Aurora Levins Morales
Encyclopedia
Aurora Levins Morales (b. February 24, 1954) is a Puerto Rican Jewish writer and poet. She is significant within Latina feminism as well as other social justice movements.
. Her mother, Rosario Morales, is a Puerto Rican, born in Harlem and also a writer. Her father is an ecologist who is Ukrainian Jewish, born in Brooklyn.
Levins Morales became a public writer in the 1970s as a result of the many social justice movements of that time that addressed the importance of giving a voice to the oppressed. At fifteen, she was the youngest member of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union
and co-produced a feminist radio show, took part in sit-ins and demonstrations against the Vietnam War
, guerrilla theater, women's consciousness raising
groups and door to door organizing for daycare and equal pay. She attended Franconia College
in New Hampshire and helped organize and run the local women's center.
Levins Morales also holds a Ph.D. in Women's Studies and History from Union Institute & University
in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Third World News Bureau, reporting on events in South Africa, the Philippines, Chile, Nicaragua and what was still Rhodesia, and on environmental racism, housing struggles, and the movement to get the US Navy to stop bombing Vieques, Puerto Rico
.
Levins Morales became part of a radical US women of color writers movement that sought to integrate the struggles against sexism and racism. She began doing coffeehouse readings with other women, organizing poetry series, producing radio programs, publishing in literary journals and anthologies, and eventually becoming one of the contributors to This Bridge Called My Back
, where she focuses on depicting the race, class, and gender issues that together shape Puerto Rican women's identities and historical experiences. Some of her major themes are feminism; multiple identity (Puerto Rican, Jewish, North American), immigrant experience, Jewish radicalism and history, Puerto Rican history, and the importance of collective memory, of history and art, in resisting oppression and creating social change.
In 1986 Morales and her mother and wrote Getting Home Alive, a collection of poetry and prose about their lives as US Puerto Rican women. In part as a result of response to this book, Levins Morales decided to go to graduate school to become a historian. While her dissertation focused on retelling the history of the Atlantic world with Puerto Rican women's lives at the center, she also did extensive research on the history of Puerto Ricans in California, collecting several dozen oral histories, and preserving early documents of the San Francisco Puerto Rican community. From 1999 to 2002 she worked at the Oakland Museum of California as lead historian for the Latino Community History Project, working with high school students to collect oral histories d photographs, and create artwork and curriculum materials based on them.
In her collection of essays Medicine Stories: History, Culture, and the Politics of Integrity (1998). In this book, Levins Morales questions traditional accounts of American history and their consistent exclusion of people of color. She argues that traditional historical narratives have had devastating effects on those it has silenced, and oppressed. In an attempt to “heal” this historical trauma of oppression, she designs a “medicinal” history that gives centrality to the marginalized, particularly Puerto Rican women. Levins Morales's strives to make visible those who have been absent from history books while also emphasizing resistance efforts.
In her book, Remedios: Stories of Earth and Iron from the History of Puertorriqueñas (1998), her goal is “to unearth the names of women deemed unimportant by the writers of official histories”(Levins Morales, p. xvii). Short pieces interspersed throughout the narratives describe medicinal herbs and foods that symbolize the healing properties of the narratives that follow those sections. In this manner she treats historical erasure as a disease that a curandera historian can heal through “home-grown” herbal history. The histories she portrays in the text demonstrate the strength and resistance of Puerto Rican women and their ancestors.
Early life and education
Aurora Levins Morales was born February 24, 1954 in Indiera Baja, Maricao, Puerto RicoMaricao, Puerto Rico
Maricao is the second-least populous municipality of Puerto Ricolocated at the western edge of the Cordillera Central. It is a small town set around a small plaza in hilly terrain, north of San Germán, Saban Grande and Yauco; south of Las Marías and Lares, southeast of Mayagüez, and west of Adjuntas...
. Her mother, Rosario Morales, is a Puerto Rican, born in Harlem and also a writer. Her father is an ecologist who is Ukrainian Jewish, born in Brooklyn.
Levins Morales became a public writer in the 1970s as a result of the many social justice movements of that time that addressed the importance of giving a voice to the oppressed. At fifteen, she was the youngest member of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union
Chicago Women's Liberation Union
The Chicago Women's Liberation Union was a women's liberation organization based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The organization served as an umbrella organization for numerous groups who worked within communities nationwide to bring awareness, programming and opportunities to women...
and co-produced a feminist radio show, took part in sit-ins and demonstrations against the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, guerrilla theater, women's consciousness raising
Consciousness raising
Consciousness raising is a form of political activism, pioneered by United States feminists in the late 1960s...
groups and door to door organizing for daycare and equal pay. She attended Franconia College
Franconia College
Franconia College was a small experimental liberal arts college in Franconia, New Hampshire, United States. It opened in 1963 on the site of The Forest Hills Hotel on Agassiz Road, and closed in 1978, after years of declining enrollment and increasing financial difficulties.A small, eclectic...
in New Hampshire and helped organize and run the local women's center.
