This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

“Here, we introduce you to the ‘color problem’ as it was first introduced to us: ‘not white enuf, not dark enuf,’ always up against a color chart that first got erected far outside our familiar and our neighborhoods, but which invaded them both with systematic determination.”

This quote from the introduction of the first section of This Bridge succinctly describes a key element of being a woman of color described in the first section: the contradictions within oppression, where a woman of color experiences oppression from outside of her community, but also within that community and within herself. The issue of internalized oppression, where a person takes in the messages they are receiving from privileged groups about their lesser value as people, is realized differently in different Third World groups, but it maintains the status quo that “white is right.” One may be praised for being lighter skinned, for example, but also resented for the privilege of coming across as closer to white. Simultaneously, even if a person of color passes for white, they are still experiencing oppression if they are not white.

“When I was growing up, I hungered / for American food, American styles, / coded: white and even to be, a child / born of Chinese, being Chinese / was feeling foreign, was limiting, / was unAmerican.”

This quote from “When I Was Growing Up” by Nellie Wong points out the equivalence that was created in mainstream white American culture that to be American meant to be white, and how this was internalized by not only immigrant communities, but for generations on.