THIS BRIDGE WE CALL HOME

About

Anzaldúa viewed her editorial work as an important contribution to collective social change. As she explains, “That’s why I try to do so many anthologies. That’s why I promote women, especially women of color and lesbians of all colors, and why I’m on editorial boards for magazines.  I want to get their voices out there. Making these anthologies is also activism. In the process of creating the composition, the work of art, the painting, the film, you’re creating the culture. You’re rewriting the culture, which is very much an activist kind of thing” (Interviews 277).

this bridge we call home (2002), Anzaldúa’s third edited book, offers provocative visions of women-of-color consciousness for the twenty-first century. Building on the groundbreaking earlier collection, This Bridge Called My Back, this twenty-first century collection uses the earlier Bridge as a touchstone to explore the impact women-of-colors’ theorizing has made on feminist thought and other areas of contemporary life. While centering women-of-color authors and theories, this bridge includes work by men, transpeople, and white women who have been profoundly impacted by women-of-colors perspectives; by so doing, it enacts a transformational identity politics.

Unlike many feminist and social-justice theories, which define identity through exclusion, Anzaldúa adopts a radically inclusive approach.  As she explains in her preface, “Many of us identify with groups and social positions not limited to our ethnic, racial, religious, class, gender, or national classifications. Though most people self-define by what they exclude, we define who we are by what we include” (3). Anzaldúa doesn’t ignore gender, ethnicity/race, class, sexuality, and other identity categories; instead, she invites readers to rethink these and other identity markers in more expansive terms that embrace relational differences and complex commonalities.