Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (September 26, 1942 – May 15, 2004) was an American scholar of
Chicana feminism,
cultural theory, and
queer theory
Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies (formerly often known as gay and lesbian studies) and women's studies. The term "queer theory" is broadly associated with the study a ...
. She loosely based her best-known book, ''
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza'' (1987), on her life growing up on the
Mexico–Texas border and incorporated her lifelong experiences of social and cultural
marginalization
Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. In the EU context, the Euro ...
into her work. She also developed theories about the marginal, in-between, and mixed cultures that develop along borders, including on the concepts of
Nepantla,
Coyoxaulqui imperative,
new tribalism, and
spiritual activism.
Her other notable publications include ''
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color'' (1981), co-edited with
Cherríe Moraga.
Early life and education
Anzaldúa was born in the
Rio Grande Valley of south
Texas
Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
on September 26, 1942, the eldest of four children born to Urbano and Amalia ( García) Anzaldúa. Her great-grandfather, Urbano Sr., once a precinct
judge
A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...
in
Hidalgo County, was the first owner of the Jesús María Ranch on which she was born. Her mother grew up on an adjoining ranch, Los Vergeles ("the gardens"), which was owned by her family, and she met and married Urbano Anzaldúa when both were very young. Anzaldúa was a descendant of Spanish settlers to come to the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries. The surname Anzaldúa is of
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
origin. Her paternal grandmother was of
Spanish and
German ancestry, descending from some of the earliest settlers of the South Texas range country. She has described her father's family as being "very poor
aristocracy
Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats.
Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense Economy, economic, Politics, political, and soc ...
, but aristocracy anyway" and her mother as "very india, working class, with maybe some black blood which is always looked down on in the valley where I come from."
Anzaldúa wrote that her family gradually lost their wealth and status over the years, eventually being reduced to
poverty
Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...
and being forced into
migrant labor, something her family resented because "
work in the fields is the lowest job, and to be a migrant worker is even lower." Her father was a
tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is a farmer or farmworker who resides and works on land owned by a landlord, while tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and ma ...
and
sharecropper who kept 60% of what he earned, while 40% went to a white-owned corporation called Rio Farms, Inc. Anzaldúa claimed that her family lost their land due to a combination of both "
tax
A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax co ...
es and dirty manipulation" from white people who were buying up land in South Texas through "trickery" and from the behavior of her "very irresponsible grandfather", who lost "a lot of land and money through carelessness". Anzaldúa was left with an inheritance of "a little piece" of 12 acres, which she deeded over to her mother Amalia. Her maternal grandmother Ramona Dávila had amassed
land grant
A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...
s from the time Texas was part of Mexico, but the land was lost due to "carelessness, through white peoples' greed, and my grandmother not knowing English".
Anzaldúa wrote that she did not call herself an "india", but still claimed
Indigenous ancestry. In "Speaking across the Divide", from ''The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Reader'', she states that her white/
mestiza grandmother described her as "pura indita" due to dark spots on her buttocks. Later, Anzaldúa wrote that she "recognized myself in the faces of the braceros that worked for my father. Los braceros were mostly indios from central Mexico who came to work the fields in south Texas. I recognized the Indian aspect of mexicanos by the stories my grandmothers told and by the foods we ate." Despite her family not identifying as Mexican, Anzaldúa believed that "we were still Mexican and that all Mexicans are part Indian." Although Anzaldúa has been criticized by Indigenous scholars for allegedly appropriating Indigenous identity, Anzaldúa claimed that her Indigenous critics had "misread or ... not read enough of my work." Despite claiming to be "three quarters Indian", she also wrote that she was afraid she was "violating Indian cultural boundaries" and afraid that her theories could "unwittingly contribute to the misappropriation of Native cultures" and of "people who live in real Indian bodies." She wrote that while worried that "mestizaje and a new tribalism" could "detribalize" Indigenous peoples, she believed the dialogue was imperative "no matter how risky." Writing about the "Color of Violence" conference organized by
Andrea Smith in Santa Cruz, Anzaldúa accused Native American women of engaging in "a lot of finger pointing" because they had argued that non-Indigenous Chicanas' use of Indigenous identity is a "continuation of the abuse of native spirituality and the Internet appropriation of Indian symbols, rituals, vision quests, and spiritual healing practices like shamanism."
When she was 11 years old, Anzaldúa's family relocated to
Hargill, Texas.
She graduated as valedictorian of
Edinburg High School in 1962.
She managed to pursue a university education, despite the
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
,
sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to gender roles and stereotypes, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is int ...
and other forms of
oppression
Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment of, or exercise of power over, a group of individuals, often in the form of governmental authority. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced.
