Cherrie Moraga

Cherrie Moraga was born on September 25, 1952 in Whitier, California. She is the daughter of an Anglo and a Chicana. Moraga studoed at a small, nonsectarian college in Hollywood and earned her B.A. in 1974. She worked as a high school teacher in Los Angeles from 1974 - 1977. During this time, she enrolled in a writing class at the Women's Building and produced her first lesbian love poems. She decided to write as a lesbian and as a Chicana. In 1977, she moved to San Francisco and earned an MA from San Francisco State in 1980.

In 1981, she and Gloria Anzaldua co-edited the anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. They were unable to find a publisher for this book. Moraga then cofounded with Barbara Smnith, Kitchen Table/Women of Color Press in New Yotk. This is the only press in the United States devoted to publishing works by women of color. This Bridge Called My Back was awarded the American Book Award from the Columbus Foundation and quickly found a widespread readership across the county (in women's studies programs and by women of color). Moraga's 1983 book Loving in the War Years: Lo que nunca paso por sus labios became the first published book an openly lesbian Chicana. It explores the issue of multiple identities -- Chicana, lesbian and feminist. Other works by Moraga include several plays: La extranjera (1985), Giving Up the Ghost: Teatro in 2 Acts (1986), Shadow of a Man (1988), and Heroes and Saints (1989).

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