Am I Too Dark?
As scholars of the borderlands, as teorístas of our own lives and bodies, we recognize the discourse used to denigrate, demoralize, and dehumanize our communities as reflections of Eurocentric, imperial, white supremacist, and colonial epistemologies that daily attempt to annihilate our ways of knowing, our tongues, and our very bodies. Nevertheless, this cognizance does not lessen the trauma these flagrant acts trigger. What happened on August 3 and August 7 nos asustó. It intensified our vulnerability. It amplified our otherness. It marked us as targets. Left reeling from such flagrant displays of anti- Latina/o/x racism, we must find solace in community, remind ourselves of our continued resilience, and resume acts of subversion. Importantly, we can seek guidance from Anzaldúa, who documented a similar anguish and resoluteness in her essay, “Let Us be the Healing of the Wound,” regarding the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. As she notes in this autohistoria, the collective sorrow, pain, and fear these contemptible arrebatos render necessitates that we once again piece ourselves together—reassemble Coyolxauqui—both in word and in deed. At Chicana/Latina Studies, we offer both sabiduría and a Chicana imaginary as a way to suture our injuries, as they function to re-forge our bonds across indigenieties and Latinidades and inspire us to rededicate ourselves to the struggle against white supremacist fueled anti-Mexican and anti-Latino racism and all those who incite it.
Contents
ARTIST STATEMENT
Painting as a Self-Care Ritual
Emilia Cruz
EDITOR’S COMMENTARY
Continuamos with the Healing of our Wounds
Sonya M. Alemán
ESSAYS
The Decolonial Phenomenology of Shifting: Writing Encounters in the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Archive
Inmaculada Lara-Bonilla
Bruja, Curandera, y Lechuza: Collapsing Borders and Fusing Images
Amanda Ellis
The Double Life: Respectability Politics and Spatial Formation in Feminicide Films
Stevie Ruiz
Transformational Resistant Leadership in Kansas City: A Study of Chicana Activism
Theresa Torres
CREATIVE WRITING
EDITOR’S COMMENTARY
This World is For Us
Patricia Marina Trujillo
The Only God You Believe In
Demetria Martinez
La Esperanza de Joaquín
Rocio Delgado
Cuerpo
- Manos
- Hair
- Hips
- Labios
- Hoops
Adriana Domínguez
Grandmother’s Garbanzos
Joy E. Dili
Xilatano: Project 43
Gabriela Serrano
IN REVIEW
We Love, We Sing, We Include, We Heal
Bobbie Bermudez
Imagine Brings the Power of Words to Life
Jennifer Nájera
Rivera’s Debut Novel Offers a Refreshing Coming-Out and Coming-of-Age Latinx Tale
Belinda Linn Rincón and Stephanie Calderón Vásquez
Diane Guerrero: A Citizen Child Warrior Cecilia Aragón
Cecilia Aragón
CONTRIBUTORS
