Anzaldua's Two Articles From Borderlands And This Bridge We Call Home

Freire begins Chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed by stating his interpretation of the educational system between teacher and student, focusing primarily on the “banking” system, which is exceptionally biased due to oppressive teachers who direct their own misguided inquiries upon their oppressed students. Freire continues on by maintaining “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those

When I was brought into the world, I was not aware of the hand that I was dealt with. I was completely oblivious to human constructs that inevitably left our world divided. I did not know about race, religion, sexuality or gender roles. If it had not been for the media, I would not have tried to put so much emphasis on the label that was given to me, Latina. When reading Issa Rae’s essay “The Struggle”, I felt a sense of comfort knowing that someone else had gone through similar experiences.

The writer portrays a people too conscious to lose their culture. Hence, they establish ethnic organizations, business, cultural institutions that would meet their varied “social, cultural, economic and political needs” (Miguel 6). Supreme in these establishments’ values was to selfishly guard “Mixicanist identity” (Miguel 6) by encouraging dual identity that was “neither American nor Mexican but a synthesis of both” (Miguel 10). The title, Brown, Not White is perhaps a reflection of this consciousness. In a country that has spanned decades clinging to nothing else but color binarity of white versus black, Mexican Americans find it hard to identify with either of the two. The Mexican Americans feel aggrieved by the mistreatments they continually receive from the whites, identifying with the African Americans whom they considered inferior in the American pecking order is unfathomable. The emphasis on the title, Brown, Not White is, therefore, a reflection of the Mexican American’s struggle with the problem of identity in the face of the looming assimilation from the most dominant

In the United States early history, Native Americans, Africans and Europeans were marginalized by White People, and categorized as the minorities because they were seen as the inferior race. For nearly three centuries, the criteria for membership in these groups were similar, comprising a person's appearance, their social circle (how they lived), and their known non-White ancestry. History played a major part, as persons with known slave ancestors were assumed to be African (or, in later usage, black), regardless of whether they also had European ancestry. Most often these minorities face significant discrimination in various forms whether through voting, law policy, unequal pay, or even implicit racism, minorities of all kinds have been and still are being put down today. The book Between the World and Me is a letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s fifteen-year-old son, Samori. He weaves his personal, historical, and intellectual development into his ruminations on how to live in a black body in America. Not only does Coates give his personal experience in how he experience in first hand discrimination, racism, marginalization but he also gives vivid images on how he lived multiple worlds and how those experiences changed him. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua exposes her feelings about social and cultural difficulties that Mexican immigrants face when being raised in the United States. She establishes comparisons among English, Spanish and their variations on how

“Oppression, you seek population control, Oppression, to divide and conquer is your goal, Oppression, I swear hatred is your home, Oppression, you mean me only harm.” (Harper). Oppression is a serious issue in our society today. Although it may be less serious than the past it is still a matter of importance, having to deal with sexism, religion and most importantly racial issues. Throughout the decades we have seen various ethnicities deal with racial oppressions. Many of the problems of the past still exist, and they may push the victims of the oppression beyond the emotional point of no return. A Hispanic male such as myself, can be the victim of several types of oppressions, including racial oppression.

Although I can’t specifically relate to Gloria Anzaldúa’s struggle between her languages in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” I can relate to her “kind of dual identity” in which she identifies with neither Anglo-American cultural values nor Mexican cultural values (1566). Being half white, half Chinese, I struggle identifying as either identity, especially because my mom (who is Chinese) never learned Cantonese and largely became Americanized in her childhood. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in when racial and ethnic identity are so significant in America and when I must interact with the world as part of both the majority and the marginalized. Considering my own struggle and the conflict Anzaldúa describes, it became clearer to me the way race relations in American not only marginalize people of color but train our consciousnesses to damage ourselves. Before I turn back to Anzaldúa, a novel I’ve recently read, William Godwin’s Caleb Williams has also been on my mind, particularly in Godwin’s portrayal of how police surveillance transforms us into agents of our own oppression. Although Caleb is a white man, he also experiences a split consciousness as his values and characteristics are whittled away by the paranoia of constant surveillance.

Gloria Anzaldúa writes of a Utopic frame of mind, the borderlands created in and lived in by the new mestiza. She describes the preexisting natures of the Anglos, Mexicanos, and Chicanos as seen around the southwest U.S. / Mexican border, indicative of the nations at large. She also probes the borders of language, sexuality, psychology and spirituality. Anzaldúa presents this information in various identifiable ways including the autobiography, historical/informative essay, and poetry. What is unique to Anzaldúa is her ability to weave a ‘perfect’ kind of compromised state of mind that melds together the preexisting cultures while simultaneously formulating a fusion of genres that stretches previously

In “Good Friday Letter,” Cesar Chavez asserts that, “The color of our skins, the languages of our cultural and native origins, the lack of formal education, the exclusion from the democratic process, the numbers of our slain in recent wars- all these burdens generation after generations have sought to demoralize us, to break our human spirit” (2). This statement mainly encompasses on the idea of race, specifically non-white people or people of color and the struggles they have gone through generation after generation of discrimination, separation, manipulation and being voiceless in the public arena. Even though as a society with the creation of to give more opportunity to people of color, somehow we still have practices or pedagogies that have become innate. Holding us back from making our people of color feel not welcomed in this country.

