How does Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualize the borderlands? What are its physical as well as its non-material manifestations? Why does she say that she is a border woman? Explain using textual support to validate your claims and warrants:
Borders are built to separate places. This separation carries a negative connotation because it implies that one place is better than the other. This concept is presented in chapter one of Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua. According to Anzaldua a borderland is a “constant place of transition” (Anzaldua 25) because its inhabitants are those who deviate from what is considered “normal” by western society such as “the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel and the mulato”(Anzaldua 25). It is the constant clash of two distinct cultures (third world and first world) which produces a fear of the unknown ultimately resulting in the formation of a social hierarchy. The inhabitants of these borderlands and those who cross the border automatically become part of the social hierarchy. In this social hierarchy undocumented women are at the bottom because they carry two oppressing labels: that of their gender and that of their “legal” status. Many of these women only have two options (to go back their homeland and starve or to submit to the oppression) because they do not know English and therefore lack the knowledge of their rights. Anzaldua knows that she is part of this oppression because all of the Chicanos are “The Aztecas del norte” and therefore considers herself a border land woman. According to Anzaldua the stripping away of the borderlands by United States from Mexico is one of the causes for this oppression. Once the border lands became part of the US, it left many of its inhabitants confronted with confusion because they no longer saw Mexico as their home but their traditions were still part of it. Some decided to go back to Mexico others revolted and many assimilated and became part of the “prohibited and forbidden” (Anzaldua 25). This is when the oppression began because the gringos took advantage of these individuals’ situation and took away their lands. However, once the lands dried out, the Anglos “corporations hired gangs of Mexicans to pull the brush, chaparral and cactus and to irrigate the desert” (Anzaldua 31) which demonstrates the hypocrisy of the US for kicking them out and later begging for their help. This hypocrisy became a constant pattern; when the US needs help it opens its borders, and once satisfied, it closes them, ultimately resulting in a lack of identity for many Mexican-Americans who reside in the US. Many of these Mexican-Americans are confronted with the decision to either embrace their Mexican heritage or to assimilate to the “American” because they fail to realize that they have become part of both. Thus, demonstrating the effects that the physical border and the social hierarchy created by it have on today’s society because “those who make it past the checking points of the border patrol find themselves in the midst of 150 years of racism in Chicano barrios in the southwest and in the big northern cities” (Anzaldua 34).
Is Mexico even considered third world? I don't know, which is why I ask. But I find it interesting that she exposes these issues. It does seem that way, that the U.S. welcomes immigrants when they need to have things built, but then close them when they have enough help.
According to Gloria, the border divides the first and third world. Not all of Mexico is considered third world, but if you compare Tijuana with the US, there is big difference in the infrastructure.
Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a place that is "vague and undetermined" and is "created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary". She introduces Borderlands by contrasting the ocean with the unnatural Mexican/American border. "I stand at the edge where earth touches ocean/where the two overlap/a gentle coming together/at other times and places a violent crash"(23). She defines borders as boundaries that "define the places that are unsafe and safe ,to distinguish us from them(25)". This distinction between people allowed for the physical mistreatment of the '"them"', in this case being the Mexicans from the perspective of white Americans. "Do not enter, trespassers will be raped, maimed,strangled,gashed,shot"(25). Ironically, it is the Americans who so harshly claimed this land that never was nor will ever truly belong to them. The non-material manifestation affiliated with the borderlands is the sense of authority in the mind of the "white superiority"(29). The Gringo, locked into a fiction of white superiority, seized complete political power,stripping Indians and Mexicans of their land..."(29). With this quote Anzaldúa proves that the establishment of the border somehow created a sense of entitlement in the mind of the whites and "legitimized the...takeover"(28). Anzaldúa describes herself as a border woman, being physically as well as psychologically affected by this border. " 1950 mile-long open wound/dividing a pueblo, a culture,/ running down the length of my body,/staking fence rods in my flesh,/splits me splits me/"(24). In saying this quote she proves that in being a Chicana she cant give her whole identity to one side, either Mexican or the United States but both and is therefore a border woman. A woman in which "This[the border] is her home/this thin edge of barbwire"(35).
I really liked how you cited some of the poetry to analyze the borderlands. It makes for a lot of strong ideas to be presented that may take some interpretation to explain. If I could offer any suggestions, the only thing I would have to say is to probably use quotes more sparingly. This may make the quotes that you do include more effective. Otherwise, good job!
Gloria Anzaldua conceptualized the borderlands as both a physical barrier and social barrier between cultures. As the she described the role of borders in the book she talks about how the manifestation of borders did not only just only create a physical border to keep cretan kinds of people out when it is convenient, but also the separation was a social contract that let others know that people of distinct race or socioeconomic was not allowed to enter due to the certain prejudice. She described herself as a woman of the borderlands because she is caught between the separation of the border,born of Latin@ culture in the United states she was not validated in one place or the other. She then classifies herself as a woman of the borderlands caught in two worlds of separation.
I agree when you say that the borderlands provide a barrier not only physically between countries, but between cultures as well. I also agree when you say that as a border woman Anzaldúa was not validated in one place or the other, but rather caught between two worlds of separation. However, I disagree when you say this separation was a type of social contract. A social contract implies the fact that the border was a type of agreement between both parties, in this case the Anglos and the mexicanos. If it was a social contract, then that means both parties had agreed from the beginning not to cross into each other’s space, which is not the case.
I agree with you and your ideas but it needs more context. With out the context it lacks the validation that a response needs to be taken seriously. I also think that you need to be less vague with your ideas and provide more examples. It is evident that you have great roots for your responses but while writing you seem to stray from those roots.
Jasmine Madrigal Mr. Saldivar Latin American/Latin@ Literature, Period 2/6B May 18, 2014
The Borderlands
In chapter one of Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldúa, Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a place of contradictions, where conventional ideas are challenged when two distinct cultures edge each other. Being an actual, physical borderland that divides the United States and Mexico, it is more significantly a psychological borderland. Anzaldúa, a border woman because she embodies both Mexican and Anglo culture, testifies to the psychological impacts the border has on an individual. She describes it as being “una herida abierta”, or a wound, where “the Third World grates against the first and bleeds”, both from physical and emotional pain (Anzaldúa 25). Anzaldúa recalls a time where she experiences such pain when her cousin was “deported to Guadalajara by plane” because he “couldn’t speak English, couldn’t tell them he was a fifth generation American”, something seemingly contradictory that la migra could not understand (26). Many Mexican-Americans today fail to be understood because they are neither black nor white, their mixed nature challenging the black-white paradigm and resulting in the United States lack of acception in them as a people.
I really like how you said it was a psychological borderland and how you tied it to real life in your sentence. You really just made your whole paragraph relevant. I feel like it would've been stronger if you would've added something about why she considers herself a border woman. You could have made an emotional connection between that and the deportation of her cousin. Still even without it you closed it really well with your final sentence.
Jasmine, I like that you talked about the idea of Anzaldua testifying the impacts the border has on people. She does not take one side or the other, rather she creates her own space by embodying what Anzaldua sees as the more positive side of Mexican and Anglo culture. I would have liked to see you talk about the the physical and non-material things that created the border we have now. Even so, I like the connection you made to the misunderstanding in Mexican-Americans for trying to be both and their struggle to be validated similar to Anzaldua's.
Daryl Cordova In chapter one of Borderlands Gloria Anzaldua brings to light how the border itself is a whole new world. “The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the third world grates against the first and bleeds, And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country--- a border culture” (Anzaldua 25). She sees the border as history’s leftover emotional battleground where this line brought a division to “distinguish us from them” (Anzadua 25). The things she describes the border as leads this idea of loneliness and death. It’s this desolate land where tension is an everyday battle between the gringo and the ‘transgressors’. Anzadldua describes herself as this border woman. She lives with the scars of having to leave behind her roots and being confronted by a new lifestyle. Her long journey is described as her “1,950 mile-long open wound dividing a pueblo, a culture, running down the length of my body, stalking fence rods in my flesh, splits me splits me.” (Anzaldua 24). She is a border woman because she lives in this constant battle of rejection in her attempt to survive in the United States.
I like your idea of the "whole new world" basically instead of saying the border is a mix, it creates its own identity using both. The analysis of the leftover emotional battleground is a good representation between the constant struggling of the Latino versus the American. How you describe Anzaldua as a border woman is interesting to me as I would not of thought of that. I would say to try and expand upon the border's manifestations.
I like that you included how borderlands become their own country and adopt their own cultures rather than simply stating that those lands are just a mixture of the countries that divide them. The quotes you used in your response are good because they help to reinforce your arguments, which is always good. I agree with your interpretation of Anzaldua as a border woman because she does struggle to survive in the United States while also rebelling against the oppression she faces within her own culture as a Chicana.
Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a type of no-man’s land, consisting of both physical and non-material manifestations. The borderlands are typically referred to as the area dealing as the barrier between the US and Mexico, or the Southwest area. It is here where Mexicans are exploited by racism and the gringos have “seized complete political power”, thriving off of their exploitation (Anzaldúa 29). Aside from this, though, the borderlands have many psychological elements to it as well. These cover the cultural, sexual, and religious divides that occur along the Southwest border, as a result of “people of different races occupy[ing] the same territory” (Anzaldúa 19). This is also what causes the borderlands to be characterized as a place filled with tension amongst the Anglos and the mexicanos. Gloria Anzaldúa goes on to say that she is a border woman as she “grew up between two cultures”, in a life filled with contradictions (Anzaldúa 19). These contradictions can be seen as tejanos constantly live in fear of being deported to Mexico despite many of them being “fifth generation Amerian[s]” and were technically “the first inhabitants” of the area to begin with (Anzaldúa 26). A daughter of the borderlands, learning to deal with such contradictions and switching between multiple identities became the basis of her very existence.
I really like how you brought up the point about how this contradiction can be seen in how fifth generation americans still have to fear being deported. Although I disagree that these things have become the basis of Anzaldúa's existence; rather she is trying to make people aware of these contradictions in the hopes of stopping them from becoming the basis of everyone's existence.
I agree with Julia. Your perspective made me re-evaluate what I read. But I do not believe these contradictions are what make Anzaldua's claim stronger, as there is something wrong with the culture's imposition that makes her and many other Chicanas confused.
Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as a place of separation and isolation, where all that is known is lost, and is all a mix of culture that can not be identified under control by the "whites and those who align themselves with the whites" (Anzaldua 26). It is a place full of tension and ambivalence which would rather be forgotten than embraced. It has both physical and mental manifestations in separation. The border is designed to physically keep immigrants out of America and mentally disembody them from ever being part of America, as always be classified as a "minority" or an "alien". These words and the border itself create the image of two different people and cultures that must not mix as "the third world grates against the first and bleeds" (Anzaldua 25). The border is a "1,950 mile-long open wound" Anzaldua is saying that the border's issues are known and it they will persist in being there until it is fixed and because of this she is a border woman (Anzaldua 24). She is caught between two identities of being Latina and American, and having to split between the two and change as need be. having to deal with this split and her life because of the restrictions of society and culture.
Your argument is well supported with the text and your choosing of it. I do think that the ties you describe make sense and are one of the main components of the chapter but I would have liked that you expand on the idea of the wound and the identities that are created from it. I think expanding on Anzaldua's identity of a border woman would have been beneficial as it felt a bit rushed.
Anzaldúa's "Borderlands," Chapter 1, focuses on the border culture that is created from the intermixing of the two countries involved. “The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the third world grates against the first and bleeds, And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country--- a border culture” (Anzaldúa 25). The border culture is a way of life living in fear. She fears for those struggling to survive and fears that the innocent will be unjustified. She tells the story of her cousin that was deported even though he was a fifth generation American (Anzaldúa 26). She calls herself a border woman because she "grew up between two cultures" (Anzaldúa 19). She's been "straddling that tejas-Mexican border, and others, all [her] life." She struggles to define her own national identity and cannot limit it to just one country. If anything, she would probably identify herself with the "third country:" the borderland.
It's interesting how the stereotypes have led to injustice. For instance, Gloria's cousin was born in the US, but yet he was deported because of his appearance. The formation of third country is also interesting because those who inhabit the borderlands feel trapped between two cultures and therefore find it necessary to create a third country where they fit in.
I think you did a good job in explaining why Anzaldua class her self a border woman, by showing that she part of two cultures that conflict with one another. I would only say that i disagree that borderlands means living in fear. I would say that borderlands refers to being bicultural and living between the borders of the cultures.
I really like how you analyzed the fear and the importance of fear in the identity of the border land. You connected the "third country " element with Anzaldua.
Gloria Anzaldúa describes the borderland as a "dividing line...created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary…[where] the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato, the half-breed, [and] the half dead" live (Anzaldúa 25). They are a place where "the only "legitimate" inhabitants are those in power, whites and those who align themselves with whites," (Anzaldúa 25-26) creating not only a social border , but also a psychological one due to hundreds of years of being "locked into the fiction of white superiority" (Anzaldúa 29). Gloria Anzaldúa says that she is a border woman because she is of both Latina and American decent, "her home [being] th[e] thin edge of barbwire" (Anzaldúa 35). She is not only a blend of two cultures who's past and present clash; she is also a lesbian, creating yet another border. The U.S. - Mexican border is not only an open wound separating the first and third world, but also "una herida abierta" (Anzaldúa25) separating Anzaldúa and everyone like her from the different cultures within themselves.
It is interesting that you included her sexuality as another border, while it is true that her being a lesbian definitely creates another aspect of her identity which is targeted, does border culture also explain the injustices done to identities which cannot be included in nationality, ethnicity, or race?
Anzaldua immediately conceptualizes the borderlands as a country its own "where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds" (Anzaldua 25). Mexico and US cultures conflict due to the internalized historical racisms and wrongs that the US brought upon colonization and still perpetuates today. US has systematically made Mexico dependent financially and through this and other violence oriented injustices has created a sift between those accepted and "Los atravesados" (25) , the sift being the borderline. The border manifests the mentality of the colonizers which villainized Mexicans and "legitimized the white imperialist takeover" which today can often times be synonymous with US patriotism. The physicality of this mentality can be seen in the dismissed violence along the border that can be triggered by trying to cross it or simply living among it. Anzaldua identifies as a border woman because she and her family experienced the exploitation of their land, work, and identities in the name of the border and the border culture that ascends it. She details these exploitation not only with statistical evidence, one example being the devaluing of the peso, but also with personal anecdote of her family being mistreated as sharecroppers.
In chapter one of Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands, she establishes a border as a means to distinguish the “safe and unsafe… us from them” (Anzaldua 25). She conceptualizes a borderland as a “vague and undetermined place” inhabited by “[t]he prohibited and forbidden” and which is “in a constant state of transition” (Anzaldua 25). The borderland takes on a physical form through “the steel curtain—[a] chain link fence crowned with barbed wire” (Anzaldua 24). But the separation of the two worlds goes deeper than a line drawn in the dirt; it goes back to the origins of the Aztecs and the Spanish conquest, and later to the Mexican-American war. With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 came the birth of “the border fence that divides the Mexican people” (Anzaldua 29). The 100,000 Mexicans that were left on the annexed state of Texas were “strip[ped] of their land” and “separated from [their] identity and [their] history” (Anzaldua 30). From this point on began the abuse and exploitation of Mexican immigrants and Indians, from the stealing of Indian land to taking advantage of the immigrants’ helplessness. Anzaldua explains that the Mexican woman is especially at risk because of the two labels that she carries—that of her gender and that of her national origin. She calls herself a border woman because she is part of the borderland as she too faces the same exploitation, "this is her home, this thin edge of barbwire" (Anzaldua 35).
Your use of context is great, specifically when you reference the history and development of the border. That makes your argument really strong and it ties everything together. I like that you defined the border and how it is characterized before you talked about why she is a border woman. It set up your ending point well and kept your response from getting redundant. Great use of quotes, too. Overall, it's a really strong analysis.
Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as the place of Anglo- Mex disputes and the creation of a new culture that the Anglo community considers a 'silent invasion'. The borderlands is described as "the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (Anzaldua 25). Unnatural because of the injustice that is felt for many Latinoamericanos after the imperialist greed that the United States had to invade and conquer Aztlan. Aztlan that was the origin of the Aztecs and most Latinos now resides al norte. The fence which signifies the beginning of the aggression by the north to keep their position and their attempt to destroy any sense of the past that would send them 'pa' 'tras'. Anzaldua documents the Anglo land exploitation that stretched far south of their own arbitrary border. This, an attempt to control the borderland and the country of Mexico as a whole. However, this just leave a bitter for revenge to the Latino. The travesty of crossing north for the Mexican woman is a hardship, as even the return to Aztlan would only be reminiscent to the stigma of patriarchy that their ancestors had when envisioning the " symbolic sacrifice of the serpent to the 'higher' masculine powers" (Anzaldua 27). Surrounded by patriarchal nationalists, the woman refugee must reside to this being her home, "this thin edge of barbwire" (Anzaldua 35).
