Transformation Now!: Toward a Post-Oppositional Politics of Change

Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks Stand on the shoulders of giants. Google Scholar We must be motivated by love in order to undertake change—love of self, love of people, love of life. Loving gives us the energy and compassion to act in the face of hardship; loving gives us the motivation to dream the life and work we want. Gloria Anzaldúa, “Foreword, 2001” Where do I even begin, to name the intellectual and spiritual giants whose lives and works have supported me, opened new vistas, encouraged me in my work, energized and inspired me with love? (If only I could thank everyone, simultaneously;Idon’twanttoleaveanyoneoutordiminishthecontributionsofanyone.) Thisbookrepresentstheculminationofanotherpieceofmylife’sjourney,and everyone I’ve interacted with over the past decade has left their mark on the ideasandwordsinthisbook.EveryauthorwhoseworkIciteinTransformation Now! has been instrumental to my development. I thank them all. I’m grateful to my graduate students at Texas Woman’s University. Our discussions and explorations of contemporary theories and (trans)disciplinary knowledge formations have been invaluable to me, as I’ve tried to think through and—whenever possible—beyond oppositional thought. I’m especially grateful to Reanae McNeal and Erica Granados De La Rosa, who offeredtoallowmetoincludetheirwomanistinvitationalsyllabiinthisbook. Thanks to Jacqui Alexander, Michele Tracy Berger, Reanae Bredin, Jessica xiv • Giving Thanks Camp, Angela Cotten, Betsy Dahms, Victoria Genetin, Kathleen Guidroz, RobynHenderson-Espinoza,MarilynFrye,SarahHoagland,IreneLara,Layli Maparyan, Carrie McMaster, Reanae McNeal, Kimberly Merenda, Deborah A. Miranda, Sonia Saldívar-Hull, and Ann Waters for their assistance with variouswriterly-readerlyactivities,rangingfromfeedbackonearlierchapter drafts to encouragement and reality checks along the way. The external reviewers’ generous feedback and terrific suggestions have beeninstrumentalinassistingmeasItakemythinkingfurther,andIamtremendously grateful for their thoughtful attention to this project. Irene Lara: thank you for your excitement about the initial proposal. Suzanne Bost and Aimee Carrillo Rowe: you gave me new lens with which to view my project. Your encouragement emboldened me, and I cannot fully articulate my gratitude . This book is so much stronger, thanks to your insightful suggestions. But,ofcourse,allerrors,limitations,andexcessiveprovocationsaremyown. I explored many of these ideas in conversation with Gloria Anzaldúa— conversations that are ongoing but that originated back in the mid 1990s. Her generosity, intellectual humility, and confidence in my work have been sustaining and life-altering. I am especially grateful for her encouragement thatI“rocktheboat”andquestiontheshibbolethsofourvariousmovements. (You left us too early, comadre.) I’d also like to thank the North Texas weather, February 2011 (the “snowpocalypse”: rain-followed-by-freezing temperatures -and-then-snow) and the city of Denton’s limited street apparatus (the lack of salting or sanding or plowing), which kept our schools closed and encouraged (forced?) us to stay home, unable/unwilling to venture out. You gave me unexpected, unbroken, unbidden time to think, to develop this book project. ThankstoJimmieLynHarrisandtheotherF.I.R.S.T.librarians(theFaculty, Information and Research Support Team) at Texas Woman’s University, for trackingdownsomanysourcesforme.ThankstoClaireL.Sahlin,supportive colleague and department chair. I am very grateful for your support over the years and for your timely suggestion for how I might address the publisher’s request to remove section epigraphs. I’m also very grateful to Gail Orlando, whose time-saving office assistance, thoughtful pro-active recommendations , and serendipitous conversations are irreplaceable. I’m extremely grateful to my editor, Larin McLaughlin, for her initial interest in my (some might say provocative) idea for this project. Without her Giving Thanks • xv interest, would I have continued? I don’t know. Thank you, Larin! Thanks for your confidence in this project, your appreciation for what I’m trying to do,andyouracceptanceofmyquirkystylisticchoicesandconcepts(likethe exclamation point in my title and the italicized parenthetical comments). Thanks to Jennifer Comeau Reichlin, Dawn M. Durante, Roberta J. Sparenberg ,andtheotherfolksattheUniversityofIllinoisPress.Thanksverymuch to Deborah Oliver for doing such superb copyediting on this manuscript. Transformation Now! is my ninth book, which means that I’ve worked with a lot of copyeditors. You are the best. I appreciate your thoughtful questions, carefulexplanations,andgreatsuggestions,aswellasyourleniencywithmy nontraditionalist approach to many writing-related items in this book. I’vebeenwrestlingwithandrevisingsomeoftheconceptsinTransformation Now! for years, and portions of several chapters were previously published in earlier versions. An earlier version of part of chapter 1 was published as “From Intersections to Interconnections: Lessons for Transformation from ThisBridgeCalledMyBack:RadicalWritingsbyWomenofColor”inTheIntersectional Approach: Transforming the Academy through Race, Class, and Gender, ed. Michele Tracy Berger and Kathleen Guidroz (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2009); an earlier version of part of chapter 3 was published as “(De) Centering the Margins? Identity Politics and...