Austin Chapter
Reader's Guide
October 2005
Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios
The Latina Feminist Group (editors)
Telling to Live embodies the vision that compelled Latina feminists to engage their differences and find common ground. Its contributors reflect varied class, religious, ethnic, racial, linguistic, sexual, and national backgrounds. Yet in one way or another they are all professional producers of testimonios--or lifestories--whether as poetry, oral historians, literary scholars, ethnographers, or psychologists...
These stories describe how many women found their "voice" and how they dealt with racism, sexism, and discrimination.
- Do you identify with any of the stories you read?
- Have you had difficultives in the workplace, schools, etc.?
- Do you relate the stories of learning who you are in your family and in society?
- What did your family expect of you with respect to education after high school? If you went to college, was your family supportive?
- Have you noticed that there are multiple storie by the same person? Have you followed a particular writer's stories?
- I found the following stories thought provoking:
- "Daughter Bootstrap"
- "I can Fly: of Dreams and Other Nonfiction"
- "Speaking Among Friends: Whose Empowerment, Whose Resistance? (read pages 261-262)
The Story Circle Network is a national not-for-profit membership organization made up of women who want to explore their lives and their souls by exploring their personal stories. If you would like to learn more about the Network and its activities, please sign up for our free email newsletters!
