Skin Deep: Women Writing on Color, Culture, and Identity

by Elena Featherston (Editor), Maria Ramos-Chertok (Contributor)

This anthology contains 48 selections about being a woman of color in the United States.

The first section, "The Paradox of Color: Living in an 'Unsane' World," considers the emotional amputations as well as the spiritual powers that are derived from the woman's struggle to "be" in her skin. The second section, "On Becoming 'AdNormal': Finding, Creating, and Accepting Wellness," suggests ways of unlearning destructive behaviors and attitudes that affect people of color, and moving toward self-defined emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual health.

There is no homogeneity among women of color in the United States. The women represented in this collection are African, Asian, Sephardic Jew, Latina, Middle Eastern, Native Hawaiian, First Nation, and various mixtures. Some have never before been published; others are well-known to many. Their perceptions are presented to encourage women to be more accessible to each other. A 52-item reading list and a 51-item resource list are included.

Genres: Feminism

247 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1994

Reviews

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book. Please read it...it will open your eyes and might give more strength to the voice that you have.

[Elizabeth S. Q. Goodman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly an incredible collection of essays, poems, short quotes and stories. I do a lot of social justice reading yet I got something new out of nearly every single one of these, and having these women's voices all collected together is actually a healing and immersive experience.

I'm not the target audience, being a white feminist committed to keeping anti-racist work and consciousness a big part of my life in the USA, but I got a whole lot out of it. The many perspectives on colorism in particular gave me a much better sense of how to be sensitive to, supportive of and navigate around the traumas of friends and fellow activists of color, and a better sense of how I may have inadvertently been being helpful or hurtful. The perspectives on building solidarity, allyship, healing and how "activism" isn't a project but is about how you live your life, were mostly along the lines of thoughts I have been thinking about anyway but I needed others' words on.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important book that illustrates how white supremacy and heteropatriarchy have succeeded in divide and conquer women of the world. But it also becomes clear that we have so much more in common. It’s great to have many voices represented, though I wished it was slightly more worldly and slightly less US-centric.

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful anthology of diverse perspectives in feminist movement. Successfully delivers a message of Black, Indigenous, People of Color unity in the face of white supremacy. By reading all these lived experiences and deeply personal writings, we can understand the unique yet similar struggles we face.