Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
BIOGRAPHY
CHRONOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHY
SCOPE AND CONTENT
Descriptive Summary
Title: Cherríe Moraga Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1970-1996
Collection number: Special Collections M0905
Creator: Moraga, Cherríe
Extent:
44 linear ft.
Repository:
Stanford University. Libraries. Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives.
Language:
English.
Administrative Information
Access Restrictions:
Series 3 (Journals) is restricted, as are Series 4a (Personal Correspondence) and portions of Series 2 (Manuscripts by Moraga)
and Series 6 (Manuscripts by others). In addition, selected items have been restricted and removed to parallel files.
Publication Rights:
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
Provenance:
Purchased from Cherríe Moraga, 1996
Preferred Citation:
[Identification of item] Cherríe Moraga Papers, M0905, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford,
Calif.
BIOGRAPHY
Cherríe Moraga, an award-winning playwright, poet and essayist, has received national recognition for her creative and critical
writings focussing on racism and classism within the white women's movement, issues of sexuality, lesbianism and cultural
and racial identity, as well as homophobia and sexism within Chicano culture. Moraga's involvements as a teacher, gay and
lesbian youth advocate, editor, activist and cultural critic have served as a catalyst for her work.
Moraga is perhaps most widely known for the highly-acclaimed anthology, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women
of Color, which she co-edited with Gloria Anzaldúa and Loving in the War Years / Lo Que Nunca Pasó Por Sus Labios, a collection
of poetry and essays. Her theater productions include "Giving Up the Ghost," "Shadow of a Man," "Heroes and Saints," and "Watsonville
: Some Place Not Here." She has most recently written Waiting in the wings : a portrait of a queer motherhood (Firebrand Books,
1997).
Born in Whittier, California in 1952, Moraga attended Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, from which she graduated in
1974. Following college she worked for three years as an English teacher in Burbank, California. In 1977 she moved to San
Francisco where she attended graduate school in Feminist Studies at San Francisco State University. There, she met Barbara
Smith, with whom she was to found the important publishing house Kitchen Table : Women of Color Press in New York in 1981.The
Press became a critical voice for feminism from Black, Latina, and Third World perspectives. She has served as an instructor
in Women's Studies and Chicano Studies and Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, Stanford University, the University
of California at Berkeley, and the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Moraga received a Theatre Communications Group theatre artist residency grant in 1996, the NEA's Theatre Playwrights' Fellowship
in 1993 and two Fund for New American Plays Awards from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She was awarded
the Outlook Foundation Literary Award in 1991, The American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1986, and a
New York State Creative Arts Public Service Program Grant for Poetry.
Cherríe Moraga lives and works in San Francisco.
CHRONOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHY
1952 September 25 |
Cher'rie Moraga Lawrence is born in Whittier, California, to Elvira Moraga and Joseph Lawrence. |
1970-1974 |
College at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, graduated in 1974. |
1980 |
Received Master of Arts degree in Feminist Studies at California State University, San Francisco |
1981 |
Cofounds, with Barbara Smith, Kitchen Table : Women of Color Press |
1981 |
Publishes This Bridge Called My Back : Writings by Radical Women of Color |
1982 |
MacDowell Arts Colony fellow, New Hampshire |
1983 |
Wins New York State Community Artist Program award. |
1983 |
Loving in the War Years / Lo Que Nunca Pasó Por Sus Labios published |
1983 |
Cuentos : stories by Latinas is published, edited by Alma Gomez, Cherríe Moraga, and Maríana Romo-Carmona. |
1984 |
Selected as Playwright-in-residence at the Hispanic Playwrights Lab at the INTAR (International Arts Relation) Theater, New
York under María Irene Fornes.
|
1986 |
Awarded Before Columbus American Book Award for This Bridge Called My Back |
1986 |
Giving Up the Ghost is published |
1986-1991 |
Lecturer of writing and theater in Chicano Studies at University of California, Berkeley. |
1988 |
Esta Puente Mi Espalda (Spanish adaptation of This Bridge Called My Back) is published |
1989 |
Co-edits, with Norma Alarcón and Ana Castillo, Third Woman : The Sexuality of Latinas |
1989 Feb. 10 |
Giving Up the Ghost premiere at Theatre Rhinoceros, San Francisco |
1989 April |
Shadow of a Man produced as part of San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre's Plays-in-Progress series |
1990 |
Publishes with Fornes Shadow of a Man. Produced at the Eureka Theatre, San Francisco, a co-production with Brava! For Women
in the Arts.
|
1990 |
Opening of Coatlique's Call, a collaboration with visual artist Guadalupe Garcia |
1991 |
Wins Fund for New American Plays award, A Project of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts |
1992 |
Heroes & Saints was commissioned by Los Angeles Theatre Center; |
1992 Apr. 4 |
Heroes & Saints premieres at Mission Theater, San Francisco,produced by Brava! For Women in the Arts, directed by Albert Takazauckas |
1993 |
Awarded National Endowment for the Arts' Theater Playwrights Fellowship |
1993 |
The Last Generation published |
1994 |
Heroes & Saints and Other Plays published. |
1997 |
Waiting in the wings : a portrait of a queer motherhood published |
SCOPE AND CONTENT
The Cherríe Moraga Papers document the life work of an important lesbian Chicana poet, essayist, and playwright of the 20th
century. The papers include Moraga's personal and professional correspondence, journals, collected Feminist and Women of Color
serials, drafts, manuscripts and galleys, and final publications of her writings, as well as important essays and reviews
of her work.
The papers are divided into 19 series: 1. Publications, 2. Manuscripts, 3. Journals, 4. Correspondence, 5. Gigs, 6. Manuscripts
by Others, 7. Publicity, 8. Theater Correspondence, 9. Academic Work, 10. Collector's Publications, 11. Publicity, 12. Electronic
Media, 13. Essays and Reviews, 14. Photographs, Posters, and Awards and 15. Oversize
Wherever Moraga's original arrangement of materials was encountered, her order was respected.