A Doctored Voice

Abstract

This chapter narrates how familial, social, and educational institutions have doctored the author’s Latina voice. Using autocritography, the author charts how engagements of feminism by cultural theorists Gloria Anzaldúa, Audre Lorde, Cherríe Moraga, Chela Sandoval, and Alice Walker helped her deconstruct and respond to multiple forms of racism: personal, institutional, and intra-ethnic. The essay describes the author’s miseducation: a fraught process of being strategically silent and vocal within academic spaces. Closing with a reflection on the role of womanism in her education, the essayist describes pedagogical practices that help students understand how their voices have been doctored and how they can rewrite the narratives defining their belonging.