SOURCE: "Coming Home: Interview with Cherríe Moraga." in Mester, Vols. XXII and XXIII, Nos. 2 and 1, Fall 1993–Spring 1994, pp. 149-64.

In the following interview, Moraga discusses her career, creative influences, and her notion of feminism.

In 1981, Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa redefined the feminist movement in the United States. The publication of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color challenged the feminist movement to rethink the privileged term "woman." Bridge, by providing a combination of testimonios, poetry, short fiction, and essays, suggests the multiplicity of experiences and the various diasporas filling the streets of the United States. But until Bridge's publication, these experiences were largely hidden from literary and academic sight. Bridge put pressure on both the terms "woman" and "feminist" and initiated a rethinking of Anglo-American feminism which had until then largely ignored its Anglo middle-class biases.

Shortly after the...