I have also been called and labeled "crazy" for daring to break stereotypes and taboos-for questioning white women on their racism. - Luz María Umpierre

I want to suggest to the readers that taboos are not something foreign to "intellectuals" reading this piece or attending the MLA. On the contrary, the taboos within academia are probably more harmful to Lesbian women than those associated with mountaineer men in Kentucky or low class white "Americans."

When I read, for the first time my collection The Margarita Poems (at rutgers university)...a young Latino male, as soon as I read my poem, "Immanence," stood up and left the room, only to go and see the Dean the next morning to ask him "How could the university have allowed an open Lesbian poem to be read within its confines?" The organizer of the conference, a remarkable white woman, had the perfect answer for the Dean: "The university is the place where one loses one's virginity and I guess that young man lost his yesterday."

The collection is also a question: who is Margarita? Margarita is an intoxicating drink, a flower back home in Puerto Rico, the title of a traditional "danza" that was a favorite of my mother and the name of a woman I love. Margarita is all of these and none. Margarita is my muse, Margarita is my poetry, Margarita is my imaginary lover, Margarita is my Self. And as you read these you may ask yourself: who is Julia? Julia de Burgos is our greatest woman poet in Puerto Rico, Julia is a teacher, Julia is an idol, Julia is a friend. But Julia is, most of all, Margarita. We are all Margaritas and have a Julia within. In writing about Margarita and Julia, I received a sign in the fall of 1986 that these poems were complete and ready to emerge. I met two women poets who have these names and who have had an impact in my life: Margaret Randall and Julia Álvarez.