MAKING FACE, MAKING SOUL / HACIENDO CARAS
Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color
About
Anzaldúa’s second edited collection, Making Face Making Soul (1990) underscores her interest in creating inclusive communities for self-definition and social change. Consisting of over 70 pieces (some previously published and others published here for the first time), this edited collection of scholarly essays, personal narrative, fiction, and poetry offers a wide variety of perspectives.
Anzaldúa published this collection during her time as a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz; she explains that she had several reasons for doing so, including: (1) her desire to make available a wider collection of writings by women of colors; and (2) her desire to intervene in academic theory. In the preface, Anzaldúa rejects the elitism in mainstream critical theory and underscores the importance of inventing inclusionary, expansive methods–“mestizaje theories” that “create new categories for those of us left out or pushed out of the existing ones” (xxvi). Its innovative combinations of poetry, fiction, scholarly essays, and memoir offer new models for coalition-building among nonacademic and academic social-justice activists.
Many of the best pieces…combine the theoretical essay with poetry and personal narration, reflecting a breadth of emotion that most people keep tightly concealed. This is the book’s primary purpose, to give voice to thoughts and feelings which have been privatized and occluded.