I like how you described the creation of the unnatural border between Mexico and the United States and the relationship between the Latinos and the American imperialist greed. However, I disagree with you when you say that the fence signifies the beginning of the aggression by the north. I think the aggression of the north stretches all the way back to the founding of the Americas. The fence was simply a slap in the face to the Mexicans and a sign of "We win" from the Americans.
Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as almost it's own country. The borderlands were described as a place where two completely different worlds collide, where neither side claims the middle. It creates fear, confusion, and disparity amongst the inhabitants because of the "unnatural boundary" that has been set. As the border physically manifest it's self as separating them from us, and defining the "places that are safe and not safe."Anzaldua describes the borderlands as full of contradictions as it lives between the hyphen of the US and Mexico. She characterizes the area as being "vague and undetermined," creating "faceless, nameless, invisible," human beings being exploited by history, economics, society, and politics by both sides of the border. Anzaldua describes herself as a border women because she has experienced the life and culture that has effected the border region. She has seen exploitation of her fathers labor and lived between two identities that she identifies as. The same constant collisions and conflicts resulting from living on the fringe effects her.
Nathan, I agree with the idea of the borderlands being almost its own country, I would say it exists more as an individual entity rather than a country but the general idea is the same. Its almost as if the border exists on its own but yet it is composed by the clashing of the third and first world. Her perspective is very relevant to life in the border lands as she has lived within the culture
In chapter 1, Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a “vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” – a place in a “constant state of transition”, where the “prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants,” (Anzaldúa 25). This conceptualization provides both a physical and cultural view of how the forming of the border created the division that exists today. After the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the physical border was set. It finalized the “us vs. them” mentality that was sure to keep the two countries separate. But the birth of the mestizaje race hundreds of years before had already created a border culture that would make it impossible to truly keep the two cultures separate. Anzaldúa calls herself a border woman because she is a product of the vague border culture. The border, she says, is a “1,950 mile-long open wound… running down the length of my body, staking fence rods in my flesh, splits me splits me,” (Anzaldúa 24).
Maddie I liked how you flowed the quotes together at the beginning to make a solid point. I agree with your ideas that the War cause a lot of the division and how there is no solidified equality between the people along the border. I would say that the reuslts of the war is also contributing to the racial divide and the effort by both sides to resolve the problems between the two.
Maddie, I like your selection of quotes you used to support your response. It is true that because of the mestizaje race hundreds of years before, the cultures will not be kept separate, despite the physical border that is in place between the cultures. You should elaborate on how Gloria Anzaldua is a product of the vague border culture.
Reading your response was extremely fluid and understandable as the quotes and their analysis aligned together very well. I liked how you incorporated the history Anzaldua provided in chapter 1 appropriately into your response.
The borderlands as conceptualized by Anzaldua is a distinct space where there exists conflict between the clashing of two distinct cultures and tension within the sociopolitical factors that surround the border. It is a place of life and death, risk and promises, where one must choose between stagnation in the homeland or life in "El Norte" characterized by constant fear and hardships. Its manifestation lies in the "mountains and plains and deserts" (Anzaldua 24) littered with barbed wire fences and border patrol agents stalking their next prey. Life exists within the rich history of the borderlands, within the roots of mestizaje from "continual intermarriage between Mexican and American Indians and Spanish" (Anzaldua 27) and the remnants of Chicano ancestry stretching back thousands of years. Anzaldua says she is a border woman because she grew up in this border culture in Texas. Her exposure to the border culture and her experiences as a Chicana have allowed her to develop a deep understanding of the border culture.
Marvin I thought it was a very apporopiate way to introduce your analysis with stating that the border is the clashing of two distinct cultures. Then go on two transition from the negatives of both sides of the border, but use it to then highlight the richness of culture and people that exists within the border.
The way the quotes fit into your paragraph made it easy to read and made your point more concise and easy to follow. The contrast you make between "El Norte" and the homeland really give you a sense of how difficult the choose of migrating is and the tension that arises in the borderland.
Gloria Anzaldua defines the US/Mexican border as "una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds". She creates a very complex relationship between the United States and Mexico through their long, intense history. Anzaldua documents the Mexican American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the countless lives of Mexicans affected by American imperialism. Anzauldua then goes on to state that through this complex relationship a third country was born, a border country. Tejanos, those born in Texas while it was still Mexican land, are neither Mexican nor American but rather a border race.This border race is defined by a sense of not belonging, because those who belong to the race are given the choice is "to stay in Mexico and starve or move north and live". Anzadula defines herself as belonging to this border lang culture because her ancestors trace back to belonging to this Mexican American identity and their pain and history lives on in her.
I enjoyed how you discussed how the border is a 3rd country/new culture and that they were in fact part of each country that currently overlap this borderland, but how does the border effect the environment of people? Does the change in ownership truly effect the people who live there?
Ross, I liked your definition and analysis of the border race but I am unclear as to what the border is according to your paragraph. Is the border the relationship or is it something physical or is it both?
In chapter 1, Gloria Anzaldúa describes the border as being "una herida abierta where the 3rd world meets the first and bleeds. before a scab forms it hemerrhages again, with the bloodmixing to form a thrid country- a borderculture" (Anzaldúa 25). The depiction of the border alludes to how the tension at the border is around today. The injustice by the Americans during the Mexican-American War created an unsettled dislike for the Americans by the Mexicans which is amplified by their accessiility to eachother near the border. Anzaldua acredits the Battle of the Alamo to the racial descrimination of the Mexicans by the whites because of the "cowardly and villianous character of the Mexicans...It became a symbol for the white imperialist takeover" (Anzaldúa 28). Besides the untangible resentment for eachother around the border the physical products of the border are the new cultures of people, mestizos. Anzaldua claims that the border splits her in half leaving her a product of two cultures fused together by the mystique of the border.
Philip, i really like the way you tied up the concept of the border being an open wound with the fusion of two cultures. I agree that Anzaldua is the product of the those two cultures that resulted with the creation of the new mestizo race and the white imperialism. I think that the author becomes one with the border due to its history and symbolism. Well done.
I like the way you used the history that was provided in the chapter a base for your support on your argument about the ongoing injustice and racial discrimination.
Gloria Anzaldua identifies herself to be a border woman because she is the result of what came to be a "border culture". To Anzaldua, the border represents the separation between "us" and "them" the normal and the unatural and the safe and unsafe. Although the border is just a fence with barbed wire, a physical thing, it is the portrayal of what the "normal" gringo is capable of- conquest. The chicano has always been the victim of conquest dating back to the 16th century when thr spaniards conquered the aztecs who are known as the ancestors of the mexican people. From that conquest the new mestizo race originated until the anglos decided to seek expansion and took over texas. Within the edged of that border, people suffered. They experienced racism,were mistreated but most importantly they feared deportation. The men who depended on american goods to live, the woman who had to withstand rape, these were people who faced oppression and did not fight back and that is what true power looked like, the power the gringo had. Anzsldua makes it clear that her home is an "open wound" yet she is willing to confront the pain because she knows that the "sea cannot be fenced".
Angie, I think overall you did a good job condensing the text and answering the questions. However, i think you should have contextualized the last sentence little more because it is a little unclear how the sea relates to the open wound. What did she compare to the sea? the wound? Other than that...Good job!
Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as a "vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (Anzaldua 25). With the clashing of first and third world countries, border countries are born. Anzaldua describes how the United States had invaded Mexican territory and took their land. Specifically, Anglos went to Texas and took the land from the Tejanos, who lived in Texas while it was part of Mexico, and basically kicked them out. Tejanos cannot really identify themselves as American or Mexican and ultimately become ostracized by both groups because they are literally on the border of both cultures. Tejanos must choose between becoming a part of American society and assimilating or staying in Mexico and struggling to support themselves and their family. This pertains to all borderland cultures because every individual living on the border has to make the choice of staying or going. Gloria Anzaldua defines herself as a border woman because she has been exposed to border culture all her life and because of these personal experiences, she has been able to grasp a deeper understanding of borderlands and the cultures they preserve.
I agree that actions by the US have caused Tejanos to feel other in their own culture. You mentioned how Tejanos have two options, assimilation or suffering. Can there be a third options, where they don't have to leave out part of themselves. I would disagree, an individual has more options than staying or going. The individual can do either and stand up for his culture. The border culture becomes there new culture.
i like how you included the history of the border into the creation of an identity but disagree in the fact that tejanos must choose one side or the other. i feel that by adopting the Chicana identity she is accepting both part of herself.
I agree with how you approached the choices that people living on the border need to make, and how Anzaldua fits into this culture. Hoever, I do not believe you fully represented the culture the border creates, one of cultural as opposed to mere separation. I think you understand that, I think you should have just elaborated upon it more.
In chapter 1, Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the border as "una herida abierta" (Anzaldúa 25). An open wound is an accurate description of the border because it represents how two worlds collide together "to form a third country-border culture" (Anzaldúa 25). Physically it is portrayed as just a "1,950 mile-long wire fence" (Anzaldúa 24). It is used to try to divide two different worlds to keep out dangerous foreigners, but in this process of trying to keep out people from the opposite side of whichever side of the border you are on. Culture is seen as an attack on one's own nationality which is another reason why it is portrayed as something so malicious to invade another country, and in trying to make it your own that is how the border culture is born. She calls herself a border woman beause she herself endured life on the border and grew with its own culture. She is within that division and the struggle for a unified identity, but one thing she is sure of is "This is her home this thin edge of barbwire" (Anzaldúa 35).
I can somewhat understand what you are trying to say, but I do think you need to clear up some things. For example, how is culture an attack on one's nationality?
Very interesting Vincent. "Una herida abierta" can have so many significance for the description of the border. Aside from the collision of two cultures, the border is set to divide two countries and to stop people from coming to the other side. The border is a place where millions of dreams have extinguished for it has been the cause of many deaths.
Gloria Anzaldua defines the borderlands as a fringe in which the Chican@ is forces to live upon, a "thin edge of / barbwire" (Anzaldua 25). The US/Mexican border consists of both the iron wall that separates the two nations as well as the stigmas that surround the people who inhabit the borderlands. The mestizos that live there are considered "mongrel" and "half-breed" by the north and seen as a problem. This leaves the borderlands in between worlds (and literally nations) and isolates the area and creates a cultural limbo. Metaphysical borders are created by the physical ones. Anzlaldua defines herself as a border woman because she is a mestizo. She is part of the barbwire culture that defines her as such. Her Chicana identity serves as a reason for her to be a border woman.
I like how you said that borders were created with other borders. I don't really understand the last statement though. Like what aspects if her chicana indent it's is the border woman.
Borders are boundaries set in order to divide areas. In Chapter 1 of Borderlands, Anzaldua describes that "Borders are set up to define places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them" (Anzaldua 25). These separations are not intended to become a division between the "good" and the "bad". However, the borders drawn have left a negative overtone with the outlying borderlands as it suggests a reason for a need for separation and supports a hierarchy among regions. The border not only physically divides to areas but it also divides the respective cultures among those borderlands. These cultures end up being abnormal when practiced across the border and are not expected to be continued. This loss of culture for those that migrated from the borderlands across, ha resulted in a loss in identity and culture. Anzaldua explains that, "Those who make it past the checking of the Border Patrol find themselves in the midst of 150 years of racism in Chicano barrios in the Southwest and in big northern cities" (Anzaldua 34). Those that do make it across, are not appreciated for who they are and are often not accepted at all. Anzaldua considers herself a border woman as she is stuck in between her two divided cultures. Without her culture she feels oppressed, but as a woman she sees a higher risk. Anzaldua claims that, "La mojada, la mujer indocumentada, is undoubtedly threatened in this country. Not only doe she have to contend with sexual violence, but like all women, she is prey to a sense of physical helplessness" (Anzaldua 34). Anzaldua has conceptualized these borderlands as the base for danger, especially for women, culturally, socially, and physically.
Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a "dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge" (Anzaldúa 25). The boarder separates places and people who are "prohibited and forbidden" (25). Physically, all the border is is a large gate that is stretched for many miles. There is more to it than just that, it can symbolize a sense of no belonging because the people of these borderlands have difficulty identifying themselves as a person, they are either one side or the other but can identify as both. Anzaldúa says she is a boarder woman because she grew up in the environment where she herself faced the border culture and the split between them.
I disagree that Anzaldua is split over the border. I think Anzaldua would call either side of the border home and would say that the Borderlands between the cultures is a place in itself. The border is much more than a dividing line even if it was only meant to be such. I don't think people in these places ave problems identifying themselves. Anzaldua often cites the forces of hate and oppression that contradict self determination.
Gloria Anzaldúa views the borderland as a place where a new race began. The mestizaje occurred during the arrival of Cortez with the invasion of Spain into the Americas. “En el 1521 nació una raza, el mestizo, el mexicano” (Anzaldúa 27) and with many interracial relations the mestizaje further continued. Anzaldúa discusses not only the physical border, this “thin edge of barbed wire”, but also this physiological border that separates the white from the Mexican and from the border race. The thin barbed wire becomes a large cloud for large numbers of Mexicans who do not encompass the American culture and for the Chicanos who do not encompass the Mexican culture. “The sea cannot be fenced, el mar does not stop at borders”(Anzaldúa 25), and neither does the cultural tension stay within these borders but spans throughout the whole Northern American continent. Anzaldúa considers herself as borderland women because she has been exposed to the borderland living in Texas and is part of this mestiza identity.
I like how you didn't just explain the border as a physical border but also a physiological border. I think that's very true in terms of what Anzaldua is talking about. Good job overall.
I never realized how "positive" this could be seen. I keep looking at this through an "angry" lens, as if borderlands were something bad instead of a place where the solution could arise from. Thanks for the new perspective. I do not think anyone wrote about borderlands in that way
The Border between the United States and Mexico hollowed the ground it stood on, and caused a land absent of cultural individuality. American prejudice and the forces of northing migration trapped the people there, locking them in shackles of infectious conformity. “Tension grips the individuals of the borderland like a virus,” (Anzaldua 26) and as the virus infects the steady flow of cultural hosts, the boarder engraves the earth deeper. As Mexico crashes against the border, the boarder clashes against the individual with its links of parasitic iron, draining their sense of self until each dream/aspiration is another link in the fence that divides us. As Anzaldua associates with the identity of a “border woman” she de-personifies the boarder itself. She frees the dreams of her fellow border women from the each link of the fence and creates a culture from the tyrannous rule of the border. “Trembling with fear yet filled with courage, a courage born of desperation,” (Anzaldua 33) is from the immunization Anzaldua concocts through Cultural Revolution to combat the border’s infectious tendencies of American racist reality.
This was..impassioned. I felt like I was reading propaganda. I don't know if that quote from page 33 applied specifically to border women, but to all border people. How exactly has Anzaldua accomplish this "de-personification" already?
Very well stated. I agree with your idea of the borders being shackles. I find your perspective interesting that you believe the border destroys those who oppose it but Anzaldua serves as hope/ an extra opposing force. Initially, that is not what I took from the reading but I "gather that" now. Thanks for the enlightenment.
In Chapter One of The Borderlands, Anzaldua explains how psychological borders manifest themselves within the physical Mexican-American border. She defines the Borderland as a, "vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (Anzaldua 25). "Vague" and "undetermined" refers to the constant transitional state of things and people, as nothing within the Borderlands is clearly defined, including her. This is because the people existing in the Borderlands are the Chicanos (or immigrant Mexicans). They are the embodiment of mestizaje being decendants of Spanish, mestizos, and indigneous however they are displaced from their ancestoral country by living in the United States as well as excluded from American society. Anzaldua refers to the gravitation north as "el retorno" (Anzaldua 33), being the act of Mexicans seeking to return to the lands of their ancestors which filibusteros had wrongfully claimed and taken. Here is the place where cultures clash. In trying to establish itself as superior, the dominant white structure erected a wall between the two worlds creating a wound; Mexicans were ripped from their homeland at the annexation of Texas. Here is the source of the, "emotional residue" present within the Borderlands as, the United States did create an "unnatural boundary" between the people and their land (Anzaldua 25). She, being a Chicana herself, states that she lives on the, "thin edge of barbwire"( Anzaldua 35). She witnessed the change in Mexico as large American corporations bought up the land from the people to make profits, using the workers they were putting out of business. She saw the erection of the fence separating Mexico and the United States and felt that it "split" her (Anzaldua 25). Economic conditions meant that her family could not return to the home which culturally accepted her nor could they fully integrate into American society which rejected them;" the choice [was] to [move to] Mexico and starve or [stay] north and live" (Anzaldua 32). Because she struggles to retain her identity within as a Chicana in the United States and was culturally divided from her "homeland" (Aztlan) while being reminded all the time that she did not belong where she lived, Anzaldua states she is border woman.
