Macmillan Academic: My Sisters' Voices: Teenage Girls of Color Speak Out Iris Jacob: Books

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My Sisters' Voices

Teenage Girls of Color Speak Out

Holt Paperbacks, April 2002
ISBN: 978-0-8050-6821-4, ISBN10: 0-8050-6821-X,
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 272 pages,
Trade Paperback, $15.00

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See All Categories African American Studies African American Studies - All Titles Anthropology Anthropology - All Titles Asian & Asian American Studies Asian & Asian American Studies - All Titles Gender Studies Women's Studies Latin American & Caribbean Studies Latin American & Caribbean Studies - All Titles Literature U.S. & Canada: Anthologies Native American Studies Native American Studies - All Titles Sociology Sociology - All Titles Young Adult Literature Young Adult Nonfiction

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My Sisters' Voices is a passionate and poignant collection of writings from teenage girls of African American, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American, and biracial backgrounds. With candor and grace, they speak out on topics that are relevant not only to themselves and their peers but to anyone who is raising, teaching, or nurturing young women of color.

As adolescents, women, and minorities, these young authors represent a demographic that has had no voice of its own, a group often spoken for but rarely given the opportunity to be heard. Now, in My Sisters' Voices, they have a chance to stand up and be counted. In the more than one hundred essays and poems in this remarkable collection you'll find personal and inspiring stories about family, friendships, sex, love, racism, loss, and oppression. There's a Native American girl writing about the bumps in her relationship with her best friend, who's white; a Korean American girl who wishes she could help her mother understand that it's okay to socialize with boys as well as girls; and a biracial girl who feels she must be the designated spokesperson for blacks when she's around whites, for whites when she's around blacks, and for biracial people around everyone.

These young authors openly and candidly tell their stories: they express their fears, they write of love and hope, and they demand respect. My Sisters' Voices is essential reading for a generation of girls struggling to define themselves in a world that keeps trying to do it for them.

Praise

"We come from all different ethnic, cultural, and spiritual traditions. We are immigrants, some of us. We are beauties, inner and outer. We are heroines. We are winners, every one of us. We are poets. We are the present. And, make no mistake, we are the future."—Iris Jacob, from the Introduction

"A powerful peek into the lives of teens at a crossroad—girls on the cusp of womanhood grappling with racism, sexism, heritage, poverty, family and self-image in a world where they are largely unheard."—Chicago Tribune

"A volume that intersperses short poems and prose selections written by teens of color from all over the country . . . The writers speak about the issues that matter most to teens (self-image, family, sex, love, abuse, pride, education, courage, race, and beauty), and Jacob's voice in her general introduction is clear and completely her own—direct, insightful, angry, and alternately adolescent and adult. Teens will be the largest audience for this, but adult browsers will find the range of voices and experiences enlightening."—Booklist

"A collection of honest, insightful essays."—The San Diego Union-Tribune

"My Sisters' Voices highlights the beautiful, brave voices of our much silenced young women. This book is especially exciting because Jacob not only wants to broadcast the hopes, fears and realities of young women of color—she wants them to hear each other and come together . . . Alternately heartbreaking and empowering . . . The book seems to embody community."—AsianWeek

"Poignant and often brutally honest, [the essays] touch on issues from pride and family to abuse, courage, education and love."—Penelope M. Carrington, Richmond Times-Dispatch

"This work should encourage discussions about diversity and let teens know that they are not alone in their struggle."—Lynda Jones, Black Issues Book Review

"Jacob solicited works from teens across the country, writing thousands of letters to friends, English teachers and social organizations. The result is a stirring collection of essays and poems detailing the coming-of-age experiences of a diverse group of young women identified by name, age and ethnicity. Jacob and company tackle such issues as interracial friendships, poverty, oppression and family . . . All are important and will resonate with teens and their parents, teachers and mentors."—Publishers Weekly

About the Author(s)

Iris Jacob

Iris Jacob is an eighteen-year-old biracial female with a strong commitment to diversity issues. She has been a student facilitator at numerous diversity conferences, has started affinity groups for students of color and women at her high school, and codirected a youth leadership institute addressing topics of oppression, prejudice, and awareness.

