Oh my goodness!! This is an incredible ground-breaking book of awareness and consciousness. It was a must-read for anyone coming of age in the 1980's and it is still relevant today. I came on line to purchase it for a friend who had never seen it, and I am in shock that it is out of print, or even just out of stock (it's unclear which). The paperback is selling on ZBooks for $45. I'm confounded.

This book was one of the required readings for our "Women of Color" course, and I found it well-written, highly engrossing and very inspiring.

Keating and Anzaldua have reunited to provide the long-anticipated sequel to "This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color"--with an expanded list of contributors including white women and men of all ethnicities.

The decision to include these groups was criticized by some women of color who felt the original book's importance was diluted through the agreement, but enhances reading and study of the raised issues.

Mixing both art and theory, the book actively seeks to both celebrate the differences of various groups while uniting them into one struggle for social justice. Because the journey to such freedom is inherently difficult and long, separatism is not a practical option for many of the contributors.

Indeed, separatism's short-term benefits of self-affirmation quickly finds itself limited through the reality people can/do have more than one subordinating characteristic and the interconnectedness of society at large. Each contributor's respective identities provide shielding and stress to varying degrees---the task is to work towards the day when all of them accept an individual as a whole.

To this extent, the contributors and authors also place a premium on personal care and rejuvenation. What seems like a misplaced concept in a much politicized text is a key piece of advice from seasoned activists. Recognizing and admitting the interconnectedness and pervasive nature of discrimination is critical, but it is impossible for any one person to save the world alone (let alone overnight) and nor should anybody feel pressured to do so.

Because the original book's contributors have become 'old friends' to many readers seeing themselves reflected in the pages, the editors were insistent upon including the voices of original contributors. Most interesting is Max Wolf Valerio (previously credited as Anita Valerio) who discovered his real identity as a man and underwent the requisite changes to allow external features to match internal identity. Valerio also found comfort in indigenous Indian cultures which have a more fluid concept of gender than the dominant Anglo society.

Also different is the noticeably increased percentage of academic works, as opposed to the more personal slant of the initial book. While part of this environment is (yes) due to the increased representation of those groups most likely to be in the much-exalted Ivory Tower, it is also due to women of color's increased presence in academia itself.

The book is marketed for women's/ethnic/queer studies, but it would also be an appropriate text for government/political science classes from the urgency which social change is presented throughout.

Very helpful as resource material though a bit stretched in it's assumptions of certain myths. All together a good read.

This is literally an encyclopedia of LBGT stuff! If you ever wanted to know anything about Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, or Transgender subjects, this is the only book you might ever need!

This book is much more than an exhaustive reference relating to the personalities, events, processes and movements within lgbt spirituality, it is a pure pleasure to read (or in my case, browse through). It tells a far different story than the exclusively heterosexual roster of saints, sages, demons, demigods and deities that we've all had to memorize - and this pantheon is far more fascinating. Just read the entries on the "World Homosexual Movement," the "Order of Chaerona," and the "Han Temple" and you'll realize quickly that we've barely begun to scratch the surface of our old queer race's involvement with the world of the spirit.

I took this with me on vacation, after earlier reading "La Frontera", and I believe the two should be read together. Gloria is the anti-white guy writer, no, not that she is anti-white guy, but that she is barely hanging on the fringes of American mainstream society. In a class I took, some of the Caucausian men thought that Gloria should "get over" her angst and anger. I say, I think she has only begun. I'd like to see her write some fairy tales, since she has so much--I think it's called "magic realism"--in her poetry in La Frontera. "Entrvistas" is like another window onto her writing mind, and the cool thing is that it's like an oral history--all interviews. A neat, and so non-traditional, way to write and communicate.

In this memoir-like collection, Anzaldua explores the intersections between her life, her writings, and post-colonial theory. The interviews contain clear explanations of Anzaldua's concept of the 'Borderlands' and 'mestizaje'; her use of the term 'New Tribalism'; and what she calls 'conocimientos' - alternate ways of knowing that synthesize reflections with action to challenge the status quo.