I like how you describe the border, and those who live in it, as undefined. It is an interesting way to see that the border is not only a blending of cultures but an indeterminate space. The cultural rejection that Anzaldua felt from both sides of the physical border would definitely qualify her as a border woman, but do you think that is the only reason why she identifies that way?
In chapter One of Gloria Anzaldua's book she has many descriptions of what defines a border. One of her ideas of the border are that " Borders are set up to define places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them" (Anzaldua 25). As she defined the borders physical attribute as being a "... dividing line,...", there is more of an effect on cultural identity by separation than what it's literal meaning is. Borders separate the merging countries cultures which harms the blending of culture without the blending of culture one side may become ignorant at the fact that another culture exists. As she grew up along the parts of the border she experienced racism by Gringos in the U.S. Southwest consider the inhabitants of the borderlands transgressors, aliens-whether they posses documents or not.". By experiencing countless acts of stereotyping and racism just as her ancestors before her, she can identify herself as being border woman.
In Chapter 1 of Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua describes borders as a "open wound" which divides "a pueblo, a culture" (Anzaldua 24). Physically, they appear to be no more than 139 year old "gritty" rusted wires but the toll they take on the people on either side of them is great (Anzaldua 24). Borders are installed as a means of separation, in order to allow countries to claim their own land and their native people. However, to many people who identify with dual nationalities, the border not only serves as a separation of their two cultures but their identity. Often finding that they are not accepted on either sides of the border, they exist on the border, not understanding where exactly they belong. Gloria Anzaldua maintains that she is a "border woman" meaning she can identify with the wound that is caused by living on the border because she has witnessed and experienced the results. Anzaldua has become the product/ "third country" that she describes, embracing rather than opposing the border culture that is a fusion of both cultures that the borders were meant to keep separated, avoiding having to choose a piece of herself and neglecting the other (Anzaldua 25).
Your response is well thought out and I like how you define the border as not only a physical barrier between countries and nationalities but also as an identity. I also agree with you when you described how Anzaldua is a border woman saying she embraces both cultures rather than opposing them. Good job!
In Chapter 1 of Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua describes borders as a "open wound" which divides "a pueblo, a culture" (Anzaldua 24). Physically, they appear to be no more than 139 year old "gritty" rusted wires but the toll they take on the people on either side of them is great (Anzaldua 24). Borders are installed as a means of separation, in order to allow countries to claim their own land and their native people. However, to many people who identify with dual nationalities, the border not only serves as a separation of their two cultures but their identity. Often finding that they are not accepted on either sides of the border, they exist on the border, not understanding where exactly they belong. Gloria Anzaldua maintains that she is a "border woman" meaning she can identify with the wound that is caused by living on the border because she has witnessed and experienced the results. Anzaldua has become the product/ "third country" that she describes, embracing rather than opposing the border culture that is a fusion of both cultures that the borders were meant to keep separated, avoiding having to choose a piece of herself and neglecting the other (Anzaldua 25).
I agree with your response. It is very well worded. I really like how in the beginning you describe the border as an "open wound" and connect it again in the end. You connect the borders personal effect to Anzaldua very well.
Gloria Anzaldua discusses multiple borders in her novel. She characterizes a border as not just a physical separation between two countries, but as the separation seen between any two opposing groups of people like upper/lower classes, races, cultures, genders, and religions. This characterization of the Borderlands is why she calls herself a “border woman” because she grew up between her Mexican and Anglo identities (Anzaldua 19). This straddling of cultures is further evident in her code-switching throughout the chapters which serves to illustrate the fluidity of her identity as it evolves with the world around her. Anzaldua distinguishes a border from a borderland however because “a border is a dividing line,” whereas “a borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” (Anzaldua 25). The Borderland is constantly evolving physical as well as culturally. The Texas-Mexico border was changed until Mexicans were no longer from Mexico but from the United States. The movement of the self-proclaimed dominant whites into Texas sparked the Battle of the Alamo which became the American “symbol for the cowardly and villainous character of the Mexicans” (Anzaldua 28). The reciprocal movement of Mexicans into the United States, legal and illegal, is met with the same resistance from America. Immigrants, especially women, are faced with intense hatred, segregation, and mistreatment as they are taken advantage of for not speaking English, for not being white, for being women, and for constantly living in fear of deportation or worse. The economic dependence on the United States has made these people not just immigrants but refugees as they have a choice to either “stay in Mexico and starve or move north and live” (Anzaldua 32). This has made the borderlands what they are today; not just a separation between countries but “a border culture, a third country” (Anzaldua 33).
I think the code- switching was an interesting way of mentioning as to her mixed identity and cultures. i also think it's interesting to compare the history this border issue and compare it to the more recent issues of immigration, as some people unknowingly accuse Chicanos and many other immigrant groups of taking jobs from another country despite the fact that it is similar to what the U.S has been doing for a long time.
Gloria Anzaldúa depicts the borderlands as a place of cruel irony, given its historical significance. Chicanos are forced to fight for their position in the land despite the fact that "In the 1800s, Anglos migrated illegally into Texas, which was then part of Mexico"(Anzaldúa 28). The borderlands, however, are no longer seen as human constructs but as a definite social structure, "Los atrevesados live here: the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato" by which to claim superiority and label all those crossing through as aliens(Anzaldúa 25). Gloria's family as well as many other Mexicans and Native Americans were forced to lose their land and become strangers in a familiar land, struggling to become a part of two cultures, while simultaneously being separate from both as a woman and a Chicana ,"The Gringo, locked into the fiction of white superiority, seized complete political power, stripping Indians and Mexicans of their land while their feet were still rooted in it",(Anzaldúa 30).
Juan, you are handsome. Furthermore, I like your response and think you answered the topics you chose thoroughly although i would question whether you answered the question of why Gloria anzaldua believes she is a border woman. Also, the answers to the question of the materialistic and non materialistic manifestations on the border are present but I believe your answer would be far more effective if you stressed these points and even compared or contrasted them. Either way however I believe your response was well written and intelligent.
Is the borderlands acutely crule irony or is it possible that there is more than one borderlands between countries. That it can be both curie/ironic but also a place of refugee.
Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as "a placed created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary...The prohibited and the forbidden are its inhabitants" (Anzaldua 25). Gloria believes that the borderland is place where there is constant movement- people moving, "those who cross over, pass over or go through the confines of the 'normal' " (25). The culture of the borderlands consists of the "legitimate" inhabitants and the "illegitimate" inhabitants, also known as the whites whom are in power and the "aliens"- Chicanos, Indians or Blacks. The borderlands physical manifestation is the "dividing line" (25), the non-material being the different cultures that exist on each side of the border. Gloria Anzaldua considers herself to be a border woman because of her upbringing. She grew up being in that middle zone, where cultures where split, so she reinvented her identity as a Chicana.
You said that the borderland is a place of constant movement; however, its non-material manifestation is a divide between cultures. I agree with most of your response, but I think that your description of the non-material manifestation is contradictory because if the borderland is a place where people are constantly moving, wouldn't the cultures end up blending to some degree?
In chapter one of Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderland as, "a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (25). In doing so, Anzaldua implies that the borderlands are created by the unrest and division caused by boundaries that do not belong. The borderland’s physical manifestations can be seen through mestizos, the “new hybrid race [that] inherited Central and South America” (27). The borderland’s non-material manifestation takes form through the Tejano culture. Tejanos exemplify the struggle of being trapped between two cultures because they face the unruly decision of choosing between Mexican and American culture. These struggles are directly linked to the borderland. Anzaldua states that she is a border woman because she has been exposed to border culture her whole life. Anzaldua tells the stories of her life in Texas, “This is her home / this thin edge of / barbwire.” (37).
I agree with your interpretation. I feel that the hybrid race is very real and I enjoyed the outside information you brought into your response. -Brittany Lieber
Anzaldua describes borders as being both physical, spiritual as well as morally. They are "open wounds"(Anzaldua 24) that "divide a pueblo, a culture"(Anzaldua 24). Serving as a constant physically and emotional reminder of how she is a border woman. She is not allowed to belong to only on side because there will always be that conflict with the other side of the border. Anzaldua is built within the contradictions of the Mexican and the Anglo culture. In order to truly validate herself, she has to live within both cultures. That open would is the third world trying to flourish within the confinements of the countries on both sides. It will never heal because that "thin edge of barbwire" (Anzaldua 25) that makes the border serves as the home of the Mexican-Americans. As long as the individual is forced to choose which side he belongs to, the wound will continue to be a wound. A wound that divides two cultures instead of uniting them.
I really liked your finishing line and how a being forced to choose sides doesn't let the wound heal, and since you can never truly choose a side, the wound will technically never heal.
In chapter one of Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldúa, Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as smooth blend where conventional ideas are challenged and two distinct cultures edge each other. She describes it as being “una herida abierta”, or a wound, where “the Third World grates against the first and bleeds”, both from physical and emotional pain (Anzaldúa 25). Anzaldúa describes the borderlands as somewhere that serves as a place to exploit Mexicans and for the Americans to “seized complete political power”, thriving off of their exploitation (Anzaldúa 29). The psychological elements have an effect on people that serve as a distraction to the other tensions (cultural, sexual, etc.) as a result of “people of different races occupy[ing] the same territory” (Anzaldúa 19). These distracting contradictions can be seen as tejanos must live in fear of being deported to Mexico even if they are “fifth generation Amerian[s]” (Anzaldúa 26). Many Mexican-Americans today are not understood because they challenge the black-white paradigm and result in the United States lack of acceptance of the those Border-Latin@s.
Yazmin Caballero Mr. Saldivar Latin@ Literature 2/6B
In Chapter 1: The Homeland/ El otro Mexico, Gloria Anzaldua describes the borderland territory to be a "vague and undetermined place" (25). The unknown sense that engulfs the borderlands is in its "constant state of transition" (Anzaldua 25). The U.S. and Mexican lands "grate against" each other "form[ing] a third country;" a land where once entered you are considered to be a "transgressor, [an] alien" (Anzaldua 25). The border is marked physically with a "1,950 mile-long...steel curtain [of] barbwire" (Anzaldua 24) and marks its crossers emotionally as they "tremble with fear,yet...courage, courage born of desperation" (Anzaldua 33). Desperation born of La Crisis, of the deflated peso and of the invasion of American factories; which leads to La travesia, the decision to cross. At this point a convergence occurs between the two cultures, territories, and people, that creates a "shock culture, a third country, a border culture" (Anzaldua 33). This border culture is home to the border woman, which Anzaldua describes and names herself as due to her experience "between the two cultures," its lack of "comfort," and its "contradictions" (22). She ends her claim with; "This is her home/this thin edge of barbwire" (35).
Azalia Martinez In The Homeland: Aztlan from Borderland/ La Frontera- The new Mestiza, Gloria Anzaldua uses borderlands to describe how "two worlds [merging has] created a culture shock, a border culture, a third country, a closed country" (Anzaldua 33). Anzaldua creates this image of borderlands being seperate from what the border is supposed to divide; in this case la frontera is neither a part of Mexico nor the United States. Chicanos and Mexicans are marginalized from what was once their own Aztlan when it became a part of the United States. The Anglos, too, crossed over illegally into Mexican territory in the 1800s and as a result "Tejanos lost their land and, overnight, became foreigners" (Anzaldua 28). Neither group accepts the other as a legitimate native to the land but instead see each other as foreigners. Anzaldua describes the non- material manifestation of borderlands as "tension [that] grips the inhabitants... like a virus" (Anzaldua 26). Borders an often be seen a a way to contain and "protect" despite the fact that nature does not obey man made borders just liek "the sea cannot be fenced in", idea and attitudes cannot either (Anzaldua 25). Anzaldua describes herself as a borderland woman because she is a part of this new Mestizaje. She is also a bi-product of both worlds: Mexico and the United States. Mexico' shield "indicates that the patriarchal order had already vanquished the feminine and matriarchal order" (Anzaldua 25). As a Chicana she is not supported by either side, leaving her to fight both.
In chapter one of Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldúa, Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a type of “warzone”. Anzaldua paints us a picture of the relationships the nations have with each-other and the type of interactions the border faces by calling the seperation of the two by the iron fence a “herida abierta” (pg 25) or open wound as the two worlds, first and third, are separated where it used to be one until it was taken over by the United States. The border has physical manifestations such as the steel fence described as a “steel curtain” (pg 24) that divides the United States and Mexico but it also retains its non-material manifestations such as the spirits and gods that control the land around the border. Anzualda believes she is a border woman because she grew up on a border town in the middle of everything and witnessed everything first hand. She grew up “between two cultures, the Mexican and the Anglo.
Brittany Lieber 2/6B In Gloria Anzaldua's chapter one of Borderlands, she describes the borderland as a "vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (Anzaldua 25). This undetermined place is cause by the fact that the inhabitants of the area feel that they do not belong to either side of the border. The inhabitants face struggles everyday such as the subject of language. For example, the residents of the borderland by speaking English, are resented for assimilating to American culture and are seen as "sell-outs" by the Mexican culture. At the same time, because of the Borderland inhabitants ability to speak Spanish they are seen as lowly immigrants to American society by Americans. Since just on simple matters such as language the people of the Borderlands are unable to identify with either culture, considering they are a hybrid of both, and are forced to become their own population, and therefore struggle for their sense of identity, self, and belonging as time goes on.
I agree on your description of the border as an unnatural boundary it really gets across the point that Anzaldua is trying to accomplish in the chapter .
Fabian Ramos Mr. Saldivar Latin American Literature- 4th period May 19, 2014
In the first chapter of “Borderlands/ La Frontera”, author Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as the physical and social manifestation of the existence as an outsider in ones own homeland. The area surrounding the Mexican-United States border, the “Lost Land”, is a “vague and undetermined place” historically and currently inhabited by the “prohibited and forbidden” (Anzaldúa 25). This population is the descendant of the original 100, 000 Mexican citizens who were “annexed by conquest along with the land” upon the American invasion of Mexico in the 1800s (Anzaldúa 29). The tejanos, the native people of the formerly Mexican Texas, were further ostracized from their homeland under the “threat of Anglo Terrorism” (Anzaldúa 30). This subjugation of the South West and its people resulted in the creation of the border culture, which is characterized as the existence as both physically native yet socially “other”. In identifying as a border woman, Anzaldúa reclaims her homeland.
Physically, the borderlands are the plains surrounding the Rio Grande, what was once desert is now irrigated. Land has been stolen and coerced away from the 19C holders to be bought by Anglos and consolidated into industrial farms calling for immigrants to work on them. The flow of traffic is North but it has not always been this way, spiritually it is a "return odyssey to the historical/mythological Aztlan." (Anzaldua 33) The Borderlands are a place of opportunity, but it is not without mysticism. "Los atrevesados live here: the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato, the half-breed, the half-dead." (Anzaldua 25) The straddling of two worlds is related to the marginalized of society. Gloria Anzaldua's narration differs greatly from Ana Castillo's in her Massacre of the Dreamers. Anzaldua explains she is a border woman because she grew up between Anglo and Mexican (Indian) cultures. Castillo describes herself as Mexic-Amerindian and in the introduction to her book states that when she uses first person pronouns she is usually referring to specifically Chicanas. Anzaldua while recounting history, "[immigration] continued with the braceros who helped build our railroads and who picked our fruit," (Anzaldua 33) uses the first person plural possessive "our" when refering to rail and fruit in the American South West. Being a border woman means claiming the South West as "ours" even when "we" are not its masters. Her family has lived there for generations and was there before the Anglos. She has "been straddling the tejas-Mexican border" (Anzaldua 19) and will not let others rewrite history and take away land all over again.
Matthew, I think your approach to identifying the borderlands was successful because you refrained from the archaic analytical essay structure. Your argument was stronger because you contrasted the narration in "Borderlands" to Ana Castillo's "Massacre of the Dreamers". Your textual reference tied the last sentence together very well.
