Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About

KPFA - Womens Magazine

Today Women’s Magazine host Lisa Dettmer talks to guests who celebrate and remember the groundbreaking anthology, Chicana Lesbians: The Girls our Mothers Warned us About. Published in 1991, the anthology is the first critical and creative book to specifically address the complex lives and challenges of Chicana lesbians. Described by Amazon as “the most important book ever published about Chicana lesbians,” the anthology included both established and emerging Chicana lesbian voices of the time who contributed poetry, testimonios, and essays. In their work, contributors considered the experiences of Chicana lesbians in regard to prominent Chicana feminist discussions while adding their original perspectives that sought to deconstruct dominant ideas about sexuality as it overlapped with race, gender, class, and other markers of difference. Importantly, the anthology also addressed the rampant lesbo-phobia that was intricately interwoven with patriarchy, racism, and classism. Now, over 30 years later, Chicana lesbian scholars are re-examining this preeminent text in the Journal of Lesbian Studies as a special two volume issue called “Re-Engaging the Iconic Text ‘The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About.’” Today we are joined by 4 lesbiana and queer scholars to help us think about this pivotal book and the critical issues that it raised. We are joined by Liliana C. Gonzalez, Assistant Professor at Cal State University, Northridge, & Stacy I. Macias, Associate Professor at Cal State University, Long Beach, who are the co-editors of the 2-volume special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies. We are also joined by Carla Trujillo, who is the visionary editor of the original book, Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About. Finally, we are joined by Ellie Hernández, Associate Professor at UC Santa Barbara, who is a contributor to both the 1991 anthology and to the current special issue re-engaging and honoring this formative text. We will look at the significance of these writings to queer and feminist of color scholarship and movements and to Chicana lesbian lives.

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