Cherríe Moraga was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1952. She has lived
in Boston and New York, and currently makes her home in San Francisco.
Throughout her life she has been a social and political activist as well as a teacher
and writer. She currently teaches in the Departments of Drama and Spanish at
Stanford University and is a writer in residence at the Brava Theater Center, a
multicultural women's organization in San Francisco, California.

For the past three decades, Moraga has been an active contributor to
Latina cultural and literary production. This Bridge Called My Back: Radical
Writings by Women of Color ( 1981), coedited with Gloria Anzaldúa, and
Cuentos: Stories by Latinas ( 1983), coedited with Alma Gómez and Mari-
ana Romo-Carmona, are groundbreaking anthologies of Latina literature.
In her autobiography, Loving in the War Years ( 1983), Moraga affirms her
Chicana lesbianism through prose and poetry. In the play Giving Up the
Ghost ( 1986), Moraga presents a philosophy that prevails throughout her
works: she is "making, familia from scratch," redefining the traditional con-
cept of Family to an extended community. Her plays Shadow of a Man
( 1990), Heroes and Saints ( 1992), and Watsonville ( 1996)have received
awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Fund for New
American Plays.

In the collection of essays and poems The Last Generation ( 1993), Moraga

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