In the “The Achievement of Desire” and “Para Teresa” Richard Rodriguez and Inez Avila describe the troubles of balancing life at home and at school. Rodriguez conveys the difficulties he had to face separating from his own culture to achieve academic success. His article portrays the cultural world and the educational world as separate institutions that cannot coexist in America. Throughout his text Rodriguez provides detailed experiences in order to explain his thought process. Inez Avila however presents her article as a letter dedicated to a school bully. In contrast to Rodriguez perspective Avila wrote her poem in English and Spanish to appeal to Mexican -American culture. She walks the reader through an argument between her and a fellow classmate as she was cornered in a bathroom. Her poem depicts how children who share the same culture discriminate within their own community. Both these articles are told from a Latino-American point of view yet they radically differ from each other.

However, it is not just Luma who faced struggles in the story, such discrimination was experienced by an African immigrant by the name of Chike Chime who suffered police brutality and an extended stay in the local jail for doing nothing wrong other than having dark skin pigmentation and knowing the rights that American laws provide him, such actions that have caused a recent uproar in cities across the United States. This sudden influx in violence is not new as it has always been the belief that immigrants should have to conform to American standards when they arrive. In fact, when St. John interviewed the police officer responsible for the discriminatory actions against Chime, his response was “’They’re in America now. Not Africa.’” Although these immigrants and refugees have experienced a total upheaval of all that they have known, they are expected to further change their heritage and values to fit the template that middle-class, white Americans have set. These changes in themselves are often hard enough for these men and women to accept, however, those most affected by the adjustment are most likely the children. Children such as those who constitute the

When one visualizes Latino culture, the prevalent images are often bright colors, dancing, and celebrations. This imagery paints a false portrait of the life of many Latino’s, especially those that are forced to leave their home countries. Latinos often face intense poverty and oppression, whether in a Latin country, or a foreign country, such is true in Pam Ryan’s novel Esperanza Rising. Ryan chronicles the issues that many Latino immigrants face. The first is the pressure from the home country. Many of the countries face turmoil, and many are forced to leave their homes and culture. Once in a foreign place, people often struggle with standing by their own culture or assimilating to the new culture. Latino authors frequently use young adult literature as a platform to discuss the issues they face, as young adults are coming of age they struggle with their identities, personifying the struggle of old culture against the new culture.

Eventually the Garcia’s trailed away from manual labor and began to work in the dry goods business. In many states of the United States, particularly in Texas, Mexican Americans faced prejudice and discrimination daily. Although there was constant violence and judgement casted upon himself and his family Dr. Garcia’s fight for survival and equality stood unshaken. Hector Garcia’s “youth was a lesson” (Sanchez Part 2). Dr. Garcia not only learned academically, but he learned through everyday life. He learned how to cope and live with the discrimination that would persist into his adulthood.

Gloria Anzaldua was a schoolteacher and then an academic, speaker and writer whom talked about feminist, lesbian, and Chicanas about autobiography. She is best known for This Bridge Called My Back; Writings by Radical of Color (19981), which she edited with Cherrie Moraga, and Borderlands/La Frontera; The New Mestiza (1987). Based on Anzaldua’s background one can infer that her intended audience are feminists, lesbians, and Chicanos. We may wonder why these are the authors audience. These are the author’s audience because she is a lesbian, feminist women that is a migrant work which lives in Texas were there is a big population of Chicanas. The reason why these are her intended audience is because, the article was intended to make her audience more aware and come to realization about people shame us with our secondary language. Daily the author gets reminded that society has made her language impossible to improve because others are constantly shaming her of and bulling her by the way she speaks. One can believe that Anzaldua is fighting for those that have struggle in their culture with their language. Also raise awareness using her article that she has experience common struggles. Those people that have used our language against us have made our culture hard to decide which is the right one for us. That we have lose our identity do to the fact of

In the short story “Borderlands”, Anzaldua uses a technique which crafts a metaphorical meaning for the reader. Anzaldua uses a metaphor in order to express the words, put chili into the borscht, having a metaphorical meaning of the chili in the borscht because of it explaining a mexican and russian cultures combing together. It also is a reference to acculturation because it suggests the mix of two cultural traditional foods. “Chili in the borscht” (1). The line chili in the borscht is a reference to assamlination because it’s combining the mexican and russian culture; which is a reference leading to a terminal conflict. Anzaldua creates a conflict between the different races by suggesting betrayal in the quote. “To live in the borderlands

Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldua is full of personal narratives detailing the visible and invisible “ borderlands “ that exist within a race, gender, sexuality, and spirituality. Her essays and poems are based on her own personal experiences as a Chicana and lesbian activist. Through her writing, she challenges the true definition of the borderlands as more than a simple line that divides different cultures. It calls for those who are oppressors to change their attitudes and show support to those of the borderlands. By writing in both English and Spanish she expresses how one language would not be enough to describe her Chicana literature.