No universally accepted model ...
she experienced as a seventh-generation
Tejana and
Chicana. In 1968, she received a
B.A. degree in English, Art, and Secondary Education from
University of Texas–Pan American, and an M.A. in English and Education from the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...
. While in Austin, she joined politically active cultural
poets
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
and
radical dramatists such as Ricardo Sanchez, and
Hedwig Gorski.
Career and major works
After obtaining a
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
in
English from the Pan American University (now
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), Anzaldúa worked as a preschool and special education teacher. In 1977, she moved to California, where she supported herself through her writing, lectures, and occasional teaching stints about feminism, Chicano studies, and creative writing at
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...
, the
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...
,
Florida Atlantic University
Florida Atlantic University (Florida Atlantic or FAU) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus in Boca Raton, Florida, United States. The university is a member of the State University System of Florida and has s ...
, and other universities.
She is perhaps best known for co-editing ''
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color'' (1981) with
Cherríe Moraga, editing ''Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color'' (1990), and co-editing ''This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation'' (2002). Anzaldúa also wrote the semi-autobiographical ''
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza'' (1987). At the time of her death, she was close to completing the book manuscript, ''Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality'', which she also planned to submit as her dissertation. It has now been published posthumously by
Duke University Press
Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
(2015). Her children's books include ''Prietita Has a Friend'' (1991), ''Friends from the Other Side – Amigos del Otro Lado'' (1993), and ''Prietita y La Llorona'' (1996). She also authored many fictional and poetic works.
She made contributions to fields of
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
, cultural theory/
Chicana, and
queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...
theory. Her essays are considered foundational texts in the burgeoning field of
Latinx philosophy.
Anzaldúa wrote a speech called "Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers", focusing on the shift towards an equal and just gender representation in literature but away from racial and cultural issues because of the rise of female writers and theorists. She also stressed in her essay the power of writing to create a world that would compensate for what the real world does not offer.
''This Bridge Called My Back''
Anzaldúa's essay '"La Prieta" deals with her manifestation of thoughts and horrors that have constituted her life in Texas. Anzaldúa identifies herself as an entity without a figurative home and/or peoples to completely relate to. To supplement this deficiency, Anzaldúa created her own sanctuary, Mundo Zurdo, whereby her personality transcends the norm-based lines of relating to a certain group. Instead, in her Mundo Zurdo, she is like a "
Shiva
Shiva (; , ), also known as Mahadeva (; , , Help:IPA/Sanskrit, ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐh and Hara, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the God in Hinduism, Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions w ...
, a many-armed and legged body with one foot on brown soil, one on white, one in straight society, one in the gay world, the man's world, the women's, one limb in the literary world, another in the working class, the
socialist
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
, and the
occult
The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...
worlds". The passage describes the identity battles which the author had to engage in throughout her life. Since early childhood, Anzaldúa has had to deal with the challenge of being a woman of color. From the beginnings she was exposed to her own people, to her own family's racism and "fear of women and sexuality". Her family's
internalized racism immediately cast her as the "other" because of their bias that being white and fair-skinned means prestige and royalty, when color subjects one to being almost the scum of society (just as her mother had complained about her ''prieta'' dating a ''mojado'' from Peru). The household she grew up in was one in which the male figure was the authoritarian head, while the female, the mother, was stuck in all the biases of this paradigm. Although this is the difficult position in which white, patriarchal society has cast women of color, gays and lesbians, she does not make them out to be the archenemy, because she believes that "casting stones is not the solution" and that racism and sexism do not come from only whites but also people of color. Throughout her life, the inner racism and sexism from her childhood would haunt her, as she often was asked to choose her loyalties, whether it be to women, to people of color, or to gays/lesbians. Her analogy to Shiva is well-fitted, as she decides to go against these conventions and enter her own world: Mundo Zurdo, which allows the self to go deeper, to transcend the lines of convention and, at the same time, to recreate the self and the society. This is for Anzaldúa a form of religion, one that allows the self to deal with the injustices that society throws at it and to come out a better person, a more reasonable person.
An entry in the book, titled "Speaking In Tongues: A Letter To Third World Women Writers", spotlights the dangers Anzaldúa considers women writers of color deal with, dangers that are rooted in a lack of privileges. She talks about the transformation of writing styles and how we are taught not to air our truths. Folks are outcast as a result of speaking and writing with their native tongues. Anzaldúa wants more women writers of color to be visible and be well represented in text. Her essay compels us to write with compassion and with love. For writing is a form of gaining power by speaking our truths, and it is seen as a way to decolonize, to resist, and to unite women of color collectively within the
feminist movement
The feminist movement, also known as the women's movement, refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by inequality between men and wom ...
