Women of Color and Feminism <\/em><\/a>(Seal Press), she is currently an associate professor in women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, gender, and sexuality studies at California State University, Long Beach.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The book is a fascinating overview of feminist history and the construction of identity politics within feminist movements, with a diverse representation of notable icons, which includes not only Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash and Saartjie Baartman, but Tracy Chapman and Laura Aguilar as well.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a smart, page-turning read that offers numerous examples to illustrate powerful points.\u00c2\u00a0 The book easily belongs in the hands of the many online feminists today who are in search of a book to start the critical journey of self-education on the connections between race, class, sexuality and gender.<\/p>\nOver phone and email, I recently spoke with Maythee Rojas about intersectionality, resisting multiple oppressions within feminist movements, and the hopes for her new book in addressing important issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality in feminism(s) today:<\/p>\n
Allison McCarthy:\u00c2\u00a0 What led you to working on a book focused on women of color and feminism?<\/strong><\/p>\nMaythee Rojas:<\/strong> I have been teaching a course on the subject for the last nine years and the literature and theory by women of color is something I have studied closely as a scholar. However, when I set out to write this book, I wanted to avoid writing something that could be construed as the<\/em> authoritative book on women of color.\u00c2\u00a0 There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no such thing, nor should there be. I respect Seal for taking something academic and making a commitment to developing it as part of a mainstream series. It helps create bridges with the academic world and find new audiences beyond the Ivory Tower.\u00c2\u00a0 My hope is that this book will lead other presses \u00e2\u20ac\u201c mainstream and academic — to publish more works on women of color.<\/p>\nAM:\u00c2\u00a0 In what ways did your academic research on Chicana\/o and Latina\/o literature contribute to your literary vision for Women of Color and Feminism?<\/em><\/strong>
\nMR:<\/strong> In the book, I consciously attempt to focus on multiple groups and communities. Learning about Chicana\/o and Latina\/o culture has never been in isolation for me.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, if you look at the history, experiences, and creative expressions of Chicana\/os and Latina\/os, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find that other communities of color have often influenced them.\u00c2\u00a0 There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of overlap in terms of the messages relayed and socio-political issues addressed.\u00c2\u00a0 As a scholar, I have the same approach: having a specialization in Chicana\/o and Latina\/o literature requires me to think about other groups in an intersectional manner.<\/p>\nAM:\u00c2\u00a0 Why do you see the theory of intersectionality as critical for all feminists when addressing issues raised by women of color?<\/strong>
\nMR:<\/strong> Intersectionality applies to everyone, period.\u00c2\u00a0 We all have multiple facets of identity.\u00c2\u00a0 However, intersectionality is often applied only to those who do not fit mainstream categories of identity. Much of it has to do with people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lack of deep introspection; or, whether they are willing to think about their positions of privilege on a daily basis and the effect of their actions upon others.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a journey of integrity and honesty that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a part of self-actualization in our lives.\u00c2\u00a0 If feminism is truly going to produce the result of equality for women and opportunities in a less biased society, we have to think about how women from different communities can reach that success.\u00c2\u00a0 We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not all on the same level in any place.\u00c2\u00a0 What factors and what privileges stand in the way?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really about working collectively.\u00c2\u00a0 It requires reflecting on people around you: their lives, opportunities, limitations.\u00c2\u00a0 If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re working in a social justice movement or a place of transformation, you have to take those factors into account or it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be a flawed attempt.\u00c2\u00a0 It does require those things.<\/p>\nAM:\u00c2\u00a0 How have women of color, outside of global feminist movements, contributed to a greater public understanding of gender, race, class, and sexuality?<\/strong>
\nMR:<\/strong> I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s through daily actions.\u00c2\u00a0 The interactions of everyday life are bound to challenge us.\u00c2\u00a0 So often, we have perceptions of others based on media, politics, and education.\u00c2\u00a0 However, when we encounter people who embody particular markers of race and class and sexuality and we interact with them, those markers fall away to flesh and bone individuals.\u00c2\u00a0 I also think our interactions with non-academics \u00e2\u20ac\u201c our families and friends\u00e2\u20ac\u201c teach us as much about culture as they do about them.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more about what we are willing to open ourselves up to.\u00c2\u00a0 Does what we what learn about others connect with what we assumed about their background, sexuality, culture?\u00c2\u00a0 To more specifically answer your question, I believe women of color contribute to life through their daily interactions in public spaces, through the ways they raise their families, through the challenges they make to a system, a classroom, a workplace, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 For creatively minded individuals, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also through their cultural production (art, film, music, etc) and how they shape these expressions to share with other people.\u00c2\u00a0 I think a lot of people aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually part of organized social movements, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t part of social change.<\/p>\nAM:\u00c2\u00a0 Have the feminist movements of past and present failed to address the needs and lives of women of color? <\/strong>
