This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, is a feminist literary collection of essays, prose, poems, and transcripts on the experiences of women of color and Third World women, in a mainly United States context. While many of the contributors may have been lesser-known beforehand, this anthology has become a foundational text in feminist theory. Originally published in 1981, it set precedence by delving into the intersectionality of identity politics, providing a platform for women of color, including queer women, to publish their work when there were few avenues to do so.

Plot Summary

This Bridge was written and published in part as a response to the exclusive, white, middle-class, women’s movement of the era, adding to a growing wealth of feminist literature to which Third World women and queer women had little prior input. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, both Chicana, lesbian, feminist scholars, experienced firsthand the racism and tokenism of the women’s movement and were motivated to reach out to fellow Third World women to put together this book.

Although writings by women of color had previously been published, This Bridge was one of the first to combine so many identities and address the many ways that race, gender, sexuality, and culture intersect. It introduced a framework for activist coalitions to follow and played a significant role in the development of Third World feminism by putting a spotlight on the women whose voices were being ignored in the feminism of the era, which insisted on a shared sisterhood rather than acknowledging the differences among women. Additionally, it laid the groundwork for Third-Wave feminism, which built on the previous waves of feminism and was further grounded in concepts of individualism, diversity, intersectionality, and sexual liberation.

After the collection’s publication, several members, including Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Cherríe Moraga, and Gloria Anzaldúa, founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. This press aimed to publish the works of marginalized writers, as many of their works were going out of print. It is here that the second edition of This Bridge was published, and it would go on to a third edition published by Third Woman Press in 2002, and a fourth edition published in 2015 (upon which this summary is based) by State University of New York Press, Albany. Throughout the editions, little has been changed besides the addition of some artwork, forewords, and afterwords.

This Bridge is separated into six sections, which begins with the backgrounds of the writers (that led them to Third World feminism) and culminates in the overarching visions and goals these various women have for the future. The first section gives voice to the ways contributors were raised, how they experienced racism and sexism both within their communities and from the wider Anglo-American society. The second section humanizes fields such as feminist theory, race theory, and queer theory as women give faces, names, and stories to topics that are often analyzed in removed, academic terms. The third section focuses on the many manifestations of racism in the women’s movement, looking critically at its source and impact.

The fourth section concentrates on the complexity of inhabiting the space where culture, race, class, and sexual orientation intersect: the challenge of experiencing multiple oppressions within one identity. The fifth section is reflexive, circling back to the book itself by explaining the struggle and joy that is becoming a writer, despite the discrimination and oppression of being a Third World woman. The last section, the sixth, outlines the goals of contributors to achieve equality, embrace their spiritualties, sexualities, and womanhood, overcoming the patriarchal, capitalist, sexist, racist, and homophobic societal values that motivated this book to be written.