a passage apparently from her diary. which shows us her radical lesbian feminism:
During the long difficult night that sent my lover and I to separate beds, I dreamed of church and cunt. . . . The suffering and the thick musty mysticism of the catholic church fused with the sensation of entering the vagina . . . dark, rica, full-bodied. The heavy sensation of complexity. . . . I long to enter you like a temple (Moraga 90).
It is a shock to then immediately read this bold woman's confession that she is still bound to some degree by the traditional patriarchal social system which in the Mexican culture has the females serving as waitresses and maids for the males in the family. She still feels some obligation to continue in that role despite the fact that it has been a source of great trauma in her life, making her feel inferior to males and full of rage at that position.
Moraga says that if she were asked earlier in life what being a Chicana means, "I would probably have listed the grievances done me." She says that she and her sister waited on their brother, and then adds that
To this day in my mother's home, my brother and father are waited on, including by me. I do this now out of respect for my mother and her wishes. . . . I wanted to machine-gun [her brother and all his friends] down, but swallowed that fantasy as I swallowed making the boy's bed every day, cleaning his room each week, shining his shoes and ironing his shirts before dates with girls, some of whom I had crushes on (Moraga 92).
Another conflict and trauma which has defined Moraga is the fact that she is not a full Mexican, but is half-white, a fact which puts her in between the two cultures. This bi-cultural reality has been a trauma for her because it has denied her the full Mexican-ness she desires, and because she is in part rejected by both cultures. In this context, Moraga writes of being seen as something of an alien by people from both ...