Levins Morales also holds a Ph.D. in Women's Studies and History from Union Institute & University
Union Institute & University
Union Institute & University is a non-profit private college, specializing in limited residence and distance learning programs. With the main campus in Cincinnati, Union Institute & University operates -from Ohio- "satellite campuses" located in Montpelier, Vermont; Brattleboro, Vermont; North...
in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Career
In 1976, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she worked at the KPFAKPFA
KPFA is a listener-funded progressive talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed on-the-air April 15 1949, as the first Pacifica Station...
Third World News Bureau, reporting on events in South Africa, the Philippines, Chile, Nicaragua and what was still Rhodesia, and on environmental racism, housing struggles, and the movement to get the US Navy to stop bombing Vieques, Puerto Rico
Vieques, Puerto Rico
Vieques , in full Isla de Vieques, is an island–municipality of Puerto Rico in the northeastern Caribbean, part of an island grouping sometimes known as the Spanish Virgin Islands...
.
Levins Morales became part of a radical US women of color writers movement that sought to integrate the struggles against sexism and racism. She began doing coffeehouse readings with other women, organizing poetry series, producing radio programs, publishing in literary journals and anthologies, and eventually becoming one of the contributors to This Bridge Called My Back
This Bridge Called My Back
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color is a feminist anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. The anthology was first published in 1981 by Persephone Press, and the second edition was published in 1984 by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press...
, where she focuses on depicting the race, class, and gender issues that together shape Puerto Rican women's identities and historical experiences. Some of her major themes are feminism; multiple identity (Puerto Rican, Jewish, North American), immigrant experience, Jewish radicalism and history, Puerto Rican history, and the importance of collective memory, of history and art, in resisting oppression and creating social change.
In 1986 Morales and her mother and wrote Getting Home Alive, a collection of poetry and prose about their lives as US Puerto Rican women. In part as a result of response to this book, Levins Morales decided to go to graduate school to become a historian. While her dissertation focused on retelling the history of the Atlantic world with Puerto Rican women's lives at the center, she also did extensive research on the history of Puerto Ricans in California, collecting several dozen oral histories, and preserving early documents of the San Francisco Puerto Rican community. From 1999 to 2002 she worked at the Oakland Museum of California as lead historian for the Latino Community History Project, working with high school students to collect oral histories d photographs, and create artwork and curriculum materials based on them.
In her collection of essays Medicine Stories: History, Culture, and the Politics of Integrity (1998). In this book, Levins Morales questions traditional accounts of American history and their consistent exclusion of people of color. She argues that traditional historical narratives have had devastating effects on those it has silenced, and oppressed. In an attempt to “heal” this historical trauma of oppression, she designs a “medicinal” history that gives centrality to the marginalized, particularly Puerto Rican women. Levins Morales's strives to make visible those who have been absent from history books while also emphasizing resistance efforts.
In her book, Remedios: Stories of Earth and Iron from the History of Puertorriqueñas (1998), her goal is “to unearth the names of women deemed unimportant by the writers of official histories”(Levins Morales, p. xvii). Short pieces interspersed throughout the narratives describe medicinal herbs and foods that symbolize the healing properties of the narratives that follow those sections. In this manner she treats historical erasure as a disease that a curandera historian can heal through “home-grown” herbal history. The histories she portrays in the text demonstrate the strength and resistance of Puerto Rican women and their ancestors.
Published works
- Getting Home Alive with Rosario Morales (Firebrand BooksFirebrand BooksFirebrand Books, was established in the early 1980s by Nancy K. Bereano---a lesbian/feminist activist in Ithaca, NY. It is a feminist and lesbian publishing house and among the many which grew out of the Women's Press Movement. Other presses of that period include Naiad Books, Persephone and...
, 1986) - Medicine Stories: History, Culture, and the Politics of Integrity (South End PressSouth End PressSouth End Press is a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 by Michael Albert, Lydia Sargent, John Schall, Pat Walker, Juliet Schor, Mary Lea, Joe Bowring, and Dave Millikan, among others, in Boston's South End...
, 1998) - Remedios: Stories of Earth and Iron from the History of Puertorriqueñas (Beacon PressBeacon PressBeacon Press is an American non-profit book publisher. Founded in 1854 by the American Unitarian Association, it is currently a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association.Beacon Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses....
, 1998)
See also
- List of Puerto Rican writers
- List of Famous Puerto Ricans
- Puerto Rican literature
- Jewish immigration to Puerto RicoJewish immigration to Puerto RicoThe Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico began in the 15th century with the arrival of the anusim who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage...