Summary

In “Introduction,” the author introduces her reasons for writing the text. She wants her book to be “a map” that can “lead to many destinations” (1). Because knowledge is controlled by gatekeepers, she wants to make knowledge accessible.

Rodríguez explains her reasons for utilizing “the word Latinx” and for not italicizing Spanish words (2). She is writing for BIWOC, and not “for white people” (3). She is writing in her own words, about her own experiences. She is embracing feminism and womanism, which she learned from Alice Walker. Rodríguez is writing a text she “could have used” (5). She wants readers to use the book however they choose. She believes it has “the ability to set [people] free” (6). Freedom, she asserts, is “a communal journey” (8).

In Chapter 1, “Voluntourism,” Rodríguez describes her childhood in Nicaragua. When she was young, she was treated by white...