(Original publication, 1983; 2nd expanded edition, 2000.)
Cherríe Moraga has added a new generational perspective to her classic collection of essays and poetry, Loving in the War Years. The four new essays in this expanded edition are written in a voice nearly a generation older than that which echoes off the pages Moraga first wrote in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The original section of Loving paints a vivid portrait of Moraga's coming-of-age as a Chicana and a lesbian at a time when the political merging of those two identities was severely censured. The new section is testimony to the complexity of identity politics in the time of the Right, as leftists of all stripes aimed to harness their hard-won self-knowledge and safe territory in the struggle to build power across their constituencies. Maintaining her focus on issues of race, sexuality, ideology, and political power, Moraga's posture is now closer to that of a zen warrior than a street-fighter, but her passionate engagement with life remains as intimate, insightful, and controversial as ever.
Weaving together poetry and prose, Spanish and English, family history and political theory, Loving in the War Years has been a classic in the feminist and Chicano canon since its 1983 release. The war years continue, and loving still resides in the uncensored word. The silenced sentence-lo que nunca pasó por sus labios-once spoken, inspires insurrection.
Temporarily out of print