I have read & re-read essays in this volume over and over again. I think of this as among those texts that remind me there are those who went before me--and that the struggle for recognition is not over. Among the key texts here are Sandoval's essay on racism & feminism, a report based on a real conflict that took place in the NWSA and Alarcón's pathbreaking essay on Chicana subjectivity. But there are so many others as well...my main critique is that the anthology is not as representative as it could be with a leaning towards the "Santa Cruz circle"--and yet the truth of the matter is that there was an incredible grouping of women of color studying & writing there in the mid to late 1980s!

This collection of writings by women of color truely challenge and inspire the consciouness through essay and poetry. A reaffirming voice for women of color who are working on radical social change on on a personal to a global perspective.

I would recommand this book to anyone. It has big issues that can be understood by kids, yet it is still fun to read.

this book is one of the great book. It teach many lessons to children. One is to teach children to help those who are less fortunate. Futhermore, this book teach children to be brave and made their own decision upon what is right rather than follow the crowd. I think if the book change the character's race like make Prietita a white kid and helping a mexican boy, this book will teach the children another lesson that helping is regardless of race and sex.

Friends from the Other Side tells the heart- warming story of two children living on opposite sides of the southern US border who become unlikely friends out of curiosity and circumstance. As the two children become familar with each other, the reader also becomes familiar with cultural differences within the Latino culture itself and with the daily hardships faced by families that live near the border. The book informs and educates the reader about these children's cultural issues by keeping the reader interested in the true to life plot and using realistic culturally significant illustrations. While the story reveals that life is hard for the characters, in the end it remains a story about triumph and friendship. This leaves readers of the same culture with a sense of pride for their heritage and others feeling good after reading the book.

I had to read this book for a Women's Studies class. There are about 45 women in the class and 1 man and only about 10 people liked this book.

Unfortunately, I had to do a presentation on this horrible book and presented something that would "make the masses happy".

This was one of the worst books I have read. All I have to say to Anzaldua is: I too am a border woman. Get over it. Move on. WHO CARES?

While this book has been classified under the social sciences, the world's increasing complexity makes this an indispensible resource for the non-profit sector.

Instead of requiring (either intentionally or implied) individuals to choose between and rank various facets of themselves, Anzaldua makes the simple but bold proposition truw social change accepts all of an individual for whom they actually are. Only, then will all societies be able to move forward in pursuit of the oft-mythologized 'perfect world'. That the book (and author in some circles) is attacked for being 'spacey' or rambling says more about the reader's own internalized fear of 'difference' because this book was so inspiring.

Working in progressive movements, I know coalition building is critical to my policy objectives, but the prose helped me understand how emotionally positive the process was. Most 'conventional' public administration textbooks do a wonderful job talking about technology and finances, but rarely factor in the human dimension so profoundly as she does.

Anzaldua may wish to include translations from Spanish in future editions of the book because this would help residents of many other "borderlands" comprehend her own experiences and perspectives more easily than currently possible.

Anzaldua's Borderlands really inspired me much. My Spanish may not be very good, that I can still catch the feelings she had in her mind, intertwined with Spanish, English y otros dialectos Chicanos. While in thinking or writing, the standard language of one society often represents its high position with logic, rationality, and academic neutrality; yet dialects of different ethnic groups then thought to be personal, informal, or sentimental. Therefore, in most of the academic conferences, we rarely see scholars doing their lectures or theoretical debates in dialects, and then ¡K.hmm¡K.our ¡§mother/grandmother/gran-granmother tongues¡¨ died in academia.

Anzaldua's multilingual texts did show us/US the new ways for revivification and liberation of ethnic minority languages both in academia y nosotras/os corazones. I expect to read more multilingual literature in the future, and I hope everybody can try to respect languages from different cultures or even from different perspectives. Don't just say that they are not worthy of reading since you don't really understand what they are trying to tell you! Reading about Anzaldua and her people's struggles may not be very comfortable, but to me the situation is quite familiar just like being home!

The good news: it's a feminist version of the La Llorona story. The Bad news: it's BORING!! In order to make it more woman-friendly, the author took all the suspense and horror out of the story. The result is only slightly interesting. But, hey, at least the illustrations are good . . .