The Borderland Identity : Identity And Identity

Gloria Anzaldúa was a Texas-born, lesbian, Latina, feminist, that wrote about many of her personal experiences and views of the diverse background she grew up in. Growing up a certain culture at home and being in a country with a different culture, brings along a lot of self-identifying issues. Gloria Anzaldúa uses various strategies and languages to write this powerful piece by code-switching, quoting others, diction, and rhetorical questions. Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” speaks about the social issues that Latinos face involving identity, language, and sexism.

You can see how Maria’s El Salvador is empty of people, full only of romantic ideas. Jose Luis’s image of El Salvador, in contrast, totally invokes manufactured weapons; violence. Maria’s “self-projection elides Jose Luis’s difference” and illustrates “how easy it is for the North American characters, including the big-hearted María, to consume a sensationalized, romanticized, or demonized version of the Salvadoran or Chicana in their midst” (Lomas 2006, 361). Marta Caminero-Santangelo writes: “The main thrust of the narrative of Mother Tongue ... continually ... destabilize[s] the grounds for ... a fantasy of connectedness by emphasizing the ways in which [Maria’s] experience as a Mexican American and José Luis’s experiences as a Salvadoran have created fundamentally different subjects” (Caminero-Santangelo 2001, 198). Similarly, Dalia Kandiyoti points out how Maria’s interactions with José Luis present her false assumptions concerning the supposed “seamlessness of the Latino-Latin American connection” (Kandiyoti 2004, 422). So the continual misinterpretations of José Luis and who he really is and has been through on Maria’s part really show how very far away her experiences as a middle-class, U.S.-born Chicana are from those of her Salvadoran lover. This tension and resistance continues throughout their relationship.

Gloria Anzaldua’s short essay, Towards a New Consciousness, begins with the description of her mixed culture, a mestiza, and the conflicts she faces in being torn between being Mexican and Native American. Anzaldua expresses her struggle of her torn heritages by describing herself as being caught between two cultures and their values. Instead of being able to love and respect both cultures, Anzaldua feels as if we people feel the need to take up one side of our heritage and end up hating the other part. She paints an image as standing on an opposite side of a riverbank, yelling back and forth answers and questions showing that we eventually end up favoring one side and only getting pieces of the other

In defining one’s identity, many different factors are considered; such as one’s nationality, characteristic, personality, ability, experience, religion, and etc. Especially for those people who live in America, so called country of immigration, has much more complicated identities than those Asian country people where mixed people are rarely noticed. Thinking about the concept of identity, some people easily categorized themselves as simple factors and terms which could describe their surface; white, black, Asian, European, pretty, ugly, nice, mean and so on and so forth. And that is the most point where majority people stopped to list their identities from exploring more in complicated range. However, there are many people who dig more than common people; one great example would be Denise Chavez, who is the author of the novel called Loving Pedro Infante, who kept asking herself about her identity to approach more accurate and clear ideas. In her work, reader could see the confusion of Tere, the main character of the novel, went through her life as Latin-American female in dealing with finding one’s true identity and how she accept her as who she really is. Denise Chavez, who is obviously Latin-American lady, mirror her own life experience through the character she created and introduce to readers about tough life she lived in America as Mejicana. The main character of this novel have a clear understanding and strong idea about herself throughout the novel, even if

In Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera, she uses her own personal experiences growing up and living near the border that separates the United States and Mexico. Anzaldua makes us reexamine the purpose of a border and the negative effects that come with it. Since she lives close to the border, she cannot completely identity herself as an American nor would she be able to call herself Mexican. As a Chicana, she did not know where she belonged in society. The two cultures she lived under put her in this constant state of transition. The struggles she faces strongly resembles the ones that Piri Thomas faces in his novel Down These Mean Streets. Despite the fact that Thomas was actually of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, many people failed to recognize him as such and saw him as an African-American.

