Crossing Borders Through Folklore By Alma Jean Bilingslea Brown

In Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” and her essay “How It Feels to Be the Colored Me,” illustrates how women are marginalized and treated, but had these texts been written at a different time, place, language, or to a different audience, it would differ.

The Unites States is a true melting pot of ethnicities and cultures. For many members of minority groups a certain hybridity is readily adopted, but for others, cultural assimilation can be quite difficult. Chicana author, Sandra Cisneros described this phenomenon as “always straddling two countries… but not belonging to either culture” (Doyle. 54). African American author, Alice Walker shared Cisneros’ sentiment, but focused her attention on the assimilation of black cultures and subcultures within the United States. Cisneros and Walker make the same poignant statement about the strains of cultural assimilation, with reconciliation of split identities as the goal, in their respective works, 1991’s “Woman Hollering Creek,” and 1973’s “Everyday Use,” yet their unique ethnic perspectives allow them to make it in surprisingly different ways.

     Community is an important concern in both black and women's literature. The racist and patriarchal nature of American society, what Morrison refers to as the master narrative of our culture, places blacks and women and especially black women in a position of powerlessness and vulnerability. Communities serve as a protective buffer within which black women must function in order to survive. However both Hurston and Morrison identify and criticize how the patriarchal nature of the master narrative is present in black communities. The male-female hierarchy in the black community mirrors not only the patriarchy of the dominant white culture, but also the white-black

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

Throughout history, the black woman has always had a multitude of responsibilities thrust upon her shoulders. This was never truer than for southern black women in the period between 1865 and 1885. In this span of twenty years, these women were responsible for their children, their husbands, supporting their families, their fight for freedom as black citizens and as women, their sexual freedom, and various other issues that impacted their lives. All of these aspects of the black woman’s life defined who she was. Each of her experiences and battles shaped the life that she lived, and the way she was perceived by the outside world.

Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, Passing, is the story of two African American women, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, living in New York in the 1920’s. However, the two women are African American by ancestry rather than outward appearance because both possess light enough skin to be able to pass for white. African Americans passing as white was a common occurrence in post-Civil War America. Passing concerns itself with themes of identity, race, belonging, and oppression, yet Larsen muddles the conventional ideas of identity. Skin color is no longer an accurate measure of race, thus the concept of American space acting as a defining aspect of race and identity is central to this novel. Although this novel is fictitious, a close reading of Passing illuminates the cultural normatives of 1920’s America and disproves common misnomers about life for African Americans during this time. Furthermore, when focusing specifically on Larsen’s treatment of American space in the novel it becomes clear that there was no true place refuge for African Americans living in the United States during this time, not even one’s own home.

In her book “After Mecca: Women, Poets and the Black Arts Movement”, Cheryl Clarke asserts that conceptual “blackness” is inseparable from gender and sexuality. However, despite of this stance, most academic discourse about “blackness,” as a concept, ignores these intersections. In my opinion, this is because Black male authors, arguably the center of the Black canon, frequently erase Black female experiences. Unless a woman is writing or editing a piece, the experiences and sexualities of Black women are rendered invisible. Therefore, in this essay, I hope to explore how due to not being double jeopardized by both sex and sexuality, cisgendered, heterosexual Black male identifying authors often completely dismiss opportunities to complicate their writings with the intersections of gender and sexuality. In addition, I aim to confirm that those most adept at discussing the gendered and sexual dynamics of Blackness are Black women.

What Jessica’s discovers about her German-American immigrant ancestors is relevant to her growth as a teacher and a person, they expand her one-sided view on being white, and being a teacher to Mexican-American students. As Jessica became more comfortable with her ancestors she became to discuss them more in social aspects, “‘I was just struck by how easy it was for him to get so many acres from the government back then.” “Well it probably wasn’t easy,” she stammered. “I mean, he had to came all the way from Germany, […] “It was easier for him than it was for my people,” Vic said earnestly, unfazed by Jessica’s sudden discomfort, “without even going into a comparison of how your people and my people got across the Atlantic. You said your ancestors

Tera Hunter’s “To ‘Joy My Freedom” exclusively tells the lives of newly emancipated Southern Black women. By taking on this perspective of history, it

Sojourner Truth encapsulates how the intersectionality of contracts interact to create a distinctive form of subordination for black women before the civil war. Black women are not seen exclusively through the lense of either the sexual or racial contract, but rather through an intersecting contract defined by the racial patriarchy. Sojourner Truth repeatedly asks “And ain’t I a women?” to emphasize her distinct inferior position in society in comparison to white women. Black women have a must deal with the duality of being labeled as irrational, as women are, and less human as black people are.

Jacobs autobiography which is known by the name of ‘Incidents in a Life of a Slave Girl’ gave a true account of the treatment that black women faced during that time and also throwing some light on a perception which has been kept in shadows from the society. While writing the story of her life, Jacobs though focused on her defeat due to obstacles like race and gender, gave voice to something which was hidden from society regardless of the presence of patriarchal society of the nineteenth century.

“I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul….I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal….No, I do not weep at the world--I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife” (“Zora Neale Hurston,” 2009). One woman wrote stories focused on the lives and relationships of black people within their communities. In many of Zora Neale Hurston’s written works, she incorporated her beliefs, race, culture, and personal experiences. Hurston included feminism as well as pride of her race in her literary works to combat issues such as sexism and racism.

African American women from the history has been discriminated and separated from white women. Talking about the racism in the United State, Collins says, “ life for African American women and men can be compared to being in prison” (pg. 115). Since the end of the Civil War era, African American communities have been geographically segregated from

By doing so, she feels a sense of betraying her white heritage and her mother. Physically, she succeeds in passing as black, but she realizes that “it wasn’t merely a matter of color. It was something broader, deeper, that made folk kin” ( Larsen, P.55). Her mental inability to get connected with her people drives her to a place where there are no “Negroes, no problems, no prejudice” ( Larsen, P.55). The recognition with the self offers the first step to one’s subjectivity.

Among one of the principles of Afrocentricity, a driving concept behind African American Studies, is the portrayal of Africans not just as victims, but as agents of their own history, which is reflected in Celie’s decision to take control of her life rather than suffer in silence. Since she was fourteen, Celie had been physically and sexually abused by her father, and later was forced to suffer the same treatment upon marrying her husband dubbed as Mr. _____. When urged by her daughter-in-law, Sofia, to fight back against