About Gloria Anzaldua
Gloria Anzaldua was a Chicana scholar that focused her work on cultural theory, queer theory, and feminist theory. The Borderlands: Growing up Mestiza is one of Gloria's most influential pieces of work in which she focuses on her biracial identity, and also how her experiences of cultural marginalization shaped her identity while growing up in the Mexican/Texan border.
Dominant Coming out Stories
Being 'out' extends beyond assumptions of pride in expressing sexuality, but also includes complex resistance strategies combatting singular identity politics. The resistance to declare that one is 'out of the closet' hinged on an array of political decisions. For example, being out as a lesbian privileges certain identities such as sexuality, over others, such as being a working class, undocumented person of color. The resistance to be categorized in terms of singular positionally is a resistance to mainstream white conceptions of queerness.
Ethnosenxual Frontiers
Ethnicity and sexuality are strained, ethnic boundaries are also sexual boundaries-erotic intersections where people make intimate connections across ethnic, racial, and national borders. The borderlands that lie at the intersections of ethnic boundaries are
"ethnosensual frontiers" that are surveilled and supervised patrolled and policed, regulated and restricted.
The Borderlands
To live in the Borderlands means you
are neither hispana india negra espanola
ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed
caught in the crossfire between camps
while carrying all five races on your back
not knowing which side to turn to, run from;
To live in the Borderlands means knowing
that the india in you, betrayed for 500 years,
is no longer speaking to you,
that mexicanas call you rajetas,
that denying the Anglo inside you
is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black;
Cuando vives en la frontera
people walk through you, the wind steals your voice,
you're a burra, buey, scapegoat,
forerunner of a new race,
half and half - both woman and man, neither -
a new gender;
To live in the Borderlands means to
put chile in the borscht,
eat whole wheat tortillas,
speak tex-mex with a brooklyn accent;
be stopped by la migra at the border checkpoints;
Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to
resist the gold elixir beckoning from the bottle,
the pull of the gun barrel,
the rope crushing the hollow of your throat;
In the Borderlands
you are the battleground
where enemies are kin to each other;
you are at home, a stranger,
the border disputes have been settled
the volley of shots have shattered the truce
you are wounded, lost in action
dead, fighting back;
To live in the Borderlands means
the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off
your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart
pound you pinch you roll you out
smelling like white bread but dead;
To survive the Borderlands
you must live sin fronteras
be a crossroads.
Gloria Anzaldua was a Chicana scholar that focused her work on cultural theory, queer theory, and feminist theory. The Borderlands: Growing up Mestiza is one of Gloria's most influential pieces of work in which she focuses on her biracial identity, and also how her experiences of cultural marginalization shaped her identity while growing up in the Mexican/Texan border.
Dominant Coming out Stories
Being 'out' extends beyond assumptions of pride in expressing sexuality, but also includes complex resistance strategies combatting singular identity politics. The resistance to declare that one is 'out of the closet' hinged on an array of political decisions. For example, being out as a lesbian privileges certain identities such as sexuality, over others, such as being a working class, undocumented person of color. The resistance to be categorized in terms of singular positionally is a resistance to mainstream white conceptions of queerness.
Ethnosenxual Frontiers
Ethnicity and sexuality are strained, ethnic boundaries are also sexual boundaries-erotic intersections where people make intimate connections across ethnic, racial, and national borders. The borderlands that lie at the intersections of ethnic boundaries are
"ethnosensual frontiers" that are surveilled and supervised patrolled and policed, regulated and restricted.
The Borderlands
To live in the Borderlands means you
are neither hispana india negra espanola
ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed
caught in the crossfire between camps
while carrying all five races on your back
not knowing which side to turn to, run from;
To live in the Borderlands means knowing
that the india in you, betrayed for 500 years,
is no longer speaking to you,
that mexicanas call you rajetas,
that denying the Anglo inside you
is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black;
Cuando vives en la frontera
people walk through you, the wind steals your voice,
you're a burra, buey, scapegoat,
forerunner of a new race,
half and half - both woman and man, neither -
a new gender;
To live in the Borderlands means to
put chile in the borscht,
eat whole wheat tortillas,
speak tex-mex with a brooklyn accent;
be stopped by la migra at the border checkpoints;
Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to
resist the gold elixir beckoning from the bottle,
the pull of the gun barrel,
the rope crushing the hollow of your throat;
In the Borderlands
you are the battleground
where enemies are kin to each other;
you are at home, a stranger,
the border disputes have been settled
the volley of shots have shattered the truce
you are wounded, lost in action
dead, fighting back;
To live in the Borderlands means
the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off
your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart
pound you pinch you roll you out
smelling like white bread but dead;
To survive the Borderlands
you must live sin fronteras
be a crossroads.