Makeda Silvera -- Writer
Author photo by Scream In High Park © 1997
"I don't think at this
point I can write a fairy tale or write from the point of view
of the majority. I still must write from the point of view of
the outsider." -- Makeda Silvera
Makeda co-founded (with Stephanie Martin)
Sister Vision: Black Women and Women of Colour Press in
1985, the first press for women of colour in Canada, where she
works as managing editor. Silvera is a writer, scholar, editor,
community activist, and mother. She was born in Kingston,
Jamaica, and immigrated to Toronto, Canada in 1967. Silvera has
been at the forefront of developing and publishing writing by
women of color for over 12 years. She is the editor of Piece
of My Heart, an anthology of writings by lesbians of colour.
Her own books include Silenced, a collection of oral
histories of Caribbean domestic workers in Canada; Growing Up
Black, a resource guide for youth; Remembering G and
Other Stories; and Her Head: a Village (1994, Press
Gang). Her writing, often written in dialect, speaks powerfully
of what it means to be Black, working class, lesbian, immigrant
-- "other."
Writing has always been a major interest for
Silvera. She began in journalism, working with Toronto's
Contrast and Share community newspapers, and was an
editorial collective member of Fireweed, a feminist
quarterly. Her stories, articles and essays have appeared in
numerous journals. Since the 1970s she has worked with and
followed closely the situation of Caribbean domestic workers in
Canada.
Silvera identifies herself clearly as a Black lesbian feminist
from a working class immigrant background. This experience, she
said, combined with her love of words, led her to activism
through writing.
As a child growing up in Jamaica in the 1960s,
Silvera "didn't know anything about racism." Coming to
Canada at the age of 12 was, for her, a "rude awakening."
Facing "coldness" and racism in the classroom, she coped
by burying herself in books. However, she found no reflection of
herself or her experience in the books, television programmes or
classes available to her. Silvera stated that she became
involved with writing as activism when, while working as a
journalist for a Black community newspaper in the early 1980s,
she was assigned to cover controversy over the move to deport
large numbers of Caribbean domestic workers from Canada. She
investigated the agreements between the Canadian and various
Caribbean governments, covered the protests and listened to the
stories of some of the workers. However, she was soon taken off
the story because the editors felt that her reporting showed too
much of a bias.
Her
interest piqued, Silvera did not abandon the story. She
continued to interview domestic workers and worked with them to
edit their oral histories. From there came her first book,
Silenced: Talks with Working Class Caribbean Women about
their Lives and Struggles as Domestic Workers in Canada. Until
that point, books on domestic workers were written by academics,
said Silvera, and did not include the voices of the women
themselves. The difficulties she encountered trying to get the
book published led Silvera and her partner, Stephanie Martin, to
start a press on their own, despite their lack of experience
with the publishing business. This was the beginning of
Sister Vision: Black Women and Women of Colour Press. At the
time, there were virtually no books published by people of
colour in Canada.
Sister Vision sought to create a place
for writers such as Silvera's friend Dionne Brand, who recently
won a Governor General's award for her writing. Despite its
groundbreaking work, the press is currently facing financial
difficulties due to cuts in funding from Canada Council and the
Ontario Arts Council, and only five books a year are currently
being published. "People don't like artists," said
Silvera. The government definitely has an agenda to silence
oppositional voices, she continued. "It's going to be harder
and harder to get funding."
Toronto's Sister Vision: Black Women and
Women of Colour Press was co-founded in 1985 by Makeda
Silvera and Stephanie Martin. The press was born of the faith
and enthusiasm these two woman from Jamaica ("sistahs") had for
their "vision" of publishing innovative, challenging and
provocative works by Canadian women of colour.
Having been a writer herself in the 70s and
80s, Silvera had experienced first-hand a resistance by both
mainstream and alternative publishers to take the risk of
publishing her book entitled Silenced, stating that the
language was not easily understood. Determined to facilitate
putting into print the words of women like themselves, Silvera
and Martin set about founding their own press.
Despite tremendous obstacles including limited
funds (Sister Vision started out of a cardboard filing box),
lack of awareness in society about the place for publishers of
books by women of colour, and reluctance and fear among the
black literary community in supporting a press run by a lesbian
couple, Silvera and Martin managed to sustain the energy,
commitment and fervour required to keep their vision alive. To
date, Sister Vision's more than 50 publications have
given a voice to Caribbean, Asian, First Nations, African and
mixed-race women on many themes and issues including those which
have traditionally been silenced such as lesbianism, bisexualism
and oppression.
Martin and Silvera list as some of their
successes the many anthologies they have published which have
provided space to a large cross-section of women who might
otherwise never have been in print. Their book Piece of my heart
: a lesbian of colour anthology was a finalist in the American
Library Association [Gay and Lesbian Book Award], the gay
category. Also, The very inside : an anthology of writings by
Asian and Pacific Island lesbians and bisexual women was
nominated for a prestigious American book award.
As their press has matured, their vision has
been given renewed energy through collaborative work with
feminist women's organizations in the Caribbean, Britain,
Southern Africa, India and other countries as well as in North
America. One such collaborative effort with CAFRA (Caribbean
Association for Feminist Research and Action) of Trinidad and
Tobago resulted in the publishing of Creation fire : a CAFRA
anthology of Caribbean women poets (1990). This book brought the
poetry of Caribbean women in the Caribbean and the Diaspora
together and included all the languages of the Caribbean ¾
English, French, Creole, Papiemento, Dutch, Spanish and others.
In 13 years, Makeda Silvera and Stephanie
Martin have built a strong and vibrant community of women of
colour writers, and Sister Vision Press represents a new and
forceful voice in publishing which will ensure that their words
are sustained.
Selected Publications of Sister
Vision Press
™