.
''Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza''
She is highly known for this
autotheoretical book, which discusses her life growing up on the
Mexico–Texas border. It was selected as one of the 38 best books of 1987 by ''
Library Journal
''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional prac ...
''. ''Borderlands'' examines the condition of women in Chicano and Latino culture. Anzaldúa discusses several critical issues related to Chicana experiences:
heteronormativity
Heteronormativity is the definition of heterosexuality as the normative human sexuality. It assumes the gender binary (i.e., that there are only two distinct, opposite genders) and that sexual and marital relations are most fitting between peo ...
,
colonialism
Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...
, and
male dominance. She gives a very personal account of the oppression of Chicana
lesbian
A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...
s and talks about the
gendered expectations of behavior that normalizes women's deference to male authority in her community. She develops the idea of the "new
mestiza" as a "new higher
consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...
" that will break down barriers and fight against the male/female dualistic norms of gender. The first half of the book is about isolation and loneliness in the borderlands between cultures. The latter half of the book is poetry. In the book, Anzaldúa uses two variations of English and six variations of Spanish. By doing this, she deliberately makes it difficult for non-
bilinguals
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...
to read. Language was one of the barriers Anzaldúa dealt with as a child, and she wanted readers to understand how frustrating things are when there are language barriers. The book was written as an outlet for her anger and encourages one to be proud of one's heritage and culture.
In chapter 3 of the book, titled "Entering Into the Serpent", Anzaldúa discusses three key women in Mexican culture – "
La Llorona,
La Malinche, and
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe (), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe (), is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with four Marian apparitions to Juan Diego and one to his uncle, Juan Bernardino reported in December 1531, when t ...
– known as the "Three Mothers" (), and explores their relationship to Mexican culture.
''Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality''
Anzaldúa wrote ''Light in the Dark'' during the last decade of her life. Drawn from her unfinished dissertation for her PhD in Literature from
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...
, the book is carefully organized from The Gloria Anzaldúa Papers, 1942–2004 by
AnaLouise Keating, Anzaldúa's literary trustee. The book represents her most developed philosophy. Throughout ''Light in the Dark'', Anzaldúa weaves personal narratives into deeply engaging theoretical readings to comment on numerous contemporary issuesincluding the September 11 attacks, neocolonial practices in the art world, and coalitional politics. She valorizes
subaltern forms and methods of knowing, being, and creating that have been marginalized by Western thought, and theorizes her writing process as a fully embodied artistic, spiritual, and political practice. ''Light in the Dark'' contains multiple transformative theories including include the nepantleras, the
Coyolxauhqui imperative (named for the Aztec goddess
Coyolxāuhqui), spiritual activism, and others.
Themes in writing
Nepantilism
Anzaldúa drew on
Nepantla, a
Nahuatl
Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...
word that means "in the middle", to conceptualize her experience as a Chicana woman. She coined the term "Nepantlera". "Nepantleras are threshold people; they move within and among multiple, often conflicting, worlds and refuse to align themselves exclusively with any single individual, group, or belief system."
Spirituality
Anzaldúa described herself as a very spiritual person and stated that she experienced four
out-of-body experience
An out-of-body experience (OBE or sometimes OOBE) is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world as if from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy (literally "seeing self"), although this term is more common ...
s during her lifetime. In many of her works, she referred to her devotion to la Virgen de Guadalupe (
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe (), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe (), is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with four Marian apparitions to Juan Diego and one to his uncle, Juan Bernardino reported in December 1531, when t ...
),
Nahuatl
Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...
/
Toltec
The Toltec culture () was a Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula (Mesoamerican site), Tula, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoam ...
divinities, and to the
Yoruba orishás Yemayá and Oshún. In 1993, she expressed regret that scholars had largely ignored the "unsafe" spiritual aspects of ''Borderlands'' and bemoaned the resistance to such an important part of her work.
[Anzaldúa, Gloria, with AnaLouise Keating. ''Interviews/Entrevistas''. New York: Routledge, 2000.] In her later writings, she developed the concepts of spiritual activism and nepantleras to describe the ways contemporary social actors can combine spirituality with politics to enact revolutionary change.
Anzaldúa has written about the influence of
hallucinogen
Hallucinogens, also known as psychedelics, entheogens, or historically as psychotomimetics, are a large and diverse class of psychoactive drugs that can produce altered states of consciousness characterized by major alterations in thought, mo ...
ic drugs on her creativity, particularly
psilocybin mushrooms. During one 1975 psilocybin mushroom trip when she was "stoned out of my head", she coined the term "the multiple Glorias" or the "Gloria Multiplex" to describe her feeling of multiplicity, an insight that influenced her later writings.