\nMR:<\/strong> I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve outright failed.\u00c2\u00a0 If I believed that, I would have to rethink why I am in Women’s Studies.\u00c2\u00a0 Have they had their shortcomings?\u00c2\u00a0 Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of understanding that we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t accomplished all the goals of feminism and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot left to do.\u00c2\u00a0 I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re critical of these shortcomings and that we register our disappointments.\u00c2\u00a0 We can use that as a preventive measure.\u00c2\u00a0 The book is rather critical at times of past movements, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it argues that they haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worked at all. The people who have been responsible for writing about feminism and promoting feminism have been remiss in their inclusion of women of color and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to take into account.\u00c2\u00a0 How willing are feminists to really self-interrogate, to really consider what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gained at the expense of others, what hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been achieved in the ongoing project of feminism?\u00c2\u00a0 For us to stay abreast of what hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worked, what hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been done, and whose voices are missing keeps us alive and moving forward toward an ideal.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not achieved in our lifetime, it shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be something we stop striving for.<\/p>\nAM:\u00c2\u00a0 Who did you envision as the audience for this book?\u00c2\u00a0 Have any of the responses to the book thus far surprised you?<\/strong>
\nMR: <\/strong>I kind of thought about it in two ways.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the audiences it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s geared towards is obviously college students, both graduate and undergraduate, and I think you can hear that in the classroom descriptions I use.\u00c2\u00a0 I was also encouraged to learn that it would be available in independent and mainstream bookstores, so that anyone could find her\/his way to the book.\u00c2\u00a0 You might think that a book on women of color is only for women of color.\u00c2\u00a0 I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop anyone from thinking that, but I hope that for anyone who reads past the first few lines, the reader will see that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s for anyone who is interested in knowing themselves better and knowing more about the world around them.<\/p>\nAM: What projects are you currently working on?<\/strong>
\nMR:<\/strong> I have three projects that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to see happen.\u00c2\u00a0 First, I want to finish my book, Following the Flesh: Embodied Transgressions in Chicana Literature<\/em>, which looks at literary characters who are cast as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d women (mistresses, murderers, lesbians) and are maligned by society, and help us rethink what \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d means. Examining these issues within both US and Latin American contexts, the book addresses crossing not only social borders, but also physical ones.\u00c2\u00a0 The next project I would like to pursue is a cultural history of Latinos and dogs. Drawn by my own passion for animals, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really interested in looking at how dogs show up in Latino culture.\u00c2\u00a0 Living in L.A. with a large Latino population and a dog-friendly attitude, there have been several race and class bias in the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s laws that have been passed and I wanted to address those biases. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also interested in immigration issues in terms of how they relate to cultural shifts about pets as immigrants become more assimilated to the US.\u00c2\u00a0 A third project, which is much farther down the line, is a cultural history on feminism in Costa Rica.\u00c2\u00a0 My grandmother is nearing her 104th birthday and I would like to parallel her personal experiences as a woman (she has lived a very nontraditional life) with the development of women’s lives and issues in Costa Rica over the past century.\u00c2\u00a0 I imagine describing the historical and social changes of my family’s country vis-\u00c3\u00a0-vis my grandmother’s own life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maythee Rojas is a teacher, critic, and writer.\u00c2\u00a0 Author of the new book Women of Color and Feminism (Seal Press), she is currently an associate professor in women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, gender, and sexuality studies at California State University, Long Beach.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The book is a fascinating overview of feminist history and the construction of identity politics within feminist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1914,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21116],"tags":[46,21142,400,245,21351,21357,55,21460,778,314,313,21563,14,21733,21779,21920,21926,21934,21941],"class_list":["post-1790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-intersectional-feminist-2","tag-activism","tag-allison-mccarthy","tag-book-reviews","tag-feminism","tag-feminist-history","tag-feminist-publicity","tag-gender","tag-intersectionalism","tag-intersectionality","tag-interview","tag-interviews","tag-maythee-rojas","tag-race","tag-racial-equality","tag-seal-press","tag-women-of-color","tag-womens-history","tag-womens-studies","tag-writing-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1914"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Cover](\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_dC7dhbYHDCE\/SwI65oawHOI\/AAAAAAAAJMo\/Hp1RoesM5DM\/s320\/frpic.jpg\")
<\/p>\n