This Bridge We Call Home

This Bridge We Call Home

“This Bridge We Call Home” is a more in depth expansion to the earlier piece “This Bridge Called My Back” that aimed to take it one step further by adopting a transnational feminist perspective on how feminism(s) have affected the lives of women and men around the world. It attempts to express how the experiences of these women and women are shaping feminist theory today. Keating and Anzaldua use to idea “the bridge” as something that can both separate us and connect us to one another. It incorporates building upon what we already have and drawing connections to others we may have believed we could not relate. The “bridge” is viewed as a threshold or opening to spaces both uncomfortable and foreign to us. It draws upon multiple experiences to create a universal story that transcends societal barriers that connect us collectively to one another. Keating compares spiritual activism with new age spirituality in that: New age focuses almost exclusively on the personal, but spiritual activism begins with the personal yet moves outward, acknowledging our radical interconnectedness. While identity politics requires holding onto specific categories of identity, spiritual activism demands that we let them go (Keating, pg 18).

Questions

Do you feel as though this book did/can lead to change/transformation on multiple levels (p.10)? How did this book transform you?

When reading this book did many of you identify with the experiences with these people? How relatable were their experiences to the experiences of your own?

Has feminism truly progressed and how multicultural have we really become?

The term “women of color” is bandied about and yes, employed in empowering ways, but when used does it indicate a radically altered consciousness (Keating, pg 6)? Or have the promises of this potentially radical term become enmeshed in restrictive forms of identity politics?

Keating later expresses that 20yrs after the original Bridge was written that she still felt there was much work to be done. Do you think that this book aimed to accomplish what Keating expressed (Keating pg 8)? Is this an efficient form of activism? Who is the intended audience and what is the expected reaction?

There is an assumption that labels even the self chosen one are imprisoning and dangerous (p11). Do you believe that it is in fact possible to have a society free of any form of labeling? In reference to holding on to labels do you agree that labels can be something that separates us or are they highly needed?

Keating mentions that there were a lot of essays that were not incorporated to this anthology because of size restraint. Do you think that their choices in essay may have silenced other voices?