Language and "linguistic terrorism"
Anzaldua's works weave
English and
Spanish together as one language, an idea stemming from her theory of "borderlands" identity. Her autobiographical essay "La Prieta" was published in (mostly) English in ''This Bridge Called My Back'', and in (mostly) Spanish in ''Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos''. In her writing, Anzaldúa uses a unique blend of eight dialects, two variations of English and six of Spanish. In many ways, by writing in a mix of languages, Anzaldúa creates a daunting task for the non-bilingual reader to decipher the full meaning of the text.
Language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
, clearly one of the borders Anzaldúa addressed, is an essential feature to her writing. Her book is dedicated to being proud of one's heritage and to recognizing the many dimensions of her culture.
Anzaldúa emphasized in her writing the connection between language and identity. She expressed dismay with people who gave up their native language in order to conform to the society they were in. Anzaldúa was often scolded for her improper Spanish accent and believed it was a strong aspect to her heritage; therefore, she labels the qualitative labeling of language "linguistic terrorism." She spent a lot of time promoting acceptance of all languages and accents. In an effort to expose her stance on linguistics and labels, Anzaldúa explained, "While I advocate putting Chicana, ''
tejana'', working-class, dyke-feminist poet, writer theorist in front of my name, I do so for reasons different than those of the
dominant culture... so that the Chicana and lesbian and all the other persons in me don't get erased, omitted, or killed."
Despite the connection between language and identity, Anzaldúa also highlighted that language is a bridge that linked mainstream communities and marginalized communities. She claimed language is a tool that identifies marginalized communities, represents their heritage and cultural backgrounds. The connection which language created is two-way, it not only encourage marginalized communities to express themselves, but also calls on mainstream communities to engage with the language and culture of marginalized communities.
Health, body, and trauma
Anzaldúa experienced at a young age, symptoms of the
endocrine
The endocrine system is a messenger system in an organism comprising feedback loops of hormones that are released by internal glands directly into the circulatory system and that target and regulate distant organs. In vertebrates, the hypotha ...
condition that caused her to stop growing physically at the age of twelve.
[Anzaldúa, Gloria, "La Prieta," ''The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader'', ed. AnaLouise Keating, Duke University Press, 2009, p. 39. ] As a child, she would wear special
girdles fashioned for her by her mother in order to disguise her condition. Her mother would also ensure that a cloth was placed in Anzaldúa's underwear as a child in case of bleeding. Anzaldúa remembers, "I'd take
he bloody clothsout into this shed, wash them out, and hang them really low on a cactus so nobody would see them.... My genitals...
erealways a smelly place that dripped blood and had to be hidden." She eventually underwent a
hysterectomy
Hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus and cervix. Supracervical hysterectomy refers to removal of the uterus while the cervix is spared. These procedures may also involve removal of the ovaries (oophorectomy), fallopian tubes ( salpi ...
in 1980 when she was 38 years old to deal with
uterine,
cervical, and
ovarian abnormalities.
Anzaldúa's poem "Nightvoice" alludes to a history of
child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in Human sexual activity, sexual activit ...
, as she writes: "blurting out everything how my cousins/took turns at night when I was five eight ten."
''Mestiza'' / border culture
One of Anzaldúa's major contributions was her introduction to United States academic audiences of the term ''
mestizaje
( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to ...
,'' meaning a state of being beyond
binary ("either-or") conception, into academic writing and discussion. In her theoretical works, Anzaldúa called for a "new mestiza," which she described as an individual aware of her conflicting and meshing identities and uses these "new angles of vision" to challenge
binary thinking in the
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...
. The "borderlands" that she refers to in her writing are geographical as well as a reference to mixed races, heritages, religions, sexualities, and languages. Anzaldúa is primarily interested in the contradictions and juxtapositions of conflicting and intersecting identities. She points out that having to identify as a certain, labelled, sex can be detrimental to one's creativity as well as how seriously people take you as a producer of consumable goods. The "new mestiza" way of thinking is illustrated in
postcolonial feminism
Postcolonial feminism is a form of feminism that developed as a response to feminism focusing solely on the experiences of women in Western cultures and former colonies. Postcolonial feminism seeks to account for the way that racism and the long- ...
. In education, Anzaldúa's practice of border challenges the traditionally structured binary understanding of gender. It recognizes gender identity is not fixed or singular concept but rather a complex terrain. Encouraged educators to provide a safe and open platform for students to learn, recognize, and identify themselves comfortably.
