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Cherríe L. Moraga

チェリー・モラガ

Cherrie Moraga

Profile

Gender
Female
Born
1952-09-25 （Los Angeles, California, United States）
Nationality
United States
Languages
English, Spanish
Residence History
Los Angeles (birth — early life) → San Francisco (moved 1977) → Santa Barbara (professor / residence)

Career

Occupations
playwright, writer, poet, activist, distinguished professor
Active Years
1974-
Affiliations
University of California, Santa Barbara (Distinguished Professor, Department of English), Stanford University (artist in residence), Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press (founding member), Las Maestras Center (co-founder)
Memberships
La Red Xicana Indígena (founding member), Various literary and academic organizations
Influenced By
Gloria Anzaldúa, Audre Lorde, women-of-color feminists and theorists
Influenced
Ana Castillo, Norma Alarcón, younger Chicana/Latina writers and queer studies scholars

Education

Immaculate Heart College
English
Degree: B.A.
Period: 〜1974
Year of Graduation: 1974
Country: United States
Earned a bachelor's degree in English
San Francisco State University
Feminist Writings (graduate)
Degree: M.A.
Period: 〜1980
Year of Graduation: 1980
Country: United States
Master's degree in Feminist Writings

Awards

American Book Award
1986
Work: This Bridge Called My Back (co-edited)
Organization: Before Columbus Foundation
Result: 受賞
Critics' Circle Award (Best Original Script)
1992
Work: Heroes and Saints
Organization: Critics' Circle
Result: 受賞
PEN West Literary Award (Drama)
1993
Work: For drama (1993)
Organization: PEN West
Result: 受賞
United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship for Literature
2007
Organization: United States Artists
Result: 受賞
Brudner Prize
2013
Organization: Yale University (Brudner Prize, LGBT Studies)
Result: 受賞
National Endowment for the Arts Theater Playwrights' Fellowship
1993
Organization: National Endowment for the Arts
Result: 受賞
Fund for New American Plays Award
1996
Work: Watsonville: Some Place Not Here
Organization: Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Result: 受賞

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

This Bridge Called My Back (co-edited)

1981 essay anthology

An anthology of writings by radical women of color addressing intersections of race, gender, and sexuality; foundational in Chicana feminism and queer studies.

feminismracesexualitywomen of color's voices
Translations
  • Spanish-language edition (Esta puente, mi espalda) adaptation

Loving in the War Years

1983 essays / memoir

A collection of essays exploring Moraga's Chicana and lesbian identities, blending personal memoir with political critique.

identityfamilylesbianismintersectionality

Watsonville: Some Place Not Here

1996 play / theatre

A play addressing immigration, labor, and community; premiered at Brava Theater and won the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays award.

immigrationlabor rightscommunity
Adaptations
  • [theatre] Watsonville: Some Place Not Here (stage production) (1996)

The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea

2001 play

A play that reworks Mexican myth (Popol Vuh) and Medea motifs to interrogate gender, ethnicity, and political struggles.

myth reinterpretationgenderIndigenous narratives

Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir

2019 memoir

A memoir centered on Moraga's relationship with her mother and family history as Mexican Americans, exploring memory, heritage, and immigration.

memoryfamily historyimmigrant experience

Bibliography

  • This Bridge Called My Back (co-edited)
  • Loving in the War Years
  • Cuentos: Stories By Latinas (co-edited)
  • Esta puente, mi espalda (Spanish edition, co-edited)
  • The Last Generation: Prose and Poetry
  • Heroes and Saints and Other Plays
  • Waiting in the Wings: Portrait of a Queer Motherhood
  • The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea & The Heart of the Earth: A Popol Vuh Story
  • Watsonville: Some Place Not Here & Circle in the Dirt
  • A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness: Writings, 2000-2010
  • Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir

Adaptations

  • Stage productions (multiple works)

Translations of Works

  • This Bridge Called My Back → Esta puente, mi espalda (Spanish translation/adaptation)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
essayistic hybrid of theory and personal narrativepolitically engaged, theory-informed prosemulti-voiced, community-focused dramatic writing
Recurring Motifs
intersectionality (race, gender, class)motherhood and familyreworking Indigenous myths and narrativesexperiences of queerness

Legacy

A pioneering Chicana feminist and queer writer-activist whose anthologies and personal writings have deeply influenced interdisciplinary scholarship and grassroots movements; also acclaimed as a playwright.

Academic Societies

  • National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS)

Archives

  • Sophia Smith Collection (Voices of Feminism Oral History Project)
  • University of California, Santa Barbara archives (related collections)

In Popular Culture

  • This Bridge Called My Back remains a canonical text in feminist and queer studies

Quotes

  • My lesbianism is the avenue through which I have learned the most about silence and oppression, and it continues to be the most tactile reminder to me that we are not free human beings.
    Source: Essay "La Guera" and Loving in the War Years (1979)

Trivia

  • Born with the surname Lawrence but later took Moraga to identify more with her mother's side.
  • Co-edited This Bridge Called My Back with Gloria Anzaldúa; the book won an American Book Award in 1986.
  • Was a founding member of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
  • Co-founded Las Maestras Center with Celia Herrera Rodríguez in 2017.
  • Openly lesbian and a prominent figure in queer and Chicana feminist movements.