Pits and Tits

I have many times questioned my right to even work on an anthology which is to be written “exclusively by Third World women.” I have had to look critically at my claim to color, at a time when, among white feminist ranks, it is a “politically correct” (and sometimes peripherally advantageous) assertion to make. I must acknowledge the fact that, physically, I have had a choice about making that claim, in contrast to women who have not had such a choice, and have been abused for their color. I must reckon with the fact that for most of my life, by virtue of the very fact that I am white-looking, I identified with and aspired toward white values, and that I rode the wave of that Southern Californian privilege as far as conscience would let me.

I think: what is my responsibility to my roots – both white and brown, Spanish-speaking and English? I am a woman with a foot in both worlds; and I refuse the split. I feel the necessity for dialogue. Sometimes I feel it urgently.