Cherrie Moraga Talks About Identity — Transcript

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1. 0:08um well I I I just call myself a CH
2. 0:11writer well I mean technically
3. 0:13technically means um Mexican amican that
4. 0:16you're a Mexican atenia and but born in
5. 0:20the United States and so um that's what
6. 0:24I mean people who identify as Cho or CH
7. 0:27that's who they are but it's a political
8. 0:29term so it's a it's a way of sort of
9. 0:32self-identifying from the time it kind
10. 0:35of or originated in the the the Moval of
11. 0:38the
12. 0:391960s and so I was really coming of age
13. 0:41during that time and so it really was a
14. 0:43movement of of Mexican Americans
15. 0:46claiming sort of their um
16. 0:49indigenous uh uh Origins here in the
17. 0:51Americas you know as opposed to being
18. 0:54like another uh like Italian American or
19. 0:57something else American as opposed an
20. 0:59indigenous po I mean supposed to an
21. 1:01immigrant population that we were
22. 1:03actually you know native to the Americas
23. 1:05and that we had a right to be here and
24. 1:07that the the Gringos came after us you
25. 1:10know so it was a very politicized term
26. 1:11and it's something that I've continued
27. 1:14to use as as I um you know continue to
28. 1:17evolve as a writer and as an activist
29. 1:19and such and it's it's always sort of
30. 1:21it's framed my feminism it's framed my
31. 1:24um my queer identity all of it it's all
32. 1:27sort of within this framework of being
33. 1:29what she got my father had very little
34. 1:31family so we really were he was sort of
35. 1:33adopted by our family by by the meico
36. 1:36family and so um culturally speaking
37. 1:40that was you know I really grew up in a
38. 1:42Mexican-American home but
39. 1:45but that is to say as Mexicanos in the
40. 1:48United States and so that was sort of my
41. 1:50mother was born in 1914 and my
42. 1:52grandmother was born in 1888 so that so
43. 1:55and my grandmother lived you know always
44. 1:57like next door and close to us and all
45. 1:59that so so I was raised pretty much in a
46. 2:01Cultura that was you know
47. 2:04fairly uh original here in the United
48. 2:06States and you know that's the
49. 2:08antecedants you know go Fairly far back
50. 2:11and um my my mother's CH she's born in
51. 2:14the United States um but you know
52. 2:17Spanish speaking first and then uh my
53. 2:19grandmother didn't speak English and so
54. 2:21that was the world I grew up in she came
55. 2:23of a family of nine originally 11 but
56. 2:26nine who lived and there was two uh two
57. 2:29the
58. 2:30and then and one then one passed and
59. 2:32then the rest were theas you know like I
60. 2:34had like six or five I guess she had
61. 2:36five sisters and herself so they were
62. 2:38all um they were all in the mix you know
63. 2:41so you know when I say and my mom was
64. 2:44just you know you know you know you
65. 2:51know the origins of mine riding them
66. 2:54anyway kind of came uh because I was you
67. 2:57know I'm a first like many of us are
68. 2:59first generation educated right so so to
69. 3:03a large degree as I came to sort of
70. 3:06understand myself and like went to
71. 3:08school you're encouraged just to sort of
72. 3:10identify with the mainstream of the
73. 3:11United States and you know not to really
74. 3:13look very much at Cultura and um but as
75. 3:18curiously when I you know as I sort of
76. 3:20kind of became more conscious and as I
77. 3:22said I was coming of age during these
78. 3:24times of great political movement right
79. 3:26so there was the CH movement the Black
80. 3:28Power movement the Civil Rights movement
81. 3:30and also um the the feminist movement
82. 3:33gay lesbian movement and since I had a
83. 3:35relationship to all those identities in
84. 3:37many ways it was a really uh and it was
85. 3:40a powerful time of of change social
86. 3:43change and I saw myself as part of that
87. 3:46and so um so the writing immediately
88. 3:50kind of took me home it kind of took me
89. 3:52back to my Origins where I didn't
90. 3:54necessarily you know I was an English
91. 3:56major and study all the the great white
92. 3:58Masters you know you know and it it
93. 4:00didn't have the resonance for me and I
94. 4:03when I wanted to be when I began writing
95. 4:06I realized that I could either kind of
96. 4:07try to copy them and I'd be sort of a
97. 4:10cheap imitation of them you know or I
98. 4:12could try to find an original voice and
99. 4:14that voice took me
100. 4:28home and