I Used to be a Superwoman

Book excerpt: The Chicano Movement is not dead. It lives on, fierce and passionate, in the voice and person of Gloria Velàsquez. Challenging our complacency, her resonant cries for justice ñrefuse to be silent/to be buried in obscurityî. Velàsquez has known poverty and discrimination intimately and, like a phoenix from the ashes, she has risen to recognition as an artist, an educator and a leader. But, the poet is as uncompromising with herself as she is with her reader. Refusing to rest on her laurel, her ardent verses are a pledge reiterating her allegiance to la causa and a call to arms demanding that others perpetuate the struggle. A consummate oral performer and speaker, Velàsquez has been uniquely successful in transferring onto the printed page the drama of reciting poetry on barrio streets. These pages burn with the fire of action and commitment.