For Brown Girls With Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts: A Love Letter to Women of Color by Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez

Author:Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez [Rodriguez, Prisca Dorcas Mojica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Feminism & Feminist Theory, Minority Studies, Discrimination
ISBN: 9781541674875
Google: BDIjzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Seal Press
Published: 2021-11-15T23:45:30.541915+00:00

Today I do not make myself small and invisible, for anyone. I have learned that if men do not like me or my work—and especially if they encourage their girlfriends, wives, or femme partners to stay away from me—then I must be doing something right. I am attempting to create a reality where women like me get to live boldly as ourselves—not like men, but as we are, in all of our fullness.

My friends, all who have been intentionally mutually selected, have helped me build this reality. I am part of a group of three recovering pastor’s daughters. We’re all from the same church, but from different church plants. I attended the Managua church plant and eventually the Miami church plant, and they attended the Guatemala church plant and eventually the Chicago church plant—same church, doctrine, and leadership, but in different cities. We call ourselves Las Brujas, as an attempt to reclaim a word that Christians have long used against female outsiders. All three of us migrated to this country at around the same time. All three of us have been rejected by our home churches. All three of us have been the child that shamed our Christian pastoral families at some point or another. Together we process our pain, celebrate our victories, and honor our humanity.

Through them, I am attempting to create arenas where we do not have to make ourselves small for the comfort of the men in the room. I am attempting to find joy in my visibility, rather than safety in my invisibility. We do not all live in the same city, but when we gather, we revel in our vastness and take up all the space.

Both of them live in Chicago, and when I visit we go to a steak house that is owned by a Colombian husband and wife. The husband uses his wife as a punch line for his jokes often, and we have all made the decision to take her side and openly do so. These moments of not being silent and not rolling over, that is how we recover from the complicity we saw around us growing up. When the owners see us enter the restaurant, even if it has been months, they recognize us. In this restaurant, a space we lovingly refer to as “our restaurant,” we have created a home. Home is with us, with each other, and in the places where we can be ourselves. With these friends, I am attempting to find comfort within myself and radically accept all parts of myself. We hold one another accountable, and we challenge one another to grow. With them, I am the version of myself I could not be at home. My friends are my chosen family. We all have experienced rejection in our home and home church, and we have chosen to radically accept one another. We have accepted the tragedies within us.

I have found my identity not because of my experiences with intimate-family toxic masculinity but despite them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.