Anzaldúa called for people of different races to confront their fears to move forward into a world that is less hateful and more useful. In "La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness," a text often used in
women's studies
Women's studies is an academic field that draws on Feminism, feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining Social constructionism, social and cultural constructs of gender; ...
courses, Anzaldúa insisted that
separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seekin ...
invoked by
Chicanos/
Chicanas is not furthering the cause but instead keeping the same racial division in place. Many of Anzaldúa's works challenge the
status quo
is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, economic, legal, environmental, political, religious, scientific or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the curren ...
of the movements in which she was involved. She challenged these movements in an effort to make real change happen to the world rather than to specific groups. Scholar Ivy Schweitzer writes, "her theorizing of a new borderlands or mestiza consciousness helped jump start fresh investigations in several fields – feminist, Americanist
ndpostcolonial."
Sexuality
In the same way that Anzaldúa often wrote that she felt that she could not be classified as only part of one race or the other, she felt that she possessed a multi-sexuality. When growing up, Anzaldúa expressed that she felt an "intense sexuality" towards her own father, children, animals, and even trees. AnaLouise Keating considered omitting Anzaldúa's sexual fantasies involving incest and bestiality for being "rather shocking" and "pretty radical", but Anzaldúa insisted that they remain because "to me, nothing is private." Anzaldúa claimed she had "sexual fantasies about father-daughter, sister-brother, woman-dog, woman-wolf, woman-jaguar, woman-tiger, or woman-panther. It was usually a cat- or dog-type animal." Anzaldúa also specified that she may have "mistaken this connection, this spiritual connection, for sexuality." She was attracted to and later had relationships with both men and women. Although she identified herself as a lesbian in most of her writing and had always experienced attraction to women, she also wrote that lesbian was "not an adequate term" to describe herself. She stated that she "consciously chose women" and consciously changed her sexual preference by changing her fantasies, arguing that "You can change your sexual preference. It's real easy." She stated that she "became a lesbian in my head first, the ideology, the politics, the aesthetics" and that the "touching, kissing, hugging, and all came later".
Anzaldúa wrote extensively about her queer identity and the marginalization of queer people, particularly in communities of color.
Feminism
Anzaldúa self-identifies in her writing as a feminist, and her major works are often associated with
Chicana feminism and
postcolonial feminism
Postcolonial feminism is a form of feminism that developed as a response to feminism focusing solely on the experiences of women in Western cultures and former colonies. Postcolonial feminism seeks to account for the way that racism and the long- ...
. Anzaldúa writes of the oppression she experiences specifically as a woman of color, as well as the restrictive gender roles that exist within the Chicano community. In ''Borderlands'', she also addresses topics such as sexual violence perpetrated against women of color. Her theoretical work on border culture is considered a precursor to
Latinx Philosophy.
Criticism
Anzaldúa has been criticized for neglecting and erasing
Afro-Latino and
Afro-Mexican history, as well as for drawing inspiration from
José Vasconcelos
José Vasconcelos Calderón (28 February 1882 – 30 June 1959), called the "cultural " of the Mexican Revolution, was an important Mexicans, Mexican writer, philosopher, and politician. He is one of the most influential and controversial pers ...
' ''
La raza cósmica'' without critiquing the racism, anti-blackness, and eugenics within the work of Vasconcelos.
Josefina Saldaña-Portillo's 2001 essay "Who's the Indian in Aztlán?" criticizes the "indigenous erasure" in the work of Anzaldúa as well as Anzaldúa's "appropriation of state sponsored Mexican
indigenismo." Juliet Hooker in "Hybrid subjectivities, Latin American mestizaje, and Latino political thought on race" also describes some of Anzaldúa's work as, "deploy
ngan overly romanticized portrayal of indigenous peoples that looks onto the past rather than contemporary indigenous movements".
Awards
*
Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award (1986) – ''This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color''
*Lambda Lesbian Small Book Press Award (1991)
*
Lesbian Rights Award (1991)
*
Sappho Award of Distinction (1992)
*
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
Fiction Award (1991)
*
American Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award (Bode-Pearson Prize – 2001).
Additionally, her work ''
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza'' was recognized as one of the 38 best books of 1987 by ''
Library Journal
''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional prac ...
'' and 100 Best Books of the Century by both ''
Hungry Mind Review'' and ''
Utne Reader''.
In 2012, she was named by Equality Forum as one of their 31 Icons of the
LGBT History Month.
Death and legacy
Anzaldúa died on May 15, 2004, at her home in
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz (Spanish language, Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the largest city and the county seat of Santa Cruz County, California, Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city population ...
, from complications of
diabetes
Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a group of common endocrine diseases characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough of the hormone insulin, or the cells of th ...
