Borderlands La Frontera Summary

Caminero-Santangelo, Marta. 2007. On Latinidad: U.S. Latino Literature and the Construction of Ethnicity. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

Gloria Anzaldua, the author of “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” expresses a very strong tie that she has to her native language. Anzaldua grew up in the United States, but spoke mostly Spanish. She did not speak the normal form of Spanish though; she spoke Chicano Spanish, a language very close to her heart. The text focuses on the idea of her losing her home accent, or tongue, to conform to the environment she is growing up in. From a very young age, Anzaldua knows that she is not treated the same as everyone else is treated. She knows that she is second to others, and her language is far from second to others as well. Anzaldua stays true to her language by identifying herself with her language and keeping

Anzaldúa recounts her experience growing up in a community where her Chicana culture wasn’t widely accepted. She would be punished for speaking the language her culture influenced to create a language, which corresponds to a way of life. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” the variety of languages helps her compare, contrast and define her argument of the distinguished languages concerning her Chicana identity.

Norma Elia Cantu’s novel “Canícula: Imágenes de una Niñez Fronteriza” (“Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera”), which chronicles of the forthcoming of age of a chicana on the U.S.- Mexico border in the town of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo in the 1940s-60s. Norma Elia Cantú brings together narrative and the images from the family album to tell the story of her family. It blends authentic snapshots with recreated memoirs from 1880 to 1950 in the town between Monterrey, Mexico, and San Antonio, Texas. Narratives present ethnographic information concerning the nationally distributed mass media in the border region. Also they study controversial discourse that challenges the manner in which the border and its populations have been

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

Who I am? A question everyone at some point will ask themselves. I personally had asked that question many times and especially now that I'm getting my U.S residency and later my citizenship. I trying to answer if I'm Peruvian or American. The Borderlands/ La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua had show me to identify myself. This book isn’t all a happy story as is life. She shares her experience in this world were where her heritage and her blood is the cause of an oppression in her society. There are invisible borders were to exist between cultural groups, where people who have multiple identities has to break through those invisible borders and regain culture that has been lost.

Sabina Berman is a notable and critically acclaimed Mexican playwright. Berman’s notable work includes her first published play, Yankee (1979). In Adam Versényi’s translation of Yankee, Berman explores the relationship between the individual and identity. Through the three main characters—Bill, Alberto, and Rosa—we see the continual conflict they face as they aspire to achieve their respective objectives: to feel nurtured and loved, to have peace and quiet, and to feel loved and acknowledged. But it is Berman’s interjection of juxtapositions that forces us to analyze the relationship between the main characters. More specifically, Berman focuses on the impact Bill has as an intruder, and how he highlights the national identity incompatibilities between North American and Mexican cultures, to expose the serious social and political problems between the nations.

During the Mexican-American War the border moved, but the people didn’t. History has shown us that no matter how thick the border might be Latino Americans have a strong connection to their culture and roots; instead of assimilating, Mexicans live between two worlds. The film, Ballad of Gregorio Cortez gave us a perspective of two cultures; “Two cultures- the Anglo and the Mexican- lived side by side in state of tension and fear” . Cortez is running for his life as he heads north, while the Anglo believe that because of his Mexican ethnicity, he would travel south to Mexico. Throughout the film there were cultural tensions and misunderstandings; language plays an important part of someone’s identity, and for many Latino Americans Spanish is their first language. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez also shows us that language plays an important role, and can cause confusion between two different groups. For example, Anglos refer to a male

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.

In this Chapter I feel that Anzaldua is trying to get the reader to understand the differences and atruggles amongst cultures. The clash of cultures results in mental and emotional confusion. Living inbetween more than one culture, you often get opposing messages from these cultures. Sometimes when living within the Chicana culture common white beleifs conflict with the beleifs of the Mexican culture. They both hold beleifs of the indifinous peopel and their culture. It creates a problem that the dominant cultures views and beleifs are defiant to the others. This is very wrong because it creats the problem of one being superior to the other. This especially relates to the Mexican culture and white culture. This creates the assimilation problem when one culture is not accepted or considered below another.

The story illustrates the overlapping influences of women’s status and roles in Mexican culture, and the social institutions of family, religion, economics, education, and politics. In addition, issues of physical and mental/emotional health, social deviance and crime, and social and personal identity are

Anzaldua identifies as a part of an emerging new mestiza consciousness and community, which strives to move beyond simple dualistic thinking and endeavors to “act and not react” This important contradiction lies at the heart of Anzaldua’s analysis. “From this racial, ideological, cultural, and biological cross-pollicization, an ‘alien’ consciousness is presently in the making — a new mestiza consciousness, una conciencia de mujer. It is a consciousness of the Borderlands.” (Anzaldua, 1987, 420). Anzaldua’s proposition of the new consciousness mediates social relations, revolutionary social change, and its wider relevance to feminist theory through discussions of the Borderlands and its implications for ‘identity.’

The racist connotation that Miss Jimenez associates with who she thinks would “fit in” society’s box is a definite reflection of the hardships Valdez witnessed in his community. For example, the Zoot Suit Riots that occurred in 1944 was rooted by a reaction by young Mexican-American males against a culture that did not want them to be a part of it. Stuart Cosgrove examines this issue when he states, "In the most obvious ways they had been stripped of their customs, beliefs and language.” (*Vargas 317) These youths were going through an identity crisis because they did not know which culture they could identify with. Miss Jimenez is a character that embodies that repression Valdez explains in “Los Vendidos.”

Finding my voice as a woman in the world has led me to have a greater appreciation of my Mexican-American culture. Although the women in Galang’s book are of a different cultural background I was able to understand and connect with the struggles they went through trying to balance those varying cultures and the difficulty they had in finally accepting it. The story that most exemplifies the two spectrums of acceptance of one’s culture is “Rose Colored”. While going through elementary, middle, and a small portion of high school I could identify mostly as Rose because I hadn’t yet accepted the culture I was from. I was ashamed of being part Mexican and thought people would automatically stereotype and not like me. I saw my curly hair as something that should be hidden, always in braids because it wasn’t straight like all the others and also avoided talking about my home life for fear of being cast out as different. As I grew up into a young woman I began reading more and more about my culture and researching what it meant to be a true Mexican-American. I learned to appreciate all the beauty my culture has to offer and realized that being from two different cultures was not about picking one over the over but combining both at the same time. After reaching this sudden realization I was able to