In chapter one of borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the U.S. -Mexican border as "una herida abierta where the third world grates against the first and bleeds"(Anzaldua 25). She describes the border as not only a physical barrier that seperates two countries but also as a psychological border that affects those living under it since they do not feel like they belong to either side and must live up with the injustices that come along with the border. For example, Anzaldua describes the sad moment when she experienced her cousin being deported although he was a fifth genereation American. Anzaldua considers herself as a border woman because she has both cultures but finds it difficult to describe her identity as just Mexican or just America therefor she feels like the border is the place that describes identity including both cultures.
Marissa, I liked what you wrote, but I think it would be interesting to see you elaborate on the psychological aspects of the border. For example, how did the conquest of the Aztecs and the later robbery of Mexican territory affect border people?
The border is seen as a whole new territory in comparison to the US and Mexico. It is marked by hybridity and oxymorons, such as Mexicans feeling out of place in a land that has been theirs for centuries. The physical manifestations of the border are, well, the actual border itself. What's more interesting to me is are the non-material manifestations, such as the aforementioned irony. Mexican risk life and limb to a land that is rightfully theirs, which I think really epitomizes the border. "We were jerked out by the roots, truncated, disembowoled, dispossessed, and seperated from our identity and our history." (Anzaldua 30)
Also,she calls herself a borderwoman because she too goes through "border struggles". "This is her home this thin edge of barbwire." (Anzaldua 35) She is a Mexican living on what used to be Mexico, technically American but marginalized and unaccepted.
In Gloria Anzadula's "Borderlands" the border in the geographical border created so that people can separate others, to distinguishes the "us from them"(Anzaldua 25). In responce the borderlands is created by the people who are othered because of the border, created throughout the emotional connections. The borderlands is created a a space for belonging when people are caught between two countries. The non material manifestos are that Mexicans risk their lives to comeback to the countire taken from them, and it is deemed " the silent invasion"(32) by American soicty when in reality it is a "return to the homlands(32). Anzaldua calls herslef a border woman because she cannot descirbe her identie as soley mexican Or soloy American, therefore she feels the borderland she has created for herself between the two countries is her home instead of it being only a single counties.
I think you could have went a little deeper in how she conceptualizes the border, but you did a good job talking about why she considers herself a border woman. Also, proofread before you submit because there are a few mistakes.
In chapter one of Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua describes the border as a place where two completely different cultures clash together and challenge each other. She defines borders as boundaries that "define the places that are unsafe and safe, to distinguish us from them” (25). The borderland is typically the area that divides the United States from Mexico. It is here where Mexicans are threatened by racism and the gringos have “seized complete political power”, thriving off of their exploitation (Anzaldua 29). Although it is a physical border it can be seen more effective as a psychological border. It separates cultures because of tensions started years back and divides whites and Mexicans and also the border race. Anzaldua describes herself as a border women because she has a border within herself separating both the cultures that make her a mestiza.
I really enjoyed how you contextualized the struggle that the Mexicans endure under the hand of "gringos," and the idea that the border is a boundary that separates "us from them." This point of view helps the reader understand the reality of the different cultures and how they clash.
In chapter 1, Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the border as both a physical and social divide. She sees the border as "a vague and undetermined place created by the residue of an unnatural boundary" creating an “Us vs, them” mentality. The actual border is a 1950 mile long divide that separates the U.S from Mexico, but besides being a physical separation it classifies identity. Gloria Anzaldúa goes on to say that she is a border woman as she “grew up between two cultures”, in a life filled with contradictions (Anzaldúa 19). She notes how people are in a constant state of transition and because of this confusion never develop a real sense of identity. Anzaldua considers herself a Chicana, a hybrid of both Mexican and American identities
Gloria Anzaldua defines the border as being "una herida abierta". Una herida abierta- an open wound, the border has been the cause of numerous deaths; it is a place where dreams and hopes for a better future are left behind. Its goal is to separate two countries, and hoping to separate the people as well. I believe this to be incredibly ironic, for the border is the place where two cultures fuse, the people crossing it bring their culture with them into a place they hope to settle as home. Anzaldua considers herself to be a border woman because she " grew up between two cultures," the interaction between both distinct cultures in her life allowed her to see the difficulty and the confusion it could bring (Anzaldua 19).
In chapter one of "Borderlands/ La Frontera," Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the border as " una herida abierta," creating a physical, social, and psychological division (Anzaldúa 25). The physical border is there to separate places that are deemed safe and unsafe, the "us from them," to establish a sense of superiority (Anzaldúa 25). Socially, the border is there to guide you to the "better" side to be on, the side you should claim if you are a part of the "border culture" that is created through the physical border. Anzaldúa considers herself a border woman because "This is her home this thin edge of barbwire" she is a part of both sides of the border, causing her identity to be split in two according to the man made invention: the border (Anzaldúa 35). The psychological division is the uncertainty of one's identity, of not knowing how to hold on to both sides of one's identity, however Anzaldúa fought to sustain her home in her split identity.
I think you made some very good points Amber. I especially liked how You mentioned the effect of living on the borderlands on a person’s personal identity.
Melanie Hernandez May 19, 2014 Mr. Saldivar Latino Lit (4)
Anzaldua focuses much of Chapter 1 discussing the conflict and history of the border. She describes the border as an open wound- “ es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds” (25). She explains that the border is created to separate “us from them” the separation of two different cultures who do not want to be lumped together. She goes on to explain that this separation and the world caught in between is completely a manmade one- “ a borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” (25). In the preface of the novel Anzaldua explains that she is a border woman and has been caught in the back and forth fight between both the Mexican and Anglo cultures for all of her life- “ It’s not a comfortable territory to live in, this place of contradictions.. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape”. She describes how the landscape just like its people has been exploited and forced to do unnatural things- “I saw the land, cut up into thousands of neat rectangles and squares, constantly being irrigated” (31). Anzaldua also emphasis the point that as a woman her exploitation is doubled as she must deal not only with being treated unjustly by the Anglo culture, but by her own culture as well.
Anzaldua describes the border as "the lifeblood of two worlds merging together to form a third country-a border culture" (25). Borders are used to define specific places and boundaries and to also further distinguish the immense disparities between the first and third world. The border is inhabited by "the prohibited and the forbidden" (Anzaldua 25) and the only ones with the "legitimate" power are the whties and those who adhere to the whites. As a border dweller they typically find themselves lost in a world of confusion for the reason that the border illegally crossed them, when everyone else assumes that they illegally crossed the border whether they have documentation or not or whether their families have lived in the border for generations. However the "mexicanos del otro lado" face different challenges. For many, "the choice is to [either] stay in Mexico and starve or move north in live" (Anzaldua 32). It is apparent that the border solely possesses challenges and threats for the third world and those caught in between.
Anzaldua conceptualizes borderlands by informing the audience of evidence of the existence of tribes (Chicano ancestors) in places like Texas that dates back to 35000 BC. She describes the land and culture that Cochise and Aztec people occupied and later of the illegal migration of Anglos into those lands beginning in the 16th century where "the lifeblood of those worlds merging... form a third country - a border culture" (25 Anzaldua). Physically, wars and battles between indigenous inhabitants and Anglos gradually moved the brown skin south and forced Mexico "to give up almost half of her nation, what is now Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California" (29) moving the unnatural boundary lower and lower. The non-material manifestation comes form the rape of indigenous women. This manifested their spirit and culture, forcing it to diverge from its origins and mix with Anglo culture creating "una nueva raza, el mestizo, el mexicano" (27). Anzaldua considers herself a border woman because of the blood that runs through her; it is the blood of tribes that lived on American lands long before Anglo invasion and of the Anglos themselves. Anzaldua also realizes that as a woman she must protect herself in her exposure to the suppressing white man and the controlling expectations of her Latin family, thus she is stuck on a barbed wire of the border.
Gloria Anzaldúa describes the borderland as “a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary,” (Anzaldúa 25) which perfectly sums up the effects of the Anglo takeover of the Indian people. The Anglos came to North America, set up unnatural borders, and claimed the land as their own. As a result, a borderland was created between the U.S. and Mexico. The manifestations of this borderland are seen in the Mexican, Chicano, and Mexican-American people. While physically they must work in factories for unfair pay, endure crossing the actual border, and face possible death because “race hatred” has turned “into an all out war,” (30) they must also deal with non-physical manifestations due to this unnatural boundary, such as constant racism, fear, and neglect. Gloria Anzaldúa, while born and raised in the U.S., is, herself, a border woman. She is a Chicana and has faced the same effects as a result of the borderland she lived only twenty-five miles away from (3). She recalls from her childhood living on a farm in Texas, “Sometimes we earned less than we owed, but always the corporations fared well,” (31) exemplifying the situation of many as a result of the borderland created through the Anglo imperialism.
Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as a place that creates a physical, social, and ideological division among Americans and Mexicans. She describes the borderlands as "vague and undetermined"; though, the border itself is very clearly the culture of the surrounding area becomes a little foggy. This is because of people allowing the border to become more than a line that shows where one country begins and another one ends. The borderland culture has accepted the division of people and allowed it to leak that into the way that they interact with those on the other side and the way that they think about their country. Because of this border Americans have been bred to believe that its essential to separate from the other side and consequently those from the other side, even when they have crossed over. The people are no longer separated by the border so now people must find an arbitrary means of separation. Whether by language, color, social class, or background because of the "need" to separate those trapped in the thinking of the borderlands will find some means to do so.
I think you have some interesting points to make, but I think you need to work on how you deliver your ideas. I'm still kind of confused about the points your trying to make, it's all a little scattered and unclear. Just focus all your language on your ideas and I think you could improve your argument a lot
Ethan, you make some bold statements. I am not sure if Anzaldua actually made these points, it seems unlike her. I think that borderlands are not about the separation between Mexico and America, but the fusion between them. I also do not understand you when you make the point that Humans need separation, even arbitrary separation. I think you could improve this a lot.
"This is my home this thin edge of barbwire"(Anzaldua 25).As Gloria Anzadua elaborates in the first chapter of Borderlands the border is more than a physical boundary it is also a symbol of change between the people that cross it becomes the place "where the Third world grates against the first and bleeds"(Anzaldua 25) as the border unites two identities it also forms a need for a hybrid self or a separation from either culture.Such decision depends on the self evaluation of the person.Gloria Azaldua self evaluates her self a border woman and has found her self feel the calling of her indigenous blood in a country where such blood has put her in a place of oppression,and such state has made her come to the realization of being true to herself and at the same time acknowledging the borders that were created with in her.
I agree on your point of how Anzaldua has a calling from her indigenous blood. It shows her struggle in a country where someone is only set to sort of culture/identity and how she tries to validate both sides of her identity.
Anzaldua's depiction of the border in the first chapter of her piece Borderlands is a complex, multifaceted one. To her, the border is more than just a symbol of oppression and exclusion. It is also the catalyst for an entirely new culture; a border culture. In the borderland, "the lifeblood of two worlds [merge] to form a third country--a border culture." (Anzaldua 25). Anzaldua transcends the traditional view of the border as a simply evil entity, showing that there is some good along with the evil. Because she has experienced this border culture firsthand, and has lived on both sides of the border, Anzaldua categorizes herself as a border woman.
Gloria Anzaldua characterizes the borderlands as a place of extreme tension. This tension is created by the subconscious internal definition of borders as a divide "to distinguish us from them" (Anzaldua 25). This othering of an entire nation of people creates a tension that manifests itself in a borderland. The borderlands, where "Tension grips the inhabitants...like a virus. Ambivalence and unrest reside there and death is no stranger" (Anzaldua 26). This othering permeates the borderland wrapping it in tension, and Anzaldua is a product of this.
Leo, I enjoy how you discuss the subconscious and metaphysical background of a border such as the Mexican American border that Anzaldua is a product of, but I would like to have heard what makes Anzaldua a product of this tension and unrest.
Overall good response with interesting ideas. I am still s little confused about your statement "Anzaldúa is a product of this" is she a product of her environment, the border, or is she a product of the mestizaje race?
Gloria Anzaldua's conceptualization of the borderlands is expressed perfectly in the final phrase of this chapter. "This is her home. This thin edge of barbed wire."
The reason I find this quote to completely summarize this chapter and its concepts is because it adresses all aspects of her message. It shows that she defines herself as "A Border Woman", it metaphysically describes the borderland as "barbed", and physically describes it as "wire", or in the context of the chapter, a fence. Her home is not America, nor Mexico, but the border between. She has grown on this land that was once Aztlan, the home of her ancestors, but now it is so full of tension that its barbed wire pricks all those who live there with immense cultural and ethical tension, making its Mexican/Mestiz@/chican@ residents struggle to find a stable and confident identity. She further explains how it is even more difficult for a woman to survive and have power and equlity on the borderlands. For years, on both sides of the border, society has been built on patriarchy. Anzaldua discusses how on the Mexican flag, the Eagle (masculine) has the serpent (feminine) in its beak, visually exemplifying Men's supposed dominance over women. On the American side, one of the documents that built the political structure of the country states, "All men are created equal," giving no reference to where women stand in terms of equality. Mexican women have to fight against not just American men and woman, but Mexican men as well, making their struggle for equality that much more difficult.
Gloria Anzaldua uses the border as the physical and psychological blending of two worlds. It has its own culture and people, people who do not belong nor are accepted either side. "Gringos in the US Southwest consider the inhabitants of the borderlands transgressor, aliens - whether they posses documents or not... (Anzaldua, 25)" This conflict that is present, not only to Anzaldua but to all Chicanos in the US, leaves everyone inside an internal struggle that leaves the person to either choose between one side and be hated by the other or to make up their own side, one which has no borders, where the individual can truly be individual and not fall into any sort of social norms and expectations. Anzaldua claims to be a "border woman" woman because she is the product of the border. She grew up in a household that blended both sides of the border; Mexican and American. She, along with many other chican@s, have an unique perspective of their themselves as they are the result of a new culture
Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands by saying the border is "una herida abierta, where the third world grates against the first and bleeds." (Anzaldua 25). This encompasses her entire theory of the borderlands as a place where two worlds merge and create a new culture, a border culture. Created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary, the borderland is at a constant state of transition, a place full of contradiction. "Trembling with fear, yet full of courage," (Anzaldua 33) is one of the many contradictions that the borderland personifies. Anzaldua forces the readers to realize the actuality of the border culture and of the border people, for she is a border woman. She recognizes herself as a border woman due to her constant rejection and her struggle for survival in the U.S., as demonstrated by the realization of the struggle for a woman, especially a lesbian Chicana woman, when she "leaves the familiar safe-home ground to venture into unknown and possibly dangerous terrain." (Anzaldua 35)
Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a “vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” (25). Anzaldúa defines herself as a border woman when she physicalizes her home as a “thin edge of barbwire” (35). Anzaldúa grew up on the U.S.-Mexican border and identifies herself as a woman of both cultures. A physical and non-manifested border separates these two cultures. This border is described as “una herida abierta”, or an open wound, in which a scab forms and hemorrhages again, “merging to form a third country—a border culture” (25). Anzaldúa experiences xenophobia on both sides of the border, therefore self-identifying herself with two distinct cultures.
The borderlands are what run from the valley of Texas to the cities that surround the Mexican border. What was once Aztlan and is now inhabited by a large number of Mexican/chicanos and descendants that make up a vast amount of both the US and Mexico. It is where the Spaniards took over the indio lands, and where people where stripped of their land and promise. Where the mesitza raza was created, and flourished. Borderlands are a "herida abierta" (25) that remind of the pain, but heal as the culture does. The land divided by the Rio Grande and fence that hits the San Diego waters. a culture is created by these physical and conceptualized ideologies. The Border woman is "two cultures" (Preface) who lives in the world of contradictions to shift "multiple identity and integrity" (Preface) in order to exist. This is Azaldua's recollection of her life, as a border woman in the borderlands.
In the first chapter of "Borderlands," Anzaldua rejects the common perception of what a border is. Borders are seen as mere separations between countries and cultures, but Anzaldua argues that a border is more than just a fence running between countries. According to Anzaldua, there lies around the fence an area of amalgamation between these cultures. This mix of cultures creates its own culture, a borde rculture. "The lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country- a border culture." (Anzaldua 25). Anzaldua herself embodies this culture because she is amalgamation of US and Mexican culture, as well as a queer, rejecting the social norms and embracing the border culture created by what is meant to maintain separation, but instead catalyzes cultural fusion,
Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as,"... a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundry.,"(Anzaldua 25) She describes it as being in a constant state of transition. The transgressors, as referred to by the U.S., are of whom reside in the borderlands. These borderlands are an actual physical border between the U.S. and Mexico but also a mental border. Anzaldua is a birse woman because she is of both Mexican and white culture. Her testimony supports the idea of the border having a psychological impact of the persons of mixed descents. Anzaldua is a key concept in order to defy the idea that a border is able to, "... distinguish us from them." (Anzaldua 25) Since she id the, "... lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country."(Anzaldua 25) She is constantly trying to fight to accept her future while keeping her roots thriving.