Introduction

MORE THAN SKIN DEEP
Simone Senior: The Smoking Section
Wendi Nevels: The Black Sheep
Brooke Wilson: My First Love: Skratching
Vannah Shaw: A Culture of Our Own
Nzinga Moore: Standards of Beauty
Nneka Nnaoke Ufere: Fear
Lynette Salik: The Twenty Words I Never Understood
Jasmin Kolu Zazaboi: You Are You But I Am Black
Lianne Labossiere: A Page from My Diary: Black and Beautiful
Lisbeth Pelayo: Racism
Kazia T. Steele: Complexion
Jasmin Kolu Zazaboi: The Color Line
Jade Pagkas-Bather: The Color Line
Faleesha Grady: It's Hard
Elsie M. Giron: Searching for a Little Respect
Cecilia Nguyen: All-American Girl
Tara Bynum: Untitled
Andrea Friaz-Gallardo: Sick and Tired
Andrea Friaz-Gallardo: Assimilation
Alicia Mazzara: Known as "Other"
Akemie Cousin: I Wish . . . I Wish . . . I Wish!!!
Tara Bynumi: Outbreak

OUR ROOTS
Andrea Friaz-Gallardo: The San Joaquin Valley
Ashley Sng: Away from Home
Sia J. Yobah: Our Street
Sneha Upadhyay: Indian Roots
BrittneyWest: Is This Love
Sokonie S. Freeman: Through Those Articulate Eyes
Amisha Padhair: Ugat: My Village in India
Taia Waltjen: Daddy's Girl and Life's Lessons
Anonymous: My Family
Tara Ashley Chaney: Justice (for My Momma)
Shivani Agarwal: Silent Soldier
Monique Beacham: Millennium Woman
Cierra Goodloe: Abandoned
Tiana Phenix: My Heartbeat
Hilary Evans: Spades

PERSON TO PERSON
Shivani Agarwal: Chanson d'amour
Blair Revay Bonds: Lately Things
Uduak Onda: Untitled
Hyacinth Wallace-Blake: Vain Imaginings and Other Artifacts
Sarah Richardson: Friends
Alicia Carrington: Questions and Answers
Jennifer Oda: Her Dance
Jessica L. Farley: I Put on a Mask
Tayo Darrell: The Routine
Alicia Lea Haley: Untitled
Kristla Wingo: Battered Butterfly: A Story of an Abusive Relationship
Itoro Akpan: A Welcomed Identity
Tiana Phenix: Untitled
Maribel Lopez Guzman: Una Rosa en Mi jardin (A Rose in My Garden)

OURSELVES INSIDE AND OUT
Shimere Etheridge: I Am a Female Skater
Shawntai Genell Brown: Horizontal Ups and Downs
Neftara O. Clark: The Child of Our Younger Years
Meredith King: Do the Feminist Thing
Rebecca Guest: Maui Year 2001
Cara H. Sandberg: I am cara
Monica Sanchez: Untitled
Samantha McKinney: Sex
Ka'imi Crowell: Mortality
Jacqueling Nwaiwu: I Chose Schooling
Leah Skjefte: God vs. Creator
Jolynne Gonzalez: Entry to Church
Cecilia Nguyen: Behind the Wheel
Camille Hoosman: Plan C
Anonymous: Untitled
Rubi Vaughn: Spirit Keeps Her

SHARING OUR SORROWS
Shatara Miller: Death of a Grandmother, Loss of a Friend
Christina Carrillo: The Death of a Loved One
Michelle Stevenson: Untitled
Ada Samuel: The Other Day
Naeesa Aziz: Steve Said . . .
Christina Chon: Untitled
Lisa Carter: Spring Breeze
Carlotta Smith: Love Taps
Tallish Bell: Being Deaf
Camiele D. Land: Lately
Yanica Ricketts: Depression
Shimere Etheridge: These Scars
Precious Angel: Unwanted
Anonymous: Untitled
Nicole Pickering: Reflection
Mary Standing Soldier: Nonsense
Sarah Cook: That Child
V. M.: Violence and Abuse
Mary Standing Soldier: And We Were Gone
Clarice Lewis: Pain Street

RECLAIMING OUR VOICES
Jasmin Kolu Zazaboi: Don't Forget the Stars
Shimere Etheridge: My Hair
Sandra Manzanares: Me
Alicia Rodrigo: Rhythmic Vibrations
Joycelyn Hubbard: Brown Skin
Melanie Medina: Girl Who
Leslie Neyland: The Girl I Knew
Neftara O. Clark: Essence of Life
Ebony L. Herron: Chasing Ebony
Diomara Chaparro: Untitled
Deymis Baquero: What Made Me Stronger
Candice J. Bingham: Untitled
Jeanette Asabere: Daughter of Africa
Sunny Rasmussen: Untitled
Candice Fleming: The Struggle: Black, Light-skinned, and Smart
Janelle Camille Cates: For So Long
Kristin Soong: Untitled

Acknowledgments

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About the Author(s)

Table of Contents

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