. At the time of her death, she was working toward the completion of her dissertation to receive her doctorate in Literature from the
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...
. It was awarded posthumously in 2005.
The Chicana/o Latina/o Research Center (CLRC) at
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...
offers the annual ''Gloria E. Anzaldúa Distinguished Lecture Award'' and ''The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Award for Independent Scholars and Contingent Faculty'' is offered annually by the
American Studies Association. The latter "...honors Anzaldúa's outstanding career as an independent scholar and her labor as contingent faculty, along with her groundbreaking contributions to scholarship on women of color and to queer theory. The award includes a lifetime membership in the ASA, a lifetime electronic subscription to American Quarterly, five years access to the electronic library resources at the University of Texas at Austin, and $500".
In 2007, three years after Anzaldúa's death, the
Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa (SSGA) was established to gather scholars and community members who continue to engage Anzaldúa's work. The SSGA co-sponsors a conference – El Mundo Zurdo – every 18 months.
The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize is awarded annually, in conjunction with the Anzaldúa Literary Trust, to a poet whose work explores how place shapes identity, imagination, and understanding. Special attention is given to poems that exhibit multiple vectors of thinking: artistic, theoretical, and social, which is to say, political. First place is publication by Newfound, including 25 contributor copies, and a $500 prize.
The
National Women's Studies Association honors Anzaldúa, a valued and long-active member of the organization, with the annual Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize, which is designated for groundbreaking monographs in women's studies that makes significant multicultural feminist contributions to women of color/transnational scholarship.
To commemorate what would have been Anzaldúa's 75th birthday, on September 26, 2017
Aunt Lute Books published the anthology ''Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands'' edited by
ire'ne lara silva and
Dan Vera with an introduction by
United States Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and featuring the work of 52 contemporary poets on the subject of Anzaldúa's continuing impact on contemporary thought and culture. On the same day, Google commemorated Anzaldúa's achievements and legacy through a
Doodle
A doodle is a drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract art, abstract lines or shapes, generally w ...
in the United States.
Archives
Housed at the Nettie Lee
Benson Latin American Collection at the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...
, the Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Papers, 1942-2004 contains over 125 feet of published and unpublished materials including manuscripts, poetry, drawings, recorded lectures, and other archival resources.
AnaLouise Keating is one of the Anzaldúa Trust's trustees. Anzaldúa maintained a collection of figurines, masks, rattles, candles, and other ephemera used as altar (altares) objects at her home in Santa Cruz, California. These altares were an integral part of her spiritual life and creative process as a writer.
[Cited in the Biography section of the UCSC finding aid.] The altar collection is presently housed by the Special Collections department of the University Library at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Works
* ''
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color'' (1981), co-edited with
Cherríe Moraga, 4th ed., Duke University Press, 2015. .
* ''
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza'' (1987), 4th ed.,
Aunt Lute Books, 2012. .
* ''
Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color'',
Aunt Lute Books, 1990. .
* ''Interviews/Entrevistas'', edited by
AnaLouise Keating, Routledge, 2000. .
* ''This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation'', co-edited with
AnaLouise Keating, Routledge, 2002. .
* ''The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader'', edited by
AnaLouise Keating. Duke University Press, 2009. .
* ''Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality,'' edited by
AnaLouise Keating, Duke University Press, 2015. .
Children's books
* ''Prietita Has a Friend'' (1991)
* ''
Friends from the Other Side/Amigos del Otro Lado'' (1995)
* ''Prietita y La Llorona'' (1996)
See also
*
Feminism in Latin America
*
Latino literature
*
Latinx philosophy
*
Latino poetry
*
Xicana literature
Citations
General and cited references
* Adams, Kate. "Northamerican Silences: History, Identity, and Witness in the Poetry of Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Leslie Marmon Silko." Eds. Elaine Hedges and
Shelley Fisher Fishkin. ''Listening to Silences: New Essays in Feminist Criticism.'' NY: Oxford UP, 1994. 130–145. Print.
*
Alarcón, Norma. "Anzaldúa's Frontera: Inscribing Gynetics." Eds. Smadar Lavie and Ted Swedenburg. ''Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity.'' Durham: Duke UP, 1996. 41–52. Print
*
Alcoff, Linda Martín. "The Unassimilated Theorist." ''PMLA'' 121.1 (2006): 255–259
* Almeida, Sandra Regina Goulart. "Bodily Encounters: Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands / La Frontera." ''Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of Language and Literature'' 39 (2000): 113–123. Web. August 21, 2012.
* Anzaldúa, Gloria E., 2003. "La Conciencia de la
Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness", pp. 179–187, in Carole R. McCann and Seung-Kyung Kim (eds), ''Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives'', New York: Routledge.
