Luz María Umpierre on Audre Lorde

“Who am I today is a composite of many aspects; I am a Puerto Rican woman, I am also a lesbian, a woman of color, and a human rights advocate. Excluding one identity in lieu of the other does not tell the whole story. After I met the poet Audre Lorde I realized I had to embrace all this in order to have a holistic view. Audre said: "you can only empower yourself when you join all the parts of your own Self." So I had to join all the pieces of the puzzle so it could be read.”

“I had long ago found courage in Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider when she says: “I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as a meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self. But this is a destructive and fragmenting way to live. My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without the restrictions of externally imposed definition. Only then can I bring myself and my energies as a whole to the service of those struggles which I embrace as part of my living"”