Okay, I'm still thinking about that novel I read on Friday, and started looking around at various things on identity politics (for lack of a better phrase) on the web. I was looking in particular for some things Cherrie Moraga wrote, since the author of the novel opened almost every chapter with a quote from her. I stole this excerpt from queertheory.com who actually stole it from Susana's website (the web can be an amazingly small place, or maybe there's only, like, six people actually writing anything important down, so you run across them over and over again). Anyway, I thought this passage was kind of interesting.

Cherrie Moraga, "La Güera" (1983, 2000)

"In this country, lesbianism is a poverty--as is being brown, as is being a woman, as is being just plain poor. The danger lies in ranking the oppressions. The danger lies in failing to acknowledge the specificity of the oppression. The danger lies in attempting to deal with oppression purely from a theoretical base. Without an emotional, heartfelt grappling with the source of our own oppression, without naming the enemy within ourselves and outside of us, no authentic, non-hierarchical connection among oppressed groups can take place." (Moraga, 44-45)

From Cherrie Moraga, Loving in the War Years/lo que nunca paso por sus labios Boston: South End Press, Expanded Edition, 2000 (original date of publication, 1983).