In chapter one of Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderland as "a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" which serves as a home to the prohibited and forbidden (Anzaldúa 25). Anzaldúa proceeds to proclaim that "it is in a constant state of transition" (Anzaldúa 25). Anzaldúa's conceptualization of the borderland serves as both the tangible and non-tangible evidence of the numerous problems that constructing the border has caused. Building the border resulted in the formation of "una heriba abierta (an open wound) where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds" (Anzaldúa 25), while justifying the need to "distinguish us from them" (Anzaldúa 25). Although this massive physical border was placed between Mexico and the United States, the two cultures could never truly be isolated, due to the creation of the mestizaje race centuries earlier. Anzaldúa reflects on her experiences as an American citizen and as a Latina woman, as a means to establish herself as a border women. Anzaldúa concludes her argument by proclaiming, "1,950 mile-long open wound/ running down the length of my body/splits me," solidifying her place as a border woman.
I really liked the quote you closed your response with. It is a powerful metaphor that really captures what Gloria Anzaldua means when she says she is a border woman. The non physical manifestation of the borderland was a little unclear however but other than that I understood what you were trying to say perfectly.
Gloria Anzaldua says the borderland is a home for prohibited and forbidden. It is a home for "in short, those who cross over, pass over, or go through the confines of the 'normal'." (Anzaldua 25) Normal is used in quotes because in reality, Anzaldua claims that the border itself is unnatural, not the people separated by it. The injustices that the inhabitants of the borderlands face are a physical manifestation of the borderland."...whether they possess documents or not, whether they're Chicanos, Indians, or Black. Do not enter, trespassers will be raped, maimed, strangled, gassed, shot." (Anzaldua 25) This violence occurs daily for borderland inhabitants. A non physical manifestation of the borderland is seen in the "lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country." (Anzaldua 25) While the borderlands are not a physical third country, the overlap of American and Mexican culture has formed a border culture. Anzaldua says she is a border woman because although she has papers she is not seen as a legitimate inhabitant of the United States. She is split in half by the same "herida abierta" that seperates Mexico and the U.S.
I really liked how you connected the idea of "una herida abierta", which was referring to the borderlands, back to Anzaldua's own identity. It was a nice conclusion.
Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as "una herida abierta" (Anzaldua 25) that cannot heal because we fail to create and recognize unity between the U.S and Mexico. The border is a place that separates "us from them"(Anzaldua 25) and the borderlands are the result of the dangers of such a "vague and undetermined" (Anzaldua 25) environment. Where does the border begin? Where does it end? "who are "los atravesadores"(Anzaldua 25)? A social hierarchy is born because of the distinctions of "us and them" -the distinctions that place those who "pass over the confines of the normal"(Anzaldua 25) for example, the hyphenated American at the bottom of this hierarchy. And in attempt to rise in this hierarchy Chicanos fall into complete assimilation without realizing that even Pocho's, as much as they percieve to be acccepted by social normality, are not respected and will not be until this unity is formed.
I liked how you mentioned the part when Anzaldua states that the border separates us from them (Anzaldua 25). I also liked how you stated the idea of assimilation, that it is very true because we Chicanos we fail to have the rights we deserve and we work so hard to live a better life we lose ourselves and our culture just by trying to fit the norms of our society.
Gloria Anzaldua defines borders as a "vague and undetermined place" (Anzaldua 25) It is a space that keeps things in while simultaneously keeping others out. People living on this border in a hybridism of race often have hard times being accepted socially. They are constantly struggling to pick between their two identities which are divided by the border. This undecided space is theoretical in the way that it forces people to define themselves based on hypothetical restrictions. These restrictions define much of peoples lives and force them to live in a social hierarchy. People at the top are often times people of pure breed race, the people that know exactly who they are and are the exact stereotype of their race. People at the bottom are those split down the middle between two races. Unable to completely identify with one side, they are often rejected from both.
How does Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualize the borderlands? What are its physical as well as its non-material manifestations? Why does she say that she is a border woman? Explain using textual support to validate your claims and warrants:
Anzaldua describes the borders as an "open wound" (Anzaldua 24) and how it separates one from their home and culture. These borders were built and have made a big impact on the lives of those that live on either side of them. Their effect on each side is powerful, they separate countries to differentiate their citizens from foreigners. The borders has separated those people with nationalities from both sides of the border and their identity. This brings doubt and confusion because one begins to rethink where they belong and struggle to accepted in one culture or the other. When Anzaldua states she is a border woman, it is because she lives in the "open wound" because she has lived and witnessed the results from it. She states that she is from a "third country" that embraces the cultures that the borders have separated in her identity (Anzaldua 25).
In the beginning of the book, Anzaldua describes one of the most concrete yet abstract idea of the book, the border. The borders separated the Mexican-Americans, mentally and physically from their home land. Anzaldua described herself as a border woman, and many like her, because she is Mexican-American, therefore she is not accepted by either side. For Individuals who identify theirselves as Mexican-American, the border serves "as a dividing line" that divide their identity into two parts that never recognize the other as equal (Anzaldua 25). Being a border woman or living on the border land, you are caught between two cultures who never acknowledge each other for it's true influence over Mexican-American.
Gloria Anzaldua establishes the Borderlands as the birthplace of a dichotomy that alienates anyone that deviates from the norm. Anzaldúa says that borders "distinguish us from them”( Anzaldúa, 25), and this creates an American Non-American paradigm that dehumanizes people of color into "aliens-whether […] they're Chicanos, Indians, or Blacks"( Anzaldúa, 25). The creation of borders turned Tejanos into foreigners as Anzaldúa describes on page 28. Anzaldúa sees herself as a woman who deviates from the norm established by the white non-white paradigm. She was one of "the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome"( Anzaldúa, 25) that was not "normal". The border that alienates Gloria as a Chicana also alienates her as a lesbian. Her being a Chicana forces her to exist as a split between the white and non-white, making her a border woman.
Borders are built to separate places. This separation carries a negative connotation because it implies that one place is better than the other. This concept is presented in chapter one of Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua. According to Anzaldua a borderland is a “constant place of transition” (Anzaldua 25) because its inhabitants are those who deviate from what is considered “normal” by western society such as “the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel and the mulato”(Anzaldua 25). It is the constant clash of two distinct cultures (third world and first world) which produces a fear of the unknown ultimately resulting in the formation of a social hierarchy. The inhabitants of these borderlands and those who cross the border automatically become part of the social hierarchy. In this social hierarchy undocumented women are at the bottom because they carry two oppressing labels: that of their gender and that of their “legal” status. Many of these women only have two options (to go back their homeland and starve or to submit to the oppression) because they do not know English and therefore lack the knowledge of their rights. Anzaldua knows that she is part of this oppression because all of the Chicanos are “The Aztecas del norte” and therefore considers herself a border land woman. According to Anzaldua the stripping away of the borderlands by United States from Mexico is one of the causes for this oppression. Once the border lands became part of the US, it left many of its inhabitants confronted with confusion because they no longer saw Mexico as their home but their traditions were still part of it. Some decided to go back to Mexico others revolted and many assimilated and became part of the “prohibited and forbidden” (Anzaldua 25). This is when the oppression began because the gringos took advantage of these individuals’ situation and took away their lands. However, once the lands dried out, the Anglos “corporations hired gangs of Mexicans to pull the brush, chaparral and cactus and to irrigate the desert” (Anzaldua 31) which demonstrates the hypocrisy of the US for kicking them out and later begging for their help. This hypocrisy became a constant pattern; when the US needs help it opens its borders, and once satisfied, it closes them, ultimately resulting in a lack of identity for many Mexican-Americans who reside in the US. Many of these Mexican-Americans are confronted with the decision to either embrace their Mexican heritage or to assimilate to the “American” because they fail to realize that they have become part of both. Thus, demonstrating the effects that the physical border and the social hierarchy created by it have on today’s society because “those who make it past the checking points of the border patrol find themselves in the midst of 150 years of racism in Chicano barrios in the southwest and in the big northern cities” (Anzaldua 34).
ReplyDeleteIs Mexico even considered third world? I don't know, which is why I ask. But I find it interesting that she exposes these issues. It does seem that way, that the U.S. welcomes immigrants when they need to have things built, but then close them when they have enough help.
DeleteAccording to Gloria, the border divides the first and third world. Not all of Mexico is considered third world, but if you compare Tijuana with the US, there is big difference in the infrastructure.
DeleteGloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a place that is "vague and undetermined" and is "created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary". She introduces Borderlands by contrasting the ocean with the unnatural Mexican/American border. "I stand at the edge where earth touches ocean/where the two overlap/a gentle coming together/at other times and places a violent crash"(23). She defines borders as boundaries that "define the places that are unsafe and safe ,to distinguish us from them(25)". This distinction between people allowed for the physical mistreatment of the '"them"', in this case being the Mexicans from the perspective of white Americans. "Do not enter, trespassers will be raped, maimed,strangled,gashed,shot"(25). Ironically, it is the Americans who so harshly claimed this land that never was nor will ever truly belong to them. The non-material manifestation affiliated with the borderlands is the sense of authority in the mind of the "white superiority"(29). The Gringo, locked into a fiction of white superiority, seized complete political power,stripping Indians and Mexicans of their land..."(29). With this quote Anzaldúa proves that the establishment of the border somehow created a sense of entitlement in the mind of the whites and "legitimized the...takeover"(28). Anzaldúa describes herself as a border woman, being physically as well as psychologically affected by this border. " 1950 mile-long open wound/dividing a pueblo, a culture,/ running down the length of my body,/staking fence rods in my flesh,/splits me splits me/"(24). In saying this quote she proves that in being a Chicana she cant give her whole identity to one side, either Mexican or the United States but both and is therefore a border woman. A woman in which "This[the border] is her home/this thin edge of barbwire"(35).
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you cited some of the poetry to analyze the borderlands. It makes for a lot of strong ideas to be presented that may take some interpretation to explain. If I could offer any suggestions, the only thing I would have to say is to probably use quotes more sparingly. This may make the quotes that you do include more effective. Otherwise, good job!
DeleteGloria Anzaldua conceptualized the borderlands as both a physical barrier and social barrier between cultures. As the she described the role of borders in the book she talks about how the manifestation of borders did not only just only create a physical border to keep cretan kinds of people out when it is convenient, but also the separation was a social contract that let others know that people of distinct race or socioeconomic was not allowed to enter due to the certain prejudice. She described herself as a woman of the borderlands because she is caught between the separation of the border,born of Latin@ culture in the United states she was not validated in one place or the other. She then classifies herself as a woman of the borderlands caught in two worlds of separation.
ReplyDeleteI agree when you say that the borderlands provide a barrier not only physically between countries, but between cultures as well. I also agree when you say that as a border woman Anzaldúa was not validated in one place or the other, but rather caught between two worlds of separation. However, I disagree when you say this separation was a type of social contract. A social contract implies the fact that the border was a type of agreement between both parties, in this case the Anglos and the mexicanos. If it was a social contract, then that means both parties had agreed from the beginning not to cross into each other’s space, which is not the case.
DeleteI agree with you and your ideas but it needs more context. With out the context it lacks the validation that a response needs to be taken seriously. I also think that you need to be less vague with your ideas and provide more examples. It is evident that you have great roots for your responses but while writing you seem to stray from those roots.
DeleteJasmine Madrigal
ReplyDeleteMr. Saldivar
Latin American/Latin@ Literature, Period 2/6B
May 18, 2014
The Borderlands
In chapter one of Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldúa, Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a place of contradictions, where conventional ideas are challenged when two distinct cultures edge each other. Being an actual, physical borderland that divides the United States and Mexico, it is more significantly a psychological borderland. Anzaldúa, a border woman because she embodies both Mexican and Anglo culture, testifies to the psychological impacts the border has on an individual. She describes it as being “una herida abierta”, or a wound, where “the Third World grates against the first and bleeds”, both from physical and emotional pain (Anzaldúa 25). Anzaldúa recalls a time where she experiences such pain when her cousin was “deported to Guadalajara by plane” because he “couldn’t speak English, couldn’t tell them he was a fifth generation American”, something seemingly contradictory that la migra could not understand (26). Many Mexican-Americans today fail to be understood because they are neither black nor white, their mixed nature challenging the black-white paradigm and resulting in the United States lack of acception in them as a people.
I really like how you said it was a psychological borderland and how you tied it to real life in your sentence. You really just made your whole paragraph relevant. I feel like it would've been stronger if you would've added something about why she considers herself a border woman. You could have made an emotional connection between that and the deportation of her cousin. Still even without it you closed it really well with your final sentence.
DeleteJasmine, I like that you talked about the idea of Anzaldua testifying the impacts the border has on people. She does not take one side or the other, rather she creates her own space by embodying what Anzaldua sees as the more positive side of Mexican and Anglo culture. I would have liked to see you talk about the the physical and non-material things that created the border we have now. Even so, I like the connection you made to the misunderstanding in Mexican-Americans for trying to be both and their struggle to be validated similar to Anzaldua's.
DeleteDaryl Cordova
ReplyDeleteIn chapter one of Borderlands Gloria Anzaldua brings to light how the border itself is a whole new world. “The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the third world grates against the first and bleeds, And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country--- a border culture” (Anzaldua 25). She sees the border as history’s leftover emotional battleground where this line brought a division to “distinguish us from them” (Anzadua 25). The things she describes the border as leads this idea of loneliness and death. It’s this desolate land where tension is an everyday battle between the gringo and the ‘transgressors’. Anzadldua describes herself as this border woman. She lives with the scars of having to leave behind her roots and being confronted by a new lifestyle. Her long journey is described as her “1,950 mile-long open wound dividing a pueblo, a culture, running down the length of my body, stalking fence rods in my flesh, splits me splits me.” (Anzaldua 24). She is a border woman because she lives in this constant battle of rejection in her attempt to survive in the United States.
I like your idea of the "whole new world" basically instead of saying the border is a mix, it creates its own identity using both. The analysis of the leftover emotional battleground is a good representation between the constant struggling of the Latino versus the American. How you describe Anzaldua as a border woman is interesting to me as I would not of thought of that. I would say to try and expand upon the border's manifestations.
DeleteI like that you included how borderlands become their own country and adopt their own cultures rather than simply stating that those lands are just a mixture of the countries that divide them. The quotes you used in your response are good because they help to reinforce your arguments, which is always good. I agree with your interpretation of Anzaldua as a border woman because she does struggle to survive in the United States while also rebelling against the oppression she faces within her own culture as a Chicana.
DeleteGloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a type of no-man’s land, consisting of both physical and non-material manifestations. The borderlands are typically referred to as the area dealing as the barrier between the US and Mexico, or the Southwest area. It is here where Mexicans are exploited by racism and the gringos have “seized complete political power”, thriving off of their exploitation (Anzaldúa 29). Aside from this, though, the borderlands have many psychological elements to it as well. These cover the cultural, sexual, and religious divides that occur along the Southwest border, as a result of “people of different races occupy[ing] the same territory” (Anzaldúa 19). This is also what causes the borderlands to be characterized as a place filled with tension amongst the Anglos and the mexicanos. Gloria Anzaldúa goes on to say that she is a border woman as she “grew up between two cultures”, in a life filled with contradictions (Anzaldúa 19). These contradictions can be seen as tejanos constantly live in fear of being deported to Mexico despite many of them being “fifth generation Amerian[s]” and were technically “the first inhabitants” of the area to begin with (Anzaldúa 26). A daughter of the borderlands, learning to deal with such contradictions and switching between multiple identities became the basis of her very existence.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you brought up the point about how this contradiction can be seen in how fifth generation americans still have to fear being deported. Although I disagree that these things have become the basis of Anzaldúa's existence; rather she is trying to make people aware of these contradictions in the hopes of stopping them from becoming the basis of everyone's existence.
DeleteI agree with Julia. Your perspective made me re-evaluate what I read. But I do not believe these contradictions are what make Anzaldua's claim stronger, as there is something wrong with the culture's imposition that makes her and many other Chicanas confused.
DeleteGloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as a place of separation and isolation, where all that is known is lost, and is all a mix of culture that can not be identified under control by the "whites and those who align themselves with the whites" (Anzaldua 26). It is a place full of tension and ambivalence which would rather be forgotten than embraced. It has both physical and mental manifestations in separation. The border is designed to physically keep immigrants out of America and mentally disembody them from ever being part of America, as always be classified as a "minority" or an "alien". These words and the border itself create the image of two different people and cultures that must not mix as "the third world grates against the first and bleeds" (Anzaldua 25). The border is a "1,950 mile-long open wound" Anzaldua is saying that the border's issues are known and it they will persist in being there until it is fixed and because of this she is a border woman (Anzaldua 24). She is caught between two identities of being Latina and American, and having to split between the two and change as need be. having to deal with this split and her life because of the restrictions of society and culture.
ReplyDeleteYour argument is well supported with the text and your choosing of it. I do think that the ties you describe make sense and are one of the main components of the chapter but I would have liked that you expand on the idea of the wound and the identities that are created from it. I think expanding on Anzaldua's identity of a border woman would have been beneficial as it felt a bit rushed.
DeleteMario Torres
ReplyDeleteAnzaldúa's "Borderlands," Chapter 1, focuses on the border culture that is created from the intermixing of the two countries involved. “The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the third world grates against the first and bleeds, And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country--- a border culture” (Anzaldúa 25). The border culture is a way of life living in fear. She fears for those struggling to survive and fears that the innocent will be unjustified. She tells the story of her cousin that was deported even though he was a fifth generation American (Anzaldúa 26). She calls herself a border woman because she "grew up between two cultures" (Anzaldúa 19). She's been "straddling that tejas-Mexican border, and others, all [her] life." She struggles to define her own national identity and cannot limit it to just one country. If anything, she would probably identify herself with the "third country:" the borderland.
It's interesting how the stereotypes have led to injustice. For instance, Gloria's cousin was born in the US, but yet he was deported because of his appearance. The formation of third country is also interesting because those who inhabit the borderlands feel trapped between two cultures and therefore find it necessary to create a third country where they fit in.
DeleteI think you did a good job in explaining why Anzaldua class her self a border woman, by showing that she part of two cultures that conflict with one another. I would only say that i disagree that borderlands means living in fear. I would say that borderlands refers to being bicultural and living between the borders of the cultures.
DeleteI really like how you analyzed the fear and the importance of fear in the identity of the border land. You connected the "third country " element with Anzaldua.
DeleteGloria Anzaldúa describes the borderland as a "dividing line...created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary…[where] the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato, the half-breed, [and] the half dead" live (Anzaldúa 25). They are a place where "the only "legitimate" inhabitants are those in power, whites and those who align themselves with whites," (Anzaldúa 25-26) creating not only a social border , but also a psychological one due to hundreds of years of being "locked into the fiction of white superiority" (Anzaldúa 29). Gloria Anzaldúa says that she is a border woman because she is of both Latina and American decent, "her home [being] th[e] thin edge of barbwire" (Anzaldúa 35). She is not only a blend of two cultures who's past and present clash; she is also a lesbian, creating yet another border. The U.S. - Mexican border is not only an open wound separating the first and third world, but also "una herida abierta" (Anzaldúa25) separating Anzaldúa and everyone like her from the different cultures within themselves.
ReplyDeleteTo Julia:
DeleteIt is interesting that you included her sexuality as another border, while it is true that her being a lesbian definitely creates another aspect of her identity which is targeted, does border culture also explain the injustices done to identities which cannot be included in nationality, ethnicity, or race?
Anzaldua immediately conceptualizes the borderlands as a country its own "where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds" (Anzaldua 25). Mexico and US cultures conflict due to the internalized historical racisms and wrongs that the US brought upon colonization and still perpetuates today. US has systematically made Mexico dependent financially and through this and other violence oriented injustices has created a sift between those accepted and "Los atravesados" (25) , the sift being the borderline. The border manifests the mentality of the colonizers which villainized Mexicans and "legitimized the white imperialist takeover" which today can often times be synonymous with US patriotism. The physicality of this mentality can be seen in the dismissed violence along the border that can be triggered by trying to cross it or simply living among it. Anzaldua identifies as a border woman because she and her family experienced the exploitation of their land, work, and identities in the name of the border and the border culture that ascends it. She details these exploitation not only with statistical evidence, one example being the devaluing of the peso, but also with personal anecdote of her family being mistreated as sharecroppers.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter one of Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands, she establishes a border as a means to distinguish the “safe and unsafe… us from them” (Anzaldua 25). She conceptualizes a borderland as a “vague and undetermined place” inhabited by “[t]he prohibited and forbidden” and which is “in a constant state of transition” (Anzaldua 25). The borderland takes on a physical form through “the steel curtain—[a] chain link fence crowned with barbed wire” (Anzaldua 24). But the separation of the two worlds goes deeper than a line drawn in the dirt; it goes back to the origins of the Aztecs and the Spanish conquest, and later to the Mexican-American war. With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 came the birth of “the border fence that divides the Mexican people” (Anzaldua 29). The 100,000 Mexicans that were left on the annexed state of Texas were “strip[ped] of their land” and “separated from [their] identity and [their] history” (Anzaldua 30). From this point on began the abuse and exploitation of Mexican immigrants and Indians, from the stealing of Indian land to taking advantage of the immigrants’ helplessness. Anzaldua explains that the Mexican woman is especially at risk because of the two labels that she carries—that of her gender and that of her national origin. She calls herself a border woman because she is part of the borderland as she too faces the same exploitation, "this is her home, this thin edge of barbwire" (Anzaldua 35).
ReplyDeleteYour use of context is great, specifically when you reference the history and development of the border. That makes your argument really strong and it ties everything together. I like that you defined the border and how it is characterized before you talked about why she is a border woman. It set up your ending point well and kept your response from getting redundant. Great use of quotes, too. Overall, it's a really strong analysis.
DeleteGloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as the place of Anglo- Mex disputes and the creation of a new culture that the Anglo community considers a 'silent invasion'. The borderlands is described as "the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (Anzaldua 25). Unnatural because of the injustice that is felt for many Latinoamericanos after the imperialist greed that the United States had to invade and conquer Aztlan. Aztlan that was the origin of the Aztecs and most Latinos now resides al norte. The fence which signifies the beginning of the aggression by the north to keep their position and their attempt to destroy any sense of the past that would send them 'pa' 'tras'. Anzaldua documents the Anglo land exploitation that stretched far south of their own arbitrary border. This, an attempt to control the borderland and the country of Mexico as a whole. However, this just leave a bitter for revenge to the Latino. The travesty of crossing north for the Mexican woman is a hardship, as even the return to Aztlan would only be reminiscent to the stigma of patriarchy that their ancestors had when envisioning the " symbolic sacrifice of the serpent to the 'higher' masculine powers" (Anzaldua 27). Surrounded by patriarchal nationalists, the woman refugee must reside to this being her home, "this thin edge of barbwire" (Anzaldua 35).
ReplyDeleteI like how you described the creation of the unnatural border between Mexico and the United States and the relationship between the Latinos and the American imperialist greed. However, I disagree with you when you say that the fence signifies the beginning of the aggression by the north. I think the aggression of the north stretches all the way back to the founding of the Americas. The fence was simply a slap in the face to the Mexicans and a sign of "We win" from the Americans.
DeleteAnzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as almost it's own country. The borderlands were described as a place where two completely different worlds collide, where neither side claims the middle. It creates fear, confusion, and disparity amongst the inhabitants because of the "unnatural boundary" that has been set. As the border physically manifest it's self as separating them from us, and defining the "places that are safe and not safe."Anzaldua describes the borderlands as full of contradictions as it lives between the hyphen of the US and Mexico. She characterizes the area as being "vague and undetermined," creating "faceless, nameless, invisible," human beings being exploited by history, economics, society, and politics by both sides of the border. Anzaldua describes herself as a border women because she has experienced the life and culture that has effected the border region. She has seen exploitation of her fathers labor and lived between two identities that she identifies as. The same constant collisions and conflicts resulting from living on the fringe effects her.
ReplyDeleteNathan, I agree with the idea of the borderlands being almost its own country, I would say it exists more as an individual entity rather than a country but the general idea is the same. Its almost as if the border exists on its own but yet it is composed by the clashing of the third and first world. Her perspective is very relevant to life in the border lands as she has lived within the culture
DeleteIn chapter 1, Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a “vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” – a place in a “constant state of transition”, where the “prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants,” (Anzaldúa 25). This conceptualization provides both a physical and cultural view of how the forming of the border created the division that exists today. After the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the physical border was set. It finalized the “us vs. them” mentality that was sure to keep the two countries separate. But the birth of the mestizaje race hundreds of years before had already created a border culture that would make it impossible to truly keep the two cultures separate. Anzaldúa calls herself a border woman because she is a product of the vague border culture. The border, she says, is a “1,950 mile-long open wound… running down the length of my body, staking fence rods in my flesh, splits me splits me,” (Anzaldúa 24).
ReplyDeleteMaddie I liked how you flowed the quotes together at the beginning to make a solid point. I agree with your ideas that the War cause a lot of the division and how there is no solidified equality between the people along the border. I would say that the reuslts of the war is also contributing to the racial divide and the effort by both sides to resolve the problems between the two.
DeleteMaddie, I like your selection of quotes you used to support your response. It is true that because of the mestizaje race hundreds of years before, the cultures will not be kept separate, despite the physical border that is in place between the cultures. You should elaborate on how Gloria Anzaldua is a product of the vague border culture.
DeleteReading your response was extremely fluid and understandable as the quotes and their analysis aligned together very well. I liked how you incorporated the history Anzaldua provided in chapter 1 appropriately into your response.
DeleteThe borderlands as conceptualized by Anzaldua is a distinct space where there exists conflict between the clashing of two distinct cultures and tension within the sociopolitical factors that surround the border. It is a place of life and death, risk and promises, where one must choose between stagnation in the homeland or life in "El Norte" characterized by constant fear and hardships. Its manifestation lies in the "mountains and plains and deserts" (Anzaldua 24) littered with barbed wire fences and border patrol agents stalking their next prey. Life exists within the rich history of the borderlands, within the roots of mestizaje from "continual intermarriage between Mexican and American Indians and Spanish" (Anzaldua 27) and the remnants of Chicano ancestry stretching back thousands of years. Anzaldua says she is a border woman because she grew up in this border culture in Texas. Her exposure to the border culture and her experiences as a Chicana have allowed her to develop a deep understanding of the border culture.
ReplyDeleteMarvin I thought it was a very apporopiate way to introduce your analysis with stating that the border is the clashing of two distinct cultures. Then go on two transition from the negatives of both sides of the border, but use it to then highlight the richness of culture and people that exists within the border.
DeleteThe way the quotes fit into your paragraph made it easy to read and made your point more concise and easy to follow. The contrast you make between "El Norte" and the homeland really give you a sense of how difficult the choose of migrating is and the tension that arises in the borderland.
DeleteThe Border Lands: Chapter 1
ReplyDeleteGloria Anzaldua defines the US/Mexican border as "una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds". She creates a very complex relationship between the United States and Mexico through their long, intense history. Anzaldua documents the Mexican American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the countless lives of Mexicans affected by American imperialism. Anzauldua then goes on to state that through this complex relationship a third country was born, a border country. Tejanos, those born in Texas while it was still Mexican land, are neither Mexican nor American but rather a border race.This border race is defined by a sense of not belonging, because those who belong to the race are given the choice is "to stay in Mexico and starve or move north and live". Anzadula defines herself as belonging to this border lang culture because her ancestors trace back to belonging to this Mexican American identity and their pain and history lives on in her.
I enjoyed how you discussed how the border is a 3rd country/new culture and that they were in fact part of each country that currently overlap this borderland, but how does the border effect the environment of people? Does the change in ownership truly effect the people who live there?
DeleteRoss, I liked your definition and analysis of the border race but I am unclear as to what the border is according to your paragraph. Is the border the relationship or is it something physical or is it both?
DeleteIn chapter 1, Gloria Anzaldúa describes the border as being "una herida abierta where the 3rd world meets the first and bleeds. before a scab forms it hemerrhages again, with the bloodmixing to form a thrid country- a borderculture" (Anzaldúa 25). The depiction of the border alludes to how the tension at the border is around today. The injustice by the Americans during the Mexican-American War created an unsettled dislike for the Americans by the Mexicans which is amplified by their accessiility to eachother near the border. Anzaldua acredits the Battle of the Alamo to the racial descrimination of the Mexicans by the whites because of the "cowardly and villianous character of the Mexicans...It became a symbol for the white imperialist takeover" (Anzaldúa 28). Besides the untangible resentment for eachother around the border the physical products of the border are the new cultures of people, mestizos. Anzaldua claims that the border splits her in half leaving her a product of two cultures fused together by the mystique of the border.
ReplyDeletePhilip, i really like the way you tied up the concept of the border being an open wound with the fusion of two cultures. I agree that Anzaldua is the product of the those two cultures that resulted with the creation of the new mestizo race and the white imperialism. I think that the author becomes one with the border due to its history and symbolism. Well done.
DeleteI like the way you used the history that was provided in the chapter a base for your support on your argument about the ongoing injustice and racial discrimination.
Delete"Borderlands
ReplyDeleteLa Frontera" Chapter 1
Gloria Anzaldua identifies herself to be a border woman because she is the result of what came to be a "border culture". To Anzaldua, the border represents the separation between "us" and "them" the normal and the unatural and the safe and unsafe. Although the border is just a fence with barbed wire, a physical thing, it is the portrayal of what the "normal" gringo is capable of- conquest. The chicano has always been the victim of conquest dating back to the 16th century when thr spaniards conquered the aztecs who are known as the ancestors of the mexican people. From that conquest the new mestizo race originated until the anglos decided to seek expansion and took over texas. Within the edged of that border, people suffered. They experienced racism,were mistreated but most importantly they feared deportation. The men who depended on american goods to live, the woman who had to withstand rape, these were people who faced oppression and did not fight back and that is what true power looked like, the power the gringo had. Anzsldua makes it clear that her home is an "open wound" yet she is willing to confront the pain because she knows that the "sea cannot be fenced".
Angie, I think overall you did a good job condensing the text and answering the questions. However, i think you should have contextualized the last sentence little more because it is a little unclear how the sea relates to the open wound. What did she compare to the sea? the wound? Other than that...Good job!
DeleteYou explained yourself very well and i understood what you were getting at. Don't forget to cite the page numbers for the quotes you use though!
DeleteGloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as a "vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (Anzaldua 25). With the clashing of first and third world countries, border countries are born. Anzaldua describes how the United States had invaded Mexican territory and took their land. Specifically, Anglos went to Texas and took the land from the Tejanos, who lived in Texas while it was part of Mexico, and basically kicked them out. Tejanos cannot really identify themselves as American or Mexican and ultimately become ostracized by both groups because they are literally on the border of both cultures. Tejanos must choose between becoming a part of American society and assimilating or staying in Mexico and struggling to support themselves and their family. This pertains to all borderland cultures because every individual living on the border has to make the choice of staying or going. Gloria Anzaldua defines herself as a border woman because she has been exposed to border culture all her life and because of these personal experiences, she has been able to grasp a deeper understanding of borderlands and the cultures they preserve.
ReplyDeleteI agree that actions by the US have caused Tejanos to feel other in their own culture. You mentioned how Tejanos have two options, assimilation or suffering. Can there be a third options, where they don't have to leave out part of themselves. I would disagree, an individual has more options than staying or going. The individual can do either and stand up for his culture. The border culture becomes there new culture.
Deletei like how you included the history of the border into the creation of an identity but disagree in the fact that tejanos must choose one side or the other. i feel that by adopting the Chicana identity she is accepting both part of herself.
DeleteI agree with how you approached the choices that people living on the border need to make, and how Anzaldua fits into this culture. Hoever, I do not believe you fully represented the culture the border creates, one of cultural as opposed to mere separation. I think you understand that, I think you should have just elaborated upon it more.