* Bacchetta, Paola. "Transnational Borderlands. Gloria Anzaldúa's Epistemologies of Resistance and Lesbians 'of Color' in Paris." In El Mundo Zurdo: Selected Works from the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa 2007 to 2009, edited by Norma Cantu, Christina L. Gutierrez, Norma Alarcón and Rita E. Urquijo-Ruiz, 109–128. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 2010.
* Barnard, Ian. "Gloria Anzaldúa's Queer Mestizaje." ''MELUS'' 22.1 (1997): 35–53
* Blend, Benay. "'Because I Am in All Cultures at the Same Time': Intersections of Gloria Anzaldúa's Concept of Mestizaje in the Writings of Latin-American Jewish Women." ''Postcolonial Text'' 2.3 (2006): 1–13. Web. August 21, 2012.
* Keating, AnaLouise, and Gloria Gonzalez-Lopez, eds. ''Bridging: How Gloria Anzaldua's Life and Work Transformed Our Own'' (University of Texas Press; 2011), 276 pp.
* Bornstein-Gómez, Miriam. "Gloria Anzaldúa: Borders of Knowledge and (re)Signification." ''Confluencia'' 26.1 (2010): 46–55 ''EBSCO Host''. Web. August 21, 2012.
* Capetillo-Ponce, Jorge.
Exploring Gloria Anzaldúa’s Methodology in Borderlands/La Frontera—The New Mestiza" Human Architecture: ''Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge'' 4.3 (2006): 87–94 ''Scholarworks UMB.'' Web. August 21, 2012.
*
Castillo, Debra A.. "Anzaldúa and Transnational American Studies." ''PMLA'' 121.1 (2006): 260–265
* David, Temperance K. "Killing to Create: Gloria Anzaldúa's Artistic Solution to 'Cervicide'" ''Intersections Online'' 10.1 (2009): 330–340. ''WAU Libraries''. Web. July 9, 2012.
* Donadey, Anne. "Overlapping and Interlocking Frames for Humanities Literary Studies: Assia Djebar, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Gloria Anzaldúa." ''College Literature'' 34.4 (2007): 22–42
* Enslen, Joshua Alma. "Feminist prophecy: a Hypothetical Look into Gloria Anzaldúa's 'La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a new Consciousness' and Sara Ruddick's 'Maternal Thinking.'" ''LL Journal'' 1.1 (2006): 53–61 ''OJS.'' Web. August 21, 2012.
* Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. "Crossroads of Cultures: The Transnational Turn in American Studies – Presidential Address to the American Studies Association, November 12, 2004." ''American Quarterly'' 57.1 (2005): 17–57. ''Project Muse''. Web. February 10, 2010.
* Friedman, Susan Stanford. ''Mappings: Feminism and the Cultural Geographies of Encounter''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1998. Print.
* Hartley, George. "'Matriz Sin Tumba': The Trash Goddess and the Healing Matrix of Gloria Anzaldúa's Reclaimed Womb." ''MELUS'' 35.3 (2010): 41–61 ''Project Muse''. Web. August 21, 2012.
* Hedges, Elaine and Shelley Fisher Fishkin eds. ''Listening to Silences: New Essays in Feminist Criticism.'' NY: Oxford UP, 1994. Print.
* Hedley, Jane. "Nepantilist Poetics: Narrative and Cultural Identity in the Mixed-Language Writings of Irena Klepfisz and Gloria Anzaldúa." ''Narrative'' 4.1 (1996): 36–54
* Herrera-Sobek, María. "Gloria Anzaldúa: Place, Race, Language, and Sexuality in the Magic Valley." ''PMLA'' 121.1 (2006): 266–271
* Hilton, Liam. "Peripherealities: Porous Bodies; Porous Borders: The 'Crisis' of the Transient in a Borderland of Lost Ghosts." ''Graduate Journal of Social Science'' 8.2 (2011): 97–113. Web. August 21, 2012.
* Keating, AnaLouise, ed. ''EntreMundos/AmongWorlds: New Perspectives on Gloria Anzaldúa.'' New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005.
* Keating, AnaLouise. ''Women Reading, Women Writing: Self-Invention in Paula Gunn Allen, Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre Lorde.'' Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996.
* Lavie, Smadar and Ted Swedenburg eds. ''Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity''. Durham: Duke UP, 1996. Print.
Lavie, Smadar. "Staying Put: Crossing the Israel–Palestine Border with Gloria Anzaldúa."''Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly'', June 2011, Vol. 36, Issue 1. This article won the American Studies Association's 2009 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Award for Independent Scholars.
