Welcome to the website for Women, Gender, and Families of Color (WGFC). We are pleased to announce the release of our inaugural volume, Number 1 (Spring 2013) and Number 2 (Fall 2013)! The volume is the first of a new multidisciplinary journal that replaces and expands the mission of Black, Women, Gender, and Families (University of Illinois Press 2006-2012). It begins at a time when rapidly changing demographics and recent economic crises are creating new and troubling challenges for domestic and global places, peoples, and institutions across racial, ethnic, and national boundaries. Nowhere are these new circumstances felt more acutely in the U.S. than among Black, Latina/o, Indigenous, and Asian American women, men, families, and communities. Many within these populations persistently maintain institutions and lead cultural, social, and political change. Simultaneously, racialized women and children, especially, in the U.S. and abroad have historically lived the brunt of austerity measures, crumbling infrastructures, rising costs of education, wealth inequality, and persistent inequities of gender, sexuality and class. As an African American mother and family scholar, I am keenly aware of the meaning city budget cuts, rising food and fuel costs, and employer layoffs, for example, have on the health and development of children, the capacity of parents to provide for their families, and the ability of workers to sustain meaningful employment. Black, Latina/o, Indigenous, and Asian American women, families, and their varied communities serve as a national and global bellwether for our future. Their past and contemporary realities evidence the often conflicting domestic priorities and values that undergird social and economic policies. WGFC offers a necessary intervention. It provides a cross-field venue that centers these populations and encourages all to take seriously their social, cultural, political, and economic significance.
WGFC Editorial Board members represent the increasing number of diverse scholars who lead and actively engage in subject matter relevant to the themes of the journal. I hope that you will consider WGFC as a home for your scholarship and, in so doing, engage not only your respective academic fields but also the communities and peoples for whom our scholarship most matter.
I look forward to working with you.
Best,
Modified excerpt, “From the Editor,” Women, Gender, and Families of Color, Volume 1/Number 1, Spring 2013