DeleteIn chapter 1, Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the border as "una herida abierta" (Anzaldúa 25). An open wound is an accurate description of the border because it represents how two worlds collide together "to form a third country-border culture" (Anzaldúa 25). Physically it is portrayed as just a "1,950 mile-long wire fence" (Anzaldúa 24). It is used to try to divide two different worlds to keep out dangerous foreigners, but in this process of trying to keep out people from the opposite side of whichever side of the border you are on. Culture is seen as an attack on one's own nationality which is another reason why it is portrayed as something so malicious to invade another country, and in trying to make it your own that is how the border culture is born. She calls herself a border woman beause she herself endured life on the border and grew with its own culture. She is within that division and the struggle for a unified identity, but one thing she is sure of is "This is her home this thin edge of barbwire" (Anzaldúa 35).
ReplyDeleteI can somewhat understand what you are trying to say, but I do think you need to clear up some things. For example, how is culture an attack on one's nationality?
DeleteVery interesting Vincent. "Una herida abierta" can have so many significance for the description of the border. Aside from the collision of two cultures, the border is set to divide two countries and to stop people from coming to the other side. The border is a place where millions of dreams have extinguished for it has been the cause of many deaths.
DeleteGloria Anzaldua defines the borderlands as a fringe in which the Chican@ is forces to live upon, a "thin edge of / barbwire" (Anzaldua 25). The US/Mexican border consists of both the iron wall that separates the two nations as well as the stigmas that surround the people who inhabit the borderlands. The mestizos that live there are considered "mongrel" and "half-breed" by the north and seen as a problem. This leaves the borderlands in between worlds (and literally nations) and isolates the area and creates a cultural limbo. Metaphysical borders are created by the physical ones. Anzlaldua defines herself as a border woman because she is a mestizo. She is part of the barbwire culture that defines her as such. Her Chicana identity serves as a reason for her to be a border woman.
ReplyDeleteI like how you said that borders were created with other borders. I don't really understand the last statement though. Like what aspects if her chicana indent it's is the border woman.
DeleteBorders are boundaries set in order to divide areas. In Chapter 1 of Borderlands, Anzaldua describes that "Borders are set up to define places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them" (Anzaldua 25). These separations are not intended to become a division between the "good" and the "bad". However, the borders drawn have left a negative overtone with the outlying borderlands as it suggests a reason for a need for separation and supports a hierarchy among regions. The border not only physically divides to areas but it also divides the respective cultures among those borderlands. These cultures end up being abnormal when practiced across the border and are not expected to be continued. This loss of culture for those that migrated from the borderlands across, ha resulted in a loss in identity and culture. Anzaldua explains that, "Those who make it past the checking of the Border Patrol find themselves in the midst of 150 years of racism in Chicano barrios in the Southwest and in big northern cities" (Anzaldua 34). Those that do make it across, are not appreciated for who they are and are often not accepted at all. Anzaldua considers herself a border woman as she is stuck in between her two divided cultures. Without her culture she feels oppressed, but as a woman she sees a higher risk. Anzaldua claims that, "La mojada, la mujer indocumentada, is undoubtedly threatened in this country. Not only doe she have to contend with sexual violence, but like all women, she is prey to a sense of physical helplessness" (Anzaldua 34). Anzaldua has conceptualized these borderlands as the base for danger, especially for women, culturally, socially, and physically.
ReplyDeleteGloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a "dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge" (Anzaldúa 25). The boarder separates places and people who are "prohibited and forbidden" (25). Physically, all the border is is a large gate that is stretched for many miles. There is more to it than just that, it can symbolize a sense of no belonging because the people of these borderlands have difficulty identifying themselves as a person, they are either one side or the other but can identify as both. Anzaldúa says she is a boarder woman because she grew up in the environment where she herself faced the border culture and the split between them.
ReplyDeleteI disagree that Anzaldua is split over the border. I think Anzaldua would call either side of the border home and would say that the Borderlands between the cultures is a place in itself. The border is much more than a dividing line even if it was only meant to be such. I don't think people in these places ave problems identifying themselves. Anzaldua often cites the forces of hate and oppression that contradict self determination.
DeleteGloria Anzaldúa views the borderland as a place where a new race began. The mestizaje occurred during the arrival of Cortez with the invasion of Spain into the Americas. “En el 1521 nació una raza, el mestizo, el mexicano” (Anzaldúa 27) and with many interracial relations the mestizaje further continued. Anzaldúa discusses not only the physical border, this “thin edge of barbed wire”, but also this physiological border that separates the white from the Mexican and from the border race. The thin barbed wire becomes a large cloud for large numbers of Mexicans who do not encompass the American culture and for the Chicanos who do not encompass the Mexican culture. “The sea cannot be fenced, el mar does not stop at borders”(Anzaldúa 25), and neither does the cultural tension stay within these borders but spans throughout the whole Northern American continent. Anzaldúa considers herself as borderland women because she has been exposed to the borderland living in Texas and is part of this mestiza identity.
ReplyDeleteI like how you didn't just explain the border as a physical border but also a physiological border. I think that's very true in terms of what Anzaldua is talking about. Good job overall.
DeleteI never realized how "positive" this could be seen. I keep looking at this through an "angry" lens, as if borderlands were something bad instead of a place where the solution could arise from. Thanks for the new perspective. I do not think anyone wrote about borderlands in that way
DeleteYoure analysis of this has changed my views on borderlands. I agree with you when you say the border is a place where a new race began. Awesome job.
DeleteThe Border between the United States and Mexico hollowed the ground it stood on, and caused a land absent of cultural individuality. American prejudice and the forces of northing migration trapped the people there, locking them in shackles of infectious conformity. “Tension grips the individuals of the borderland like a virus,” (Anzaldua 26) and as the virus infects the steady flow of cultural hosts, the boarder engraves the earth deeper. As Mexico crashes against the border, the boarder clashes against the individual with its links of parasitic iron, draining their sense of self until each dream/aspiration is another link in the fence that divides us. As Anzaldua associates with the identity of a “border woman” she de-personifies the boarder itself. She frees the dreams of her fellow border women from the each link of the fence and creates a culture from the tyrannous rule of the border. “Trembling with fear yet filled with courage, a courage born of desperation,” (Anzaldua 33) is from the immunization Anzaldua concocts through Cultural Revolution to combat the border’s infectious tendencies of American racist reality.
ReplyDeleteThis was..impassioned. I felt like I was reading propaganda. I don't know if that quote from page 33 applied specifically to border women, but to all border people. How exactly has Anzaldua accomplish this "de-personification" already?
DeleteVery well stated. I agree with your idea of the borders being shackles. I find your perspective interesting that you believe the border destroys those who oppose it but Anzaldua serves as hope/ an extra opposing force. Initially, that is not what I took from the reading but I "gather that" now.
DeleteThanks for the enlightenment.
In Chapter One of The Borderlands, Anzaldua explains how psychological borders manifest themselves within the physical Mexican-American border. She defines the Borderland as a, "vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (Anzaldua 25). "Vague" and "undetermined" refers to the constant transitional state of things and people, as nothing within the Borderlands is clearly defined, including her. This is because the people existing in the Borderlands are the Chicanos (or immigrant Mexicans). They are the embodiment of mestizaje being decendants of Spanish, mestizos, and indigneous however they are displaced from their ancestoral country by living in the United States as well as excluded from American society. Anzaldua refers to the gravitation north as "el retorno" (Anzaldua 33), being the act of Mexicans seeking to return to the lands of their ancestors which filibusteros had wrongfully claimed and taken. Here is the place where cultures clash. In trying to establish itself as superior, the dominant white structure erected a wall between the two worlds creating a wound; Mexicans were ripped from their homeland at the annexation of Texas. Here is the source of the, "emotional residue" present within the Borderlands as, the United States did create an "unnatural boundary" between the people and their land (Anzaldua 25). She, being a Chicana herself, states that she lives on the, "thin edge of barbwire"( Anzaldua 35). She witnessed the change in Mexico as large American corporations bought up the land from the people to make profits, using the workers they were putting out of business. She saw the erection of the fence separating Mexico and the United States and felt that it "split" her (Anzaldua 25). Economic conditions meant that her family could not return to the home which culturally accepted her nor could they fully integrate into American society which rejected them;" the choice [was] to [move to] Mexico and starve or [stay] north and live" (Anzaldua 32). Because she struggles to retain her identity within as a Chicana in the United States and was culturally divided from her "homeland" (Aztlan) while being reminded all the time that she did not belong where she lived, Anzaldua states she is border woman.
ReplyDeleteI like how you describe the border, and those who live in it, as undefined. It is an interesting way to see that the border is not only a blending of cultures but an indeterminate space. The cultural rejection that Anzaldua felt from both sides of the physical border would definitely qualify her as a border woman, but do you think that is the only reason why she identifies that way?
DeleteIn chapter One of Gloria Anzaldua's book she has many descriptions of what defines a border. One of her ideas of the border are that " Borders are set up to define places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them" (Anzaldua 25). As she defined the borders physical attribute as being a "... dividing line,...", there is more of an effect on cultural identity by separation than what it's literal meaning is. Borders separate the merging countries cultures which harms the blending of culture without the blending of culture one side may become ignorant at the fact that another culture exists. As she grew up along the parts of the border she experienced racism by Gringos in the U.S. Southwest consider the inhabitants of the borderlands transgressors, aliens-whether they posses documents or not.". By experiencing countless acts of stereotyping and racism just as her ancestors before her, she can identify herself as being border woman.
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 1 of Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua describes borders as a "open wound" which divides "a pueblo, a culture" (Anzaldua 24). Physically, they appear to be no more than 139 year old "gritty" rusted wires but the toll they take on the people on either side of them is great (Anzaldua 24). Borders are installed as a means of separation, in order to allow countries to claim their own land and their native people. However, to many people who identify with dual nationalities, the border not only serves as a separation of their two cultures but their identity. Often finding that they are not accepted on either sides of the border, they exist on the border, not understanding where exactly they belong. Gloria Anzaldua maintains that she is a "border woman" meaning she can identify with the wound that is caused by living on the border because she has witnessed and experienced the results. Anzaldua has become the product/ "third country" that she describes, embracing rather than opposing the border culture that is a fusion of both cultures that the borders were meant to keep separated, avoiding having to choose a piece of herself and neglecting the other (Anzaldua 25).
ReplyDeleteYour response is well thought out and I like how you define the border as not only a physical barrier between countries and nationalities but also as an identity. I also agree with you when you described how Anzaldua is a border woman saying she embraces both cultures rather than opposing them. Good job!
DeleteIn Chapter 1 of Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua describes borders as a "open wound" which divides "a pueblo, a culture" (Anzaldua 24). Physically, they appear to be no more than 139 year old "gritty" rusted wires but the toll they take on the people on either side of them is great (Anzaldua 24). Borders are installed as a means of separation, in order to allow countries to claim their own land and their native people. However, to many people who identify with dual nationalities, the border not only serves as a separation of their two cultures but their identity. Often finding that they are not accepted on either sides of the border, they exist on the border, not understanding where exactly they belong. Gloria Anzaldua maintains that she is a "border woman" meaning she can identify with the wound that is caused by living on the border because she has witnessed and experienced the results. Anzaldua has become the product/ "third country" that she describes, embracing rather than opposing the border culture that is a fusion of both cultures that the borders were meant to keep separated, avoiding having to choose a piece of herself and neglecting the other (Anzaldua 25).
ReplyDeleteI agree with your response. It is very well worded. I really like how in the beginning you describe the border as an "open wound" and connect it again in the end. You connect the borders personal effect to Anzaldua very well.
DeleteGloria Anzaldua discusses multiple borders in her novel. She characterizes a border as not just a physical separation between two countries, but as the separation seen between any two opposing groups of people like upper/lower classes, races, cultures, genders, and religions. This characterization of the Borderlands is why she calls herself a “border woman” because she grew up between her Mexican and Anglo identities (Anzaldua 19). This straddling of cultures is further evident in her code-switching throughout the chapters which serves to illustrate the fluidity of her identity as it evolves with the world around her. Anzaldua distinguishes a border from a borderland however because “a border is a dividing line,” whereas “a borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” (Anzaldua 25). The Borderland is constantly evolving physical as well as culturally. The Texas-Mexico border was changed until Mexicans were no longer from Mexico but from the United States. The movement of the self-proclaimed dominant whites into Texas sparked the Battle of the Alamo which became the American “symbol for the cowardly and villainous character of the Mexicans” (Anzaldua 28). The reciprocal movement of Mexicans into the United States, legal and illegal, is met with the same resistance from America. Immigrants, especially women, are faced with intense hatred, segregation, and mistreatment as they are taken advantage of for not speaking English, for not being white, for being women, and for constantly living in fear of deportation or worse. The economic dependence on the United States has made these people not just immigrants but refugees as they have a choice to either “stay in Mexico and starve or move north and live” (Anzaldua 32). This has made the borderlands what they are today; not just a separation between countries but “a border culture, a third country” (Anzaldua 33).
ReplyDeleteI think the code- switching was an interesting way of mentioning as to her mixed identity and cultures. i also think it's interesting to compare the history this border issue and compare it to the more recent issues of immigration, as some people unknowingly accuse Chicanos and many other immigrant groups of taking jobs from another country despite the fact that it is similar to what the U.S has been doing for a long time.
DeleteGloria Anzaldúa depicts the borderlands as a place of cruel irony, given its historical significance. Chicanos are forced to fight for their position in the land despite the fact that "In the 1800s, Anglos migrated illegally into Texas, which was then part of Mexico"(Anzaldúa 28). The borderlands, however, are no longer seen as human constructs but as a definite social structure, "Los atrevesados live here: the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato" by which to claim superiority and label all those crossing through as aliens(Anzaldúa 25). Gloria's family as well as many other Mexicans and Native Americans were forced to lose their land and become strangers in a familiar land, struggling to become a part of two cultures, while simultaneously being separate from both as a woman and a Chicana ,"The Gringo, locked into the fiction of white superiority, seized complete political power, stripping Indians and Mexicans of their land while their feet were still rooted in it",(Anzaldúa 30).
ReplyDeleteJuan, you are handsome.
DeleteFurthermore, I like your response and think you answered the topics you chose thoroughly although i would question whether you answered the question of why Gloria anzaldua believes she is a border woman. Also, the answers to the question of the materialistic and non materialistic manifestations on the border are present but I believe your answer would be far more effective if you stressed these points and even compared or contrasted them. Either way however I believe your response was well written and intelligent.
Is the borderlands acutely crule irony or is it possible that there is more than one borderlands between countries. That it can be both curie/ironic but also a place of refugee.
DeleteGloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as "a placed created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary...The prohibited and the forbidden are its inhabitants" (Anzaldua 25). Gloria believes that the borderland is place where there is constant movement- people moving, "those who cross over, pass over or go through the confines of the 'normal' " (25). The culture of the borderlands consists of the "legitimate" inhabitants and the "illegitimate" inhabitants, also known as the whites whom are in power and the "aliens"- Chicanos, Indians or Blacks. The borderlands physical manifestation is the "dividing line" (25), the non-material being the different cultures that exist on each side of the border. Gloria Anzaldua considers herself to be a border woman because of her upbringing. She grew up being in that middle zone, where cultures where split, so she reinvented her identity as a Chicana.
ReplyDeleteYou said that the borderland is a place of constant movement; however, its non-material manifestation is a divide between cultures. I agree with most of your response, but I think that your description of the non-material manifestation is contradictory because if the borderland is a place where people are constantly moving, wouldn't the cultures end up blending to some degree?
DeleteIn chapter one of Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderland as, "a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (25). In doing so, Anzaldua implies that the borderlands are created by the unrest and division caused by boundaries that do not belong. The borderland’s physical manifestations can be seen through mestizos, the “new hybrid race [that] inherited Central and South America” (27). The borderland’s non-material manifestation takes form through the Tejano culture. Tejanos exemplify the struggle of being trapped between two cultures because they face the unruly decision of choosing between Mexican and American culture. These struggles are directly linked to the borderland. Anzaldua states that she is a border woman because she has been exposed to border culture her whole life. Anzaldua tells the stories of her life in Texas, “This is her home / this thin edge of / barbwire.” (37).
ReplyDeleteI agree with your interpretation. I feel that the hybrid race is very real and I enjoyed the outside information you brought into your response.
Delete-Brittany Lieber
Anzaldua describes borders as being both physical, spiritual as well as morally. They are "open wounds"(Anzaldua 24) that "divide a pueblo, a culture"(Anzaldua 24). Serving as a constant physically and emotional reminder of how she is a border woman. She is not allowed to belong to only on side because there will always be that conflict with the other side of the border. Anzaldua is built within the contradictions of the Mexican and the Anglo culture. In order to truly validate herself, she has to live within both cultures. That open would is the third world trying to flourish within the confinements of the countries on both sides. It will never heal because that "thin edge of barbwire" (Anzaldua 25) that makes the border serves as the home of the Mexican-Americans. As long as the individual is forced to choose which side he belongs to, the wound will continue to be a wound. A wound that divides two cultures instead of uniting them.