* Mack-Canty, Colleen. "Third-Wave Feminism and the Need to Reweave the Nature/Culture Duality" pp. 154–179, in ''NWSA Journal'', Fall 2004, Vol. 16, Issue 3.
* Lioi, Anthony. "The Best-Loved Bones: Spirit and History in Anzaldúa's 'Entering into the Serpent.'" ''Feminist Studies'' 34.1/2 (2008): 73–98
* Lugones, María. "On ''Borderlands / La Frontera'': An Interpretive Essay." ''Hypatia'' 7.4 (1992): 31–37
* Martinez, Teresa A.. "Making Oppositional Culture, Making Standpoint: A Journey into Gloria Anzaldúa's ''Borderlands.''" ''Sociological Spectrum'' 25 (2005): 539–570 ''Tayor & Francis''. Web. August 21, 2012.
* Negrón-Muntaner, Frances. "Bridging Islands: Gloria Anzaldúa and the Caribbean." ''PMLA'' 121,1 (2006): 272–278 ''MLA''. Web. August 21, 2012.
* Pérez, Emma. "Gloria Anzaldúa: La Gran Nueva Mestiza Theorist, Writer, Activist-Scholar" pp. 1–10, in ''NWSA Journal''; Summer 2005, Vol. 17, Issue 2.
* Ramlow, Todd R.. "Bodies in the Borderlands: Gloria Anzaldúa and David Wojnarowicz's Mobility Machines." ''MELUS'' 31.3 (2006): 169–187
* Rebolledo, Tey Diana. "Prietita y el Otro Lado: Gloria Anzaldúa's Literature for Children." ''PMLA'' 121.1 (2006): 279–784
* Reuman, Ann E. "Coming Into Play: An Interview with Gloria Anzaldua" p. 3, in ''MELUS''; Summer 2000, Vol. 25, Issue 2.
* Saldívar-Hull, Sonia. "Feminism on the Border: From Gender Politics to Geopolitics." ''Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture, and Ideology.'' Eds. Héctor Calderón and José´David Saldívar. Durham: Duke UP, 1991. 203–220. Print.
* Schweitzer, Ivy. "For Gloria Anzaldúa: Collecting America, Performing Friendship." ''PMLA'' 121.1 (2006): 285–291
* Smith, Sidonie. ''Subjectivity, Identity, and the Body: Women's Autobiographical Practices in the Twentieth Century.'' Bloomington, IN: IN UP, 1993. Print.
* Solis Ybarra, Priscilla. "Borderlands as Bioregion: Jovita González, Gloria Anzaldúa, and the Twentieth-Century Ecological Revolution in the Rio Grande Valley." ''MELUS'' 34.2 (2009): 175–189
* Spitta, Silvia. Between Two Waters: Narratives of Transculturation in Latin America (Rice UP 1995; Texas A&M 2006)
* Stone, Martha E. "Gloria Anzaldúa" pp. 1, 9, in ''Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide''; January/February 2005, Vol. 12, Issue 1.
* Vargas-Monroy, Liliana. "Knowledge from the Borderlands: Revisiting the Paradigmatic Mestiza of Gloria Anzaldúa." ''Feminism and Psychology'' 22.2 (2011): 261–270
* Vivancos Perez, Ricardo F. ''Radical Chicana Poetics''. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
* Ward, Thomas. "Gloria Anzaldúa y la lucha fronteriza", in ''Resistencia cultural: La nación en el ensayo de las Américas'', Lima, 2004, pp. 336–342.
* Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. "Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands / La Frontera: Cultural Studies, 'Difference' and the Non-Unitary Subject." ''Cultural Critique'' 28 (1994): 5–28
Further reading
*
*
*
*
* Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez
*
External links
''Voices from the Gaps'' biography''San Francisco Chronicle'' Obituary for Gloria Anzaldúa"Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldua"
"Gloria Anzaldua Legacy Project – MySpace"Finding aid for the Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Papers, 1942–2004Finding aid for the Gloria Anzaldúa Altares Collection"La prieta" ensayo autobiográfico, de la antologí
''Esta puente, mi espalda''* Some of Anzaldua's work has been translated into French by Paola Bacchetta and Jules Falquet in a special issue of the French journal ''Cahiers du CEDREF'' on "Decolonial Feminist and Queer Theories: Ch/Xicana and U.S. Latina Interventions" that they co-edited with Norma Alarcon; available a
''Les Cahiers du CEDREF''
Gloria Anzaldúa and Philosophy: The Concept/Image of the Mestiza – by Rolando PérezPart of a dossier on Gloria Anzaldua edited by Ricardo F. Vivancos for Cuadernos de Aldeeu, Vol. 34, Spring 2019.
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