All the Women in My Family Sing

Harvard Book Store and Mass Humanities welcome DEBORAH SANTANA, JENNIFER DE LEON, LISA A. JONES, FABIANA MONTEIRO, and DEBORAH L. PLUMMER for a discussion of All the Women in My Family Sing: Women Write the World: Essays on Equality, Justice, and Freedom.

Santana is an author, seeker, and activist for peace and social justice; the founder of Do A Little; and the editor of All the Women in My Family Sing. De Leon is the editor of Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education as well as a freelance writer, editor, consultant, and creative writing instructor at Emerson College and GrubStreet. Jones is a former network news producer and award-winning television documentarian who is writing a memoir about her decade-long journey successfully tackling her young son’s life-threatening illness. Monteiro is twenty years old, passionate about knowing people’s stories, and dreams of going to university and becoming a writer. Plummer, Ph.D., is a psychologist, university professor, chief diversity officer, the editor of the Handbook of Diversity Management, and the author of Racing Across the Lines: Changing Race Relations through Friendship.

About All the Women in My Family Sing

All the Women in My Family Sing is an anthology documenting the experiences of women of color at the dawn of the twenty-first century. It is a vital collection of prose and poetry whose topics range from the pressures of being the vice-president of a Fortune 500 Company to escaping the killing fields of Cambodia, to the struggles inside immigration, identity, romance, and self-worth. These brief, trenchant essays capture the aspirations and wisdom of women of color as they exercise autonomy, creativity, and dignity and build bridges to heal the brokenness in today’s turbulent world. 

Sixty-nine authors―African American, Asian American, Chicana, Native American, Cameroonian, South African, Korean, LGBTQI―lend their voices to broaden cross-cultural understanding and to build bridges to each other’s histories and daily experiences of life. America Ferrera’s essay is from her powerful speech at the Women’s March in Washington D.C.; Natalie Baszile writes about her travels to Louisiana to research Queen Sugar and finding the “painful truths” her father experienced in the “belly of segregation;” Porochista Khakpour tells us what it is like to fly across America under the Muslim travel ban; Lalita Tademy writes about her transition from top executive at Sun Microsystems to NY Times bestselling author. 

This anthology is monumental and timely as human rights and justice are being challenged around the world. It is a watershed title, not only written, but produced entirely by women of color, including the publishing, editing, process management, book cover design, and promotions. Our vision is to empower underrepresented voices and to impact the world of publishing in America―particularly important in a time when 80% of people who work in publishing self-identify as white (as found recently in a study by Lee & Low Books and reported on NPR).

Praise

"These perfectly chosen Women Words are a healing gift from new sistahs, now my family, for whom I will fight, with whom I will stand, and because of whom—I will build." —Alfre Woodard

"A song of freedom: that’s what you hear as you read All the Women in My Family Sing, an anthology of essays by women of color. Sometimes the songs are heavy with loss, or staccato with righteous anger, or lilting with love. From Samina Ali’s tale of re-building her life after medical incompetence left her both a new mother and disabled to Camille Hayes’ story of challenging racial constructs over the years, we see women who fight passionately and gracefully for autonomy and self-definition. Some of them are new voices, others literary or socio-political lions like Marian Wright Edelman. But in all these fierce and anthemic pieces we see the true face of womanhood, in all its colors." —Farai Chideya

"All the Women in My Family Sing is a bold, evocative anthology that cannot be read without engaging your full heart. The essays about identity, family, love, acceptance, and fear are a testament to the times, unrelenting in their examination of personal and global pain. There's triumph here and the resilience specific to the female spirit." —Nichelle Tramble Spellman