An immigrant's life is impacted by many things when arriving to the United States. For example, when arriving to the United States they have trouble communicating with others or fitting into a new life that awaits for them. Alvarez uses imagery and symbolism to show that American Identity can be heavily impacted by the need to fit into society and adapting to a new culture while trying to stay true to one’s native culture. Author Background and Historical Context

The role of strong female roles in literature is both frightening to some and enlightening to others. Although times have changed, Sandra Cisneros’ stories about Mexican-American women provide a cultural division within itself that reflects in a recent time. The cultural themes in Cisneros’s stories highlight the struggle of women who identify with Mexican-American heritage and the struggle in terms of living up to Mexican culture – as a separate ethnic body. The women in Sandra Cisneros’ stories are struggling with living up to identities assigned to them, while trying to create their own as women without an ethnic landscape. In Sandra Cisneros’ stories “Woman Hollering Creek: and “Never Marry a Mexican” the role of female identities that

The personal essay titled “The Space In-Between” by Santiago Quintana details the struggles he dealt with while trying to figure out his identity as a member of both the Mexican and American cultures. Even though Santiago was born and raised in Mexico, he was often questioned about his ethnicity because his physical appearance did not align with that of a “true Mexican.” Instead of having brown skin, black hair, and brown eyes, he has white skin, light brown hair, and blue eyes. Since Santiago looked so different, he was singled out, bullied, and treated as if he were a foreigner in his own country. The difficulties he faced clearly had numerous negative effects on him emotionally, however, there was an unexpected and overwhelmingly positive

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.”

In chapter two of Martinez’s Phenomenology of Chicana Experience and Identity: Communication and Transformation in Praxis, Martinez uses her third identifying ethnic mode of consciousness, the knowing - unknown to investigate her father’s mostly hidden heritage. She uses the knowing - unknown mode of consciousness to attempt a rediscovery of her hidden Chicana identity. However, Martinez’s investigation of her father’s mostly hidden heritage creates an indirect silence about her mother’s heritage. In chapter three, Martinez’s exploration of her Chicana lesbian identity rests primarily in the Chicana history and she disregards the Anglo’s history of lesbian identity. Because of this, it may be argued that Martinez has a stronger connection to her father’s cultural roots over her mother’s Native American, mostly white heritage in attempting to rediscover her Chicana racial and sexual identity.

She said this though she was Mexican too. But she was born here in the U.S, and he was born there, and it’s not the same, you know” (Cisneros 68). This also shows Clemencia’s boundary living. In an interview with Aranda, Sandra Cisneros dramatizes the double unbelonging through Clemencia’s inability to function in either Anglo or Mexican discourse (Wyatt). With the imagery portrayed of both sides of the border, the reader can clearly imagine exactly what Clemencia’s mother means with this statement.

The materials that impacted me the most were race and borderlands and identity. Like I had mentioned in my discussion blog, being different from others had a tremendous affect on me as a child. Being a different race wasn’t much of a deal when we were kids, but as we started to grow up and gaining knowledge, everything changed. My classmate started to realize that I’m different from them and started to treat me differently based on that. At the time we were all facing a challenge when it came to being a different race because of certain events like 9/11. When something goes wrong, it’s always so easy to blame those who are different. For example, today’s

National Identity, as well as culture, has transitioned throughout Japan’s history in result of the modernization and industrialization of the country as a whole. National identity has become a sort of mantra in contemporary discussions of culture and the forming of a nation-state. In Japan, the connection to the natural and spiritual world have formed this concept of visions of nature, which have built up the national identity of the country through this cultural thought. The modernization of Japan has interrupted these visions of nature that have molded the imagery of nationhood throughout the history of the country. In the short story, “Kuchisuke’s Valley”, this interruption of the natural world can be seen through the building of a dam, which in turn creates a setback in both the natural and spiritual world which the Japanese have made a part of

In the article “Land, Territory and Identity” David Storey written April 2012.He is a professional geographer and works as a senior lecturer at the institute of science and environment in University of Worcester in United Kingdom. Territory, identity and place, sport was his researched topic. Basically its focuses on two aphorisms that are rural land or area, their peculiarity and the second one is nationalist narration of land and territory, how it’s connected with the identity. Author’s unification is the severance between the local and national point of view in how it is constructed. The article gives a penetrating concern in two parts. One is land and local identity, the other is

Cultural identity is the basis in which identification is used to express different aspects pertaining to identity and heritage. A person's cultural identity may be created by social organization, as well as traditions and customs within their lives. The two aspects that construct my cultural identity are the frequent chores I must complete every day in order to fulfill my behavioral expectations, and the youth group I attend weekly. These aspects are important to my family and me. Therefore, my identity has an immeasurable effect on my upbringing into this multi-cultural world I live in.