which you can mark in those forewords and prefaces and all the things that they called the introductions the degree to which you can mark really really the deterioration of what we understand really as true democracy
562. not all the language of it, but, and also, of course,
563. the condition of the planet.
564. So by this version now, the one thing I found myself with this preface,
565. I had a really hard time with it because we were coming out of Black Lives Matter
566. and we're coming, and we're not coming out of anything, but I'm saying,
567. but still in pandemic, like all of these things are on the street and,
568. and, you know,
569. the disproportionate amount of people of color being impacted by that and women
570. to Claire Bean. In fact, everything is quite evident that was 40, you're supposed to write
571. something that's 40 years later. And each time, I have to admit, sometimes I'm less and less
572. optimistic. Not optimistic, it's like I always have, it's like, you know, I write theater,
573. you know, and so a lot of times people say to me, you know, like, sometimes they're sad,
574. they're really sad, you know, I mean, it's like there's tragedy, right? And they'll say,
575. why do you have to write tragedies? I said, if you look at the tragedies, like inside of it,
576. they're not tragic because there's always movement. There's always this place in which
577. that, like opening that womb, you know, helps you realize what we need to do to get well, right? And
578. so I have felt this way, this particular writing, because I was, I just returned back to Christos'
579. his last line of the book, which is, I will be screaming no, no more destruction in that last
580. blinding light. And that was in 1981, right? She's saying that then, is she a prophet? Of course,
581. she's a prophet. But we're all prophets. You know what I'm saying? If you're paying attention,
582. it doesn't have to, you know, you see what's coming down the road. And I think that that's
583. why Bridge still works, because these were very, very conscious women speakers who were writing,
584. not as academics. In fact, the first things that we got, we were from academics, because
585. academics at that time were the only people who thought they could write in terms of women of
586. color, right? And we just turned them back, we gave them back. We didn't want that.
587. So when you're talking about the testimonials, and you're talking about, you know, I mean,
588. And some of like Rosario Morales' pieces are some of the best pieces in the book, Puerto Rican.
589. And hers, she sent them to me handwritten.
590. I can't write.
591. I can't write.
592. This is why I can't write.
593. She writes all this stuff.
594. And we just pulled it out and used it.
595. You know, and, you know, you know, it's the Gloria Vos, the piece versus pieces.
596. So all I want to say is about the remembering and why it's important to know the histories, right?
597. because the truth of the matter is, and I teach young people, I'm still teaching 20-year-olds,
598. you know, I mean, it's like I've been doing it for 40 years. And the longer you teach,
599. you realize how deeply, how deeply the amnesia is, you know, and without that body of knowledge,
600. right, they always have to start from scratch. And it's too late to start from scratch.
601. The condition of this world is too late to start from scratch, you know, and they have to know
602. what happened before them and the tools that were used then, why create new tools?
603. These were not the master's tools that were being used.
604. Audrey said don use the master tools They will not dismantle the master tools We didn use the master tools And partly the writing is not the master tools because it is visceral It is theory in the flesh It is coming out of lived experience right
605. Now we have tons of academic language for it.
606. But it doesn't necessarily mean we're any closer to knowing what that means, right,
607. in terms of relationship to heart knowledge.
608. This is such music to my ears, Cherie,
609. because I mean, I also teach 19, 20 year olds.
610. And so what I find helps me,
611. I think it is important to kind of examine the form
612. and the way Bridge takes up, you know,
613. a form that is the anthology that has been used
614. to authorize a particular kind of writing,
615. particular kind of knowledge, right?
616. And the way it takes up the form,
617. but in this radical anti-canonical way, right?
618. And and but the other thing that kind of helps me, yes, it is kind of highly periodized for some people, you know, to a certain decade.
619. Right. You know, but I the way I approach it is to have students.
620. And this is where listening helps me tune in to kind of like the ongoing reverberations of the influence of the work that Bridge did. Right.
621. And so, for instance, a concept like intersectionality right now from the Combahee River Collectives, you know, Black Feminist Statement, right? Young people understand in a very popular sense, the definition or understanding of intersectionality, you know, so they already know that, you know, they already kind of that is part of kind of like what shows up on their social media, you know, sort of readings, right?
622. And so I know that young people are feeling the influence of Bridge.
623. And so part of my work is to kind of have context, historical context, right?
624. You know, for like where Bridge came out, you know, alongside with anthologies like
625. But Some of Us Are Brave or Making Waves, kind of its contemporaries, right?
626. But then also to not think, well, just because it's got this specific publication date, right?
627. that we cannot see the lasting work of a bridge.
628. So this is all to say I'm into the idea of reverberations.
629. And what helps me with that is M. Jackie Alexander,
630. who devotes chapter in her book, Pedagogies of Crossing,
631. called Remembering This Bridge Called My Back, Remembering Ourselves, right?
632. And so she's a Caribbean feminist, right?
633. And so she says this, she says,
634. I was not part of the sweat and fire that birthed a woman of color politics in this country
635. in the 1970s and 1980s. This is why I want to remember that I have been shaped by it.
636. And she writes about sharing what she calls a politicized non-belonging with the writers
637. in red, you know. And so this is kind of to echo Lynn's question about the political memory,
638. Right. You know, but this is sort of one of the ways the kind of the links that I try to show students that we are all like, I mean, I am older than my students, but I also was not part of that movement.
639. Right. I encountered these ideas, politics, you know, through bridge itself, the material materiality of it, you know, and I see many reverberations of the concept of solidarity expressed in, say, U.S.
640. hyphen third world, like connected to the third world, right? You know, the concept of theory in
641. the flesh, which for many people now, theories of embodiment, right, is kind of how they understand
642. that concept in part you know there all these new coalitions right But one of the most important concepts for me is the theory meeting the practice you know and specifically through the writing
643. And I love that in the 2015 introduction that Catching Fire, you kind of you insist like writing that continues to be this tool like of liberation for women of color.
644. And so I'm struck by not just the kind of writing that there is, but there's also like forms that are important in Bridge.
645. Like there's so many letters in Bridge.
646. And there's also the many sort of daughter-mother writings.
647. You're listening to Feminist Magazine, and we're talking to Sherry Moraga, co-editor of This Bridge Called My Back, writings by radical women of color.
648. And Wanda Alakon is our guest host today.
649. And we're wrapping up another edition of Feminist Magazine.
650. And thanks to all of the contributors today, especially to Making Contact Radio.
651. Feminist Magazine is produced by a coalition of feminist volunteers.
652. Don't forget, you can find all the links from our program today on our website, feministmagazine.org.
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657. Thanks for listening.
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