Sunday, August 26, 2012

Out Spotlight

Today's is a proud Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist,  and playwright. Today's Out Spotlight is Cherrie Moraga.

Cherrie L. Moraga was born in Whittier, California on September 25, 1952.  She is the daughter of  Anglo and  Chicana parents.

She earned her Bachelor's degree  in 1974 from Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, California and her Master's from San Francisco State University in 1980. Between her Bachelor's and Master's degrees she worked as a high school teacher in Los Angeles. During this time, she enrolled in a writing class at the Women's Building and produced her first lesbian love poems. She decided to write as a lesbian and as a Chicana. In 1977, she moved to San Francisco and earned an MA from San Francisco State in 1980.   Of both Anglo and Mexican American heritage, her writing focuses on her experiences as a Chicana lesbian.


She has taught courses in dramatic arts and writing at various universities across the United States and is currently an artist in residence at Stanford University. Her play, Watsonville: Some Place Not Here, performed at the Brava Theatre Company of San Francisco in May, 1996, won the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Fund for New American Plays Award. Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde and Moraga started Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the first publisher dedicated to the writing of women of color in the United States.

She is perhaps best known for co-editing, with Gloria Anzaldúa, the anthology of feminist thought This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Along with Ana Castillo and Norma Alarcon, she adapted this anthology into the Spanish-language Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos.

Writings in the anthology, along with works by other prominent feminists of color, call for a greater prominence within feminism for race-related subjectivities, and ultimately laid the foundation for third wave feminism or Third World Feminism in the USA. Her first sole-authored book, Loving in the War Years: lo que nunca pasó por sus labios (1983), a combination of autobiographically modulated prose and poetry, is also an influential critical work among Chicana feminists and other feminists of color, and among scholars working in Chicano Studies.


Moraga was named a 2007 USA Rockefeller Fellow and granted $50,000 by United States Artists, an arts advocacy foundation dedicated to the support and promotion of America's top living artists. She won a Creative Work Fund Award in 2008, and the Gerbode-Hewlett Foundation Grant for Playwriting in 2009.


She published A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness: Writings, 2000-2010, in 2011. Her play New Fire: To Put Things Right Again had its world premiere January 11-29, 2012, in San Francisco, California.

 For over ten years, Moraga has served as an Artist in Residence in the Department of Drama at Stanford University and currently also shares a joint appointment with Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity.   She teaches Creative Writing,  Xicana-Indigenous Performance, Latino/Queer Performance, Indigenous Identity in Diaspora in the Arts and Playwriting.  She is a founding member of La Red Xicana Indígena, a network of Xicanas organizing in the area of social change through international exchange, indigenous political education, spiritual practice, and grass roots organizing.


20 comments:

  1. Always interesting to read about someone I haven't heard of before.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Really looking forward to seeing Jake on David Letterman tonight. Should be really interesting. I wonder if Dave will be allowed to ask about ol' Tay. ;D

    Just an absolutely gorgeous looking morning driving into work this morning. There was a fog haze hanging over areas of farmland (what farmland there is left, lol) and that stuff is just the darnedest. What is fog anyway? Moisture? And yet you can see it. It's like cotton candy hanging in the air.

    ReplyDelete
  3. And what I mean by Dave being allowed to ask about ol' Tay is in regards to that first single from her upcoming CD. The one her fans are so convinced is about Jake.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Why would he ask Jake about a song Taylor wrote? He should ask Taylor about that.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ohhhhh because that's exactly the kind of question the TV Talkshow hosts would love to ask, that's why.

    Why so personally bothered by that pondering, 101?

    I'm sorry but Jake entered into that disastrous bearding relationship with pen in hand aimed right at the dotted line. No, he didn't write the song and yes, ol' Tay is the one making a big ta do about the whole "mystery".

    But all the indignation in the world is not going to stop somebody somewhere down the line from asking him about it, whether he wrote it or not, whether it's about him or not. Life can be hard that way, you know.

    But hey, he probably won't have to worry because it will be a disallowed question. So no need to fret, all right?