ReplyDeleteRamon Herrera
DeleteI really liked your finishing line and how a being forced to choose sides doesn't let the wound heal, and since you can never truly choose a side, the wound will technically never heal.
Ramon Herrera
ReplyDeleteIn chapter one of Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldúa, Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as smooth blend where conventional ideas are challenged and two distinct cultures edge each other. She describes it as being “una herida abierta”, or a wound, where “the Third World grates against the first and bleeds”, both from physical and emotional pain (Anzaldúa 25). Anzaldúa describes the borderlands as somewhere that serves as a place to exploit Mexicans and for the Americans to “seized complete political power”, thriving off of their exploitation (Anzaldúa 29).
The psychological elements have an effect on people that serve as a distraction to the other tensions (cultural, sexual, etc.) as a result of “people of different races occupy[ing] the same territory” (Anzaldúa 19). These distracting contradictions can be seen as tejanos must live in fear of being deported to Mexico even if they are “fifth generation Amerian[s]” (Anzaldúa 26). Many Mexican-Americans today are not understood because they challenge the black-white paradigm and result in the United States lack of acceptance of the those Border-Latin@s.
Yazmin Caballero
ReplyDeleteMr. Saldivar
Latin@ Literature 2/6B
In Chapter 1: The Homeland/ El otro Mexico, Gloria Anzaldua describes the borderland territory to be a "vague and undetermined place" (25). The unknown sense that engulfs the borderlands is in its "constant state of transition" (Anzaldua 25). The U.S. and Mexican lands "grate against" each other "form[ing] a third country;" a land where once entered you are considered to be a "transgressor, [an] alien" (Anzaldua 25). The border is marked physically with a "1,950 mile-long...steel curtain [of] barbwire" (Anzaldua 24) and marks its crossers emotionally as they "tremble with fear,yet...courage, courage born of desperation" (Anzaldua 33). Desperation born of La Crisis, of the deflated peso and of the invasion of American factories; which leads to La travesia, the decision to cross. At this point a convergence occurs between the two cultures, territories, and people, that creates a "shock culture, a third country, a border culture" (Anzaldua 33). This border culture is home to the border woman, which Anzaldua describes and names herself as due to her experience "between the two cultures," its lack of "comfort," and its "contradictions" (22). She ends her claim with; "This is her home/this thin edge of barbwire" (35).
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DeleteAzalia Martinez
ReplyDeleteIn The Homeland: Aztlan from Borderland/ La Frontera- The new Mestiza, Gloria Anzaldua uses borderlands to describe how "two worlds [merging has] created a culture shock, a border culture, a third country, a closed country" (Anzaldua 33). Anzaldua creates this image of borderlands being seperate from what the border is supposed to divide; in this case la frontera is neither a part of Mexico nor the United States. Chicanos and Mexicans are marginalized from what was once their own Aztlan when it became a part of the United States. The Anglos, too, crossed over illegally into Mexican territory in the 1800s and as a result "Tejanos lost their land and, overnight, became foreigners" (Anzaldua 28). Neither group accepts the other as a legitimate native to the land but instead see each other as foreigners. Anzaldua describes the non- material manifestation of borderlands as "tension [that] grips the inhabitants... like a virus" (Anzaldua 26). Borders an often be seen a a way to contain and "protect" despite the fact that nature does not obey man made borders just liek "the sea cannot be fenced in", idea and attitudes cannot either (Anzaldua 25).
Anzaldua describes herself as a borderland woman because she is a part of this new Mestizaje. She is also a bi-product of both worlds: Mexico and the United States. Mexico' shield "indicates that the patriarchal order had already vanquished the feminine and matriarchal order" (Anzaldua 25). As a Chicana she is not supported by either side, leaving her to fight both.
Great job addressing each individual question of the prompt. Your closing sentence is really strong.
DeleteIn chapter one of Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldúa, Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a type of “warzone”. Anzaldua paints us a picture of the relationships the nations have with each-other and the type of interactions the border faces by calling the seperation of the two by the iron fence a “herida abierta” (pg 25) or open wound as the two worlds, first and third, are separated where it used to be one until it was taken over by the United States. The border has physical manifestations such as the steel fence described as a “steel curtain” (pg 24) that divides the United States and Mexico but it also retains its non-material manifestations such as the spirits and gods that control the land around the border. Anzualda believes she is a border woman because she grew up on a border town in the middle of everything and witnessed everything first hand. She grew up “between two cultures, the Mexican and the Anglo.
ReplyDeleteBrittany Lieber 2/6B
ReplyDeleteIn Gloria Anzaldua's chapter one of Borderlands, she describes the borderland as a "vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (Anzaldua 25). This undetermined place is cause by the fact that the inhabitants of the area feel that they do not belong to either side of the border. The inhabitants face struggles everyday such as the subject of language. For example, the residents of the borderland by speaking English, are resented for assimilating to American culture and are seen as "sell-outs" by the Mexican culture. At the same time, because of the Borderland inhabitants ability to speak Spanish they are seen as lowly immigrants to American society by Americans. Since just on simple matters such as language the people of the Borderlands are unable to identify with either culture, considering they are a hybrid of both, and are forced to become their own population, and therefore struggle for their sense of identity, self, and belonging as time goes on.
I agree on your description of the border as an unnatural boundary it really gets across the point that Anzaldua is trying to accomplish in the chapter .
DeleteFabian Ramos
ReplyDeleteMr. Saldivar
Latin American Literature- 4th period
May 19, 2014
In the first chapter of “Borderlands/ La Frontera”, author Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as the physical and social manifestation of the existence as an outsider in ones own homeland. The area surrounding the Mexican-United States border, the “Lost Land”, is a “vague and undetermined place” historically and currently inhabited by the “prohibited and forbidden” (Anzaldúa 25). This population is the descendant of the original 100, 000 Mexican citizens who were “annexed by conquest along with the land” upon the American invasion of Mexico in the 1800s (Anzaldúa 29). The tejanos, the native people of the formerly Mexican Texas, were further ostracized from their homeland under the “threat of Anglo Terrorism” (Anzaldúa 30). This subjugation of the South West and its people resulted in the creation of the border culture, which is characterized as the existence as both physically native yet socially “other”. In identifying as a border woman, Anzaldúa reclaims her homeland.
Physically, the borderlands are the plains surrounding the Rio Grande, what was once desert is now irrigated. Land has been stolen and coerced away from the 19C holders to be bought by Anglos and consolidated into industrial farms calling for immigrants to work on them. The flow of traffic is North but it has not always been this way, spiritually it is a "return odyssey to the historical/mythological Aztlan." (Anzaldua 33) The Borderlands are a place of opportunity, but it is not without mysticism.
ReplyDelete"Los atrevesados live here: the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato, the half-breed, the half-dead." (Anzaldua 25) The straddling of two worlds is related to the marginalized of society.
Gloria Anzaldua's narration differs greatly from Ana Castillo's in her Massacre of the Dreamers. Anzaldua explains she is a border woman because she grew up between Anglo and Mexican (Indian) cultures. Castillo describes herself as Mexic-Amerindian and in the introduction to her book states that when she uses first person pronouns she is usually referring to specifically Chicanas. Anzaldua while recounting history, "[immigration] continued with the braceros who helped build our railroads and who picked our fruit," (Anzaldua 33) uses the first person plural possessive "our" when refering to rail and fruit in the American South West. Being a border woman means claiming the South West as "ours" even when "we" are not its masters. Her family has lived there for generations and was there before the Anglos. She has "been straddling the tejas-Mexican border" (Anzaldua 19) and will not let others rewrite history and take away land all over again.
Matthew, I think your approach to identifying the borderlands was successful because you refrained from the archaic analytical essay structure. Your argument was stronger because you contrasted the narration in "Borderlands" to Ana Castillo's "Massacre of the Dreamers". Your textual reference tied the last sentence together very well.
DeleteIn chapter one of borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the U.S. -Mexican border as "una herida abierta where the third world grates against the first and bleeds"(Anzaldua 25). She describes the border as not only a physical barrier that seperates two countries but also as a psychological border that affects those living under it since they do not feel like they belong to either side and must live up with the injustices that come along with the border. For example, Anzaldua describes the sad moment when she experienced her cousin being deported although he was a fifth genereation American. Anzaldua considers herself as a border woman because she has both cultures but finds it difficult to describe her identity as just Mexican or just America therefor she feels like the border is the place that describes identity including both cultures.
ReplyDeleteMarissa, I liked what you wrote, but I think it would be interesting to see you elaborate on the psychological aspects of the border. For example, how did the conquest of the Aztecs and the later robbery of Mexican territory affect border people?
DeleteThe border is seen as a whole new territory in comparison to the US and Mexico. It is marked by hybridity and oxymorons, such as Mexicans feeling out of place in a land that has been theirs for centuries. The physical manifestations of the border are, well, the actual border itself. What's more interesting to me is are the non-material manifestations, such as the aforementioned irony. Mexican risk life and limb to a land that is rightfully theirs, which I think really epitomizes the border. "We were jerked out by the roots, truncated, disembowoled, dispossessed, and seperated from our identity and our history." (Anzaldua 30)
ReplyDeleteAlso,she calls herself a borderwoman because she too goes through "border struggles". "This is her home this thin edge of barbwire." (Anzaldua 35) She is a Mexican living on what used to be Mexico, technically American but marginalized and unaccepted.
DeleteIn Gloria Anzadula's "Borderlands" the border in the geographical border created so that people can separate others, to distinguishes the "us from them"(Anzaldua 25). In responce the borderlands is created by the people who are othered because of the border, created throughout the emotional connections. The borderlands is created a a space for belonging when people are caught between two countries. The non material manifestos are that Mexicans risk their lives to comeback to the countire taken from them, and it is deemed " the silent invasion"(32) by American soicty when in reality it is a "return to the homlands(32). Anzaldua calls herslef a border woman because she cannot descirbe her identie as soley mexican Or soloy American, therefore she feels the borderland she has created for herself between the two countries is her home instead of it being only a single counties.
ReplyDeleteI think you could have went a little deeper in how she conceptualizes the border, but you did a good job talking about why she considers herself a border woman. Also, proofread before you submit because there are a few mistakes.
DeleteIn chapter one of Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua describes the border as a place where two completely different cultures clash together and challenge each other. She defines borders as boundaries that "define the places that are unsafe and safe, to distinguish us from them” (25). The borderland is typically the area that divides the United States from Mexico. It is here where Mexicans are threatened by racism and the gringos have “seized complete political power”, thriving off of their exploitation (Anzaldua 29). Although it is a physical border it can be seen more effective as a psychological border. It separates cultures because of tensions started years back and divides whites and Mexicans and also the border race. Anzaldua describes herself as a border women because she has a border within herself separating both the cultures that make her a mestiza.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed how you contextualized the struggle that the Mexicans endure under the hand of "gringos," and the idea that the border is a boundary that separates "us from them." This point of view helps the reader understand the reality of the different cultures and how they clash.
DeleteIn chapter 1, Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the border as both a physical and social divide. She sees the border as "a vague and undetermined place created by the residue of an unnatural boundary" creating an “Us vs, them” mentality. The actual border is a 1950 mile long divide that separates the U.S from Mexico, but besides being a physical separation it classifies identity. Gloria Anzaldúa goes on to say that she is a border woman as she “grew up between two cultures”, in a life filled with contradictions (Anzaldúa 19). She notes how people are in a constant state of transition and because of this confusion never develop a real sense of identity. Anzaldua considers herself a Chicana, a hybrid of both Mexican and American identities
ReplyDeleteGloria Anzaldua defines the border as being "una herida abierta". Una herida abierta- an open wound, the border has been the cause of numerous deaths; it is a place where dreams and hopes for a better future are left behind. Its goal is to separate two countries, and hoping to separate the people as well. I believe this to be incredibly ironic, for the border is the place where two cultures fuse, the people crossing it bring their culture with them into a place they hope to settle as home. Anzaldua considers herself to be a border woman because she " grew up between two cultures," the interaction between both distinct cultures in her life allowed her to see the difficulty and the confusion it could bring (Anzaldua 19).
ReplyDeleteI like how you discuss the irony in the border, and how, in attempting to divide, the border actually creates a hybridity.
DeleteIn chapter one of "Borderlands/ La Frontera," Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the border as " una herida abierta," creating a physical, social, and psychological division (Anzaldúa 25). The physical border is there to separate places that are deemed safe and unsafe, the "us from them," to establish a sense of superiority (Anzaldúa 25). Socially, the border is there to guide you to the "better" side to be on, the side you should claim if you are a part of the "border culture" that is created through the physical border. Anzaldúa considers herself a border woman because "This is her home this thin edge of barbwire" she is a part of both sides of the border, causing her identity to be split in two according to the man made invention: the border (Anzaldúa 35). The psychological division is the uncertainty of one's identity, of not knowing how to hold on to both sides of one's identity, however Anzaldúa fought to sustain her home in her split identity.
ReplyDeleteI think you made some very good points Amber. I especially liked how You mentioned the effect of living on the borderlands on a person’s personal identity.
DeleteMelanie Hernandez
ReplyDeleteMay 19, 2014
Mr. Saldivar
Latino Lit (4)
Anzaldua focuses much of Chapter 1 discussing the conflict and history of the border. She describes the border as an open wound- “ es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds” (25). She explains that the border is created to separate “us from them” the separation of two different cultures who do not want to be lumped together. She goes on to explain that this separation and the world caught in between is completely a manmade one- “ a borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” (25). In the preface of the novel Anzaldua explains that she is a border woman and has been caught in the back and forth fight between both the Mexican and Anglo cultures for all of her life- “ It’s not a comfortable territory to live in, this place of contradictions.. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape”. She describes how the landscape just like its people has been exploited and forced to do unnatural things- “I saw the land, cut up into thousands of neat rectangles and squares, constantly being irrigated” (31). Anzaldua also emphasis the point that as a woman her exploitation is doubled as she must deal not only with being treated unjustly by the Anglo culture, but by her own culture as well.
Anzaldua describes the border as "the lifeblood of two worlds merging together to form a third country-a border culture" (25). Borders are used to define specific places and boundaries and to also further distinguish the immense disparities between the first and third world. The border is inhabited by "the prohibited and the forbidden" (Anzaldua 25) and the only ones with the "legitimate" power are the whties and those who adhere to the whites. As a border dweller they typically find themselves lost in a world of confusion for the reason that the border illegally crossed them, when everyone else assumes that they illegally crossed the border whether they have documentation or not or whether their families have lived in the border for generations. However the "mexicanos del otro lado" face different challenges. For many, "the choice is to [either] stay in Mexico and starve or move north in live" (Anzaldua 32). It is apparent that the border solely possesses challenges and threats for the third world and those caught in between.
ReplyDeleteAnzaldua conceptualizes borderlands by informing the audience of evidence of the existence of tribes (Chicano ancestors) in places like Texas that dates back to 35000 BC. She describes the land and culture that Cochise and Aztec people occupied and later of the illegal migration of Anglos into those lands beginning in the 16th century where "the lifeblood of those worlds merging... form a third country - a border culture" (25 Anzaldua). Physically, wars and battles between indigenous inhabitants and Anglos gradually moved the brown skin south and forced Mexico "to give up almost half of her nation, what is now Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California" (29) moving the unnatural boundary lower and lower. The non-material manifestation comes form the rape of indigenous women. This manifested their spirit and culture, forcing it to diverge from its origins and mix with Anglo culture creating "una nueva raza, el mestizo, el mexicano" (27). Anzaldua considers herself a border woman because of the blood that runs through her; it is the blood of tribes that lived on American lands long before Anglo invasion and of the Anglos themselves. Anzaldua also realizes that as a woman she must protect herself in her exposure to the suppressing white man and the controlling expectations of her Latin family, thus she is stuck on a barbed wire of the border.
ReplyDeleteGloria Anzaldúa describes the borderland as “a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary,” (Anzaldúa 25) which perfectly sums up the effects of the Anglo takeover of the Indian people. The Anglos came to North America, set up unnatural borders, and claimed the land as their own. As a result, a borderland was created between the U.S. and Mexico. The manifestations of this borderland are seen in the Mexican, Chicano, and Mexican-American people. While physically they must work in factories for unfair pay, endure crossing the