Gloria Anzaldú Gender And Identity

During the 1960’s, the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t the only one occurring. Struggling to assimilate into American culture, and suppressed by social injustices convicted by their Anglo counterparts, the Chicano movement was born. In the epic poem “I am Joaquin” written by Rodolfo Gonzales in 1969, we dive into what it means to be a Chicano. Through this poem, we see the struggles of the Chicano people portrayed by the narrator, in an attempt to grasp the American’s attention during the time of these movements. Hoping to shed light on the issues and struggles the Chicano population faced, Gonzales writes this epic in an attempt to strengthen the movement taking place, and to give Chicanos a sense of belonging and solidarity in this now

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

In the boiling pot of America most people have been asked “what are you?” when referring to one’s race or nationality. In the short story “Borders” by Thomas King he explores one of the many difficulties of living in a world that was stripped from his race. In a country that is as diverse as North America, culture and self-identity are hard to maintain. King’s short story “Borders” deals with a conflict that I have come to know well of. The mother in “Borders” is just in preserving her race and the background of her people. The mother manages to maintain her identity that many people lose from environmental pressure.

In Richard Rodriguez’s essay “Blaxicans and other Reinvented Americans,” Rodriguez supports his main idea that a person can choose their own identity by giving an example from his own life experience. Rodriguez shares that he met a mixed girl in San Diego at a convention of mixed-race where they have to identify themselves as one race. He says, “This girl said that her mother was Mexican and her father was African, [but the girl considers herself as “Blaxican”]” (lines 188-189). By calling herself “Blaxican,” she reinvented her identity by creating a new word, just like how Rodriguez said, “ by reinventing language, she is reinventing America.” (line 189)

Young Chicana women typical expectations are to follow the parents’ rules. In the films “Mosquita Y Mari” and “Real Women have curves”, the young Chicana women resist these gender cultural norms. The resistance of these gender norms is not a challenge to others but away to voice the opinion that I am my own person and not somebody else.

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.

We live in a society where for decades we have been socialized to believe that there are only two genders: male and female. The idea of gender is socially constructed. Society and culture create gender roles and through those roles we all learn to enact our specific roles. With this in mind, this essay will seek to examine how gender shapes the structural and lived experiences of Chicanxs and Latinxs in the U.S. This essay will draw from Abrego, Acosta, Ocampo, and the documentary “No mas bebés” to see how gender affects an individual’s experiences in the U.S.

Anzaldua’s purpose is to show others they shouldn't be ashamed of who they are and to not let anyone tame their tongue. She also broadcasts the discrimination brought upon not just her chicana language, but others as well. Her tone throughout the story is a passionate, determined and critical tone to appeal to those who have shared the same feelings of lost and experiences.

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.

Within the Mexican community, competing notions of racial identity has long existed. Aware to gradations of color in race and their shading of white and non white identity, Haney Lopez introduces the

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

     Through our readings of the Mexicans in the U.S. and the African-American experience modules, we begin to understand the formation of identity through the hardships minorities faced from discrimination. In this paper, I am going to compare and contrast the ideas of identity shown through the readings. These two modules exemplify the theme of identity. We see how Blacks and Latinos tried to find their identity both personally and as a culture through the forced lifestyles they had to live.

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.

Gloria Anzaldua is among the many feminist theorists that has moved into the realm of addressing post-modern identities. In Gloria Anzaldua’s articulation of the new mestiza consciousness, she makes the argument of identities as multiple, hybrid, and more specifically created as a result of the Borderlands. However, according to Anzaldua, and despite the difficulties engendered by her very existence, the mestiza is also a figure of enormous potential, as her multiplicity allows a new kind of consciousness to emerge. This mestiza consciousness moves beyond the binary relationships and dichotomies that characterize traditional modes of thought, and seeks to build bridges between all minority communities to achieve social and political change.

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