    ReplyDelete
  6. That song could be about any of her former flings or an amalgam of several and since Jake didn't write it he wouldn't really know if it's about him would he. Also, in case you haven't been paying attention celebs on talk shows are their to plug THEIR product, not someone else's and talk show hosts know this. Long gone are the days when you invited a bon vivant good natured chappie on to regale the audience with tales of wild drunken nights.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Correction: *there to plug

    ReplyDelete
  8. and since Jake didn't write it he wouldn't really know if it's about him would he.

    Don't you come here and take that tone with me while hiding under a made up name.

    We can wish or want to our heart's fill but that doesn't stop questions from being asked.

    Too bad if you have a problem with my comment. I let it stand and I ponder it out loud very proudly.

    Let it just eat away at you, 101.

    In the meantime, maybe I'll come up with a few more questions to wonder if Dave may ask about.

    ReplyDelete
  9. 3 things will come upAugust 27, 2012 at 2:47 PM

    1) the play

    2) End of watch

    3) Man vs Wild There has been nothing to promote since he did this last year

    Questions all prepared for Dave by associate producers based on a pre show discussion with Jake and his team.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hmmm, some people are a little restless again, aren't they? A little antsy.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Yup, 14:47, you have probably nailed it on the head. And anyone who thinks Jake isn't protected, just remember how he has had to have a handler at his side during live carpet interviews to help guide him away in case of "sensitive" subjects.

    ReplyDelete
  12. But I am looking forward to tonight. It's been a long time and it'll just be really interesting to see how he's changed.

    ReplyDelete
  13. just remember how he has had to have a handler at his side during live carpet interviews to help guide him away in case of "sensitive" subjects.

    Those "handlers" are called publicists and any star that employs one will have them on the red carpet with them.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Trolls = smartasses

    It doesn't matter who it is or what "title" they have, a protector is a protector is a protector. You know, I remember very, very vividly an interview that Jake did with somebody that I found on YouTube. And they asked a Taylor Swift question and you should have seen the look of panic in Jake's face as his eyes scanned off into the distance as if he was looking for help. And do you know, that he skidaddled away from that interviewer faster than you could shake a stick with some kind of "Uh, I gotta go!" line.

    If I can find that interview, I'll put it up although I'm not going to spend a lot of time looking for it because I want to get some writing done tonight. I would imagine that M&M and Special remember it because I passed it along to them to check out.

    Now in that case, no, he didn't have someone "handy" to help out. And like I said, you should've seen the look of uh-uh-uh=uh that passed across his face.

    It's so nice to be graced with Mrs. Naomi Foner's presence, isn't it.

    ReplyDelete
  15. A mother's got to look out for her son.

    ReplyDelete
  16. lol. I should rephrase some of my comment. Check it out. you know, I remember very, very vividly.....an inerview Jake did with somebody... LOLLLL!! How vividly is that, again? **slaps forehead!!** Somebody. Way to go, pg. lol

    Hey, Perry Mason I am not, I'm the first to admit.

    And I'm not going to be hard on Jake for not being skillful at calm and pm-your-toes replies. Heck, I'm not very good at it either. It is what it is. Gotta call a spade a spade.

    Actually I don't think this is a case of dear old Mom swinging the fly swatter. This sounds more like someone sensitive about their profession.

    Enough of that. 'Scuse me while I go kiss my wireless and my IPad. My IPad which I've missed so much.

    ReplyDelete
  17. ^Jake is great in that clip. No glum chum at all.
    Can't wait to see the whole thing

    And love the suit and the shoes!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Not sure what to say about this. It was a late hour.

    Monday, August 27, 2012

    Jake Gyllenhaal Blows Off Fans At Meet And Greet

    Part of the deal of being an actor on Broadway is meeting all the people who wait for you after the show. On Friday night was the first preview of a show Jake is performing on Broadway and fans who had seen the show then waited patiently in the meet and greet area for over two hours waiting for Jake. When he emerged he signed one autograph and said he was too busy to sign any more and left all of the fans hanging. This is the same guy who has not had a hit movie in years and the only popular thing he has been part of is being the subject of a Taylor Swift song. The guy could probably use some fan support. Instead he blows them off. Performing on Broadway is supposed to bring you closer to the fans and give them a chance to be up close to you.

    Posted by ent lawyer at 6:15 AM


    Friday Night Opening

    ReplyDelete
  19. Who knows? Maybe he wasn't feeling well or something? He looks absolutely outstanding in the Letterman photos. Off to watch -

    ReplyDelete