In memory of Gloria Anzaldúa

What seems like very long ago to me, although in some ways also very recently, I was a naive undergraduate newly arrived from Oshkosh, Wisconsin to the academic turmoil of Yale. My first year there was very difficult, and in many ways all I wanted to do was run away. My second year I discovered the American Studies department, Dwight Hall and the New Haven Women’s Center, all of which together provided room for me to learn and grow.

In that second year I was introduced to a rich and deep flowering of writing by women of color. The first collection I read was a small book called This Bridge Called My Back. It was 1982, and the book had only been out for a while, but I read it as water meeting a deep thirst. White, middle class, a student at Yale -- there were so many ways in which I was not the intended audience of that book. But it opened up new windows in my vision, new doors to my spirit, and provided a space in which it was possible to imagine reading and writing as a liberating act.

Today I read that Gloria Anzaldúa, one of the editors of that book, died this past May. I mourn her passing, even as I celebrate the gift she gave to me -- and to many, many, many women and men throughout the world. If you are interested in praying at the online altar that has been established in her memory, you can find it at: http://gloria.chicanas.com/index.html. There are also numerous memorials and other writing that have emerged celebrating her in the past few months, available at: http://gloria.chicanas.com/keatingobit.html