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Imagine a Brown Queer: Inscribing Sexuality in Chicano/a-Latino/a Literary and Cultural Studies

In her 1993 essay "Imagine a Lesbian, a Black Lesbian," writer-activist Jewelle Gomez queries the infrequency of African American lesbian representation in the "literary arena." Gomez maintains as does Barbara Smith before her in the pathbreaking 1977 essay "Toward a Black Feminist Criticism" that literary culture plays a critical role for verifying black lesbian existence. For Smith, "Black women are still in a position to 'imagine/ discover, and verify Black lesbian literature because so little has been written from an avowedly lesbian perspective. The near nonexistence of Black lesbian literature [which other Black lesbians and I do deeply feel] has everything to do with the politics of our lives, the total suppression of identity that all Black women, lesbian or not, must face."1 More than a decade and a half later, however, Gomez finds herself reiterating Smiths urgent declaration, foregrounding her predecessors words so that they serve as the epigraph for her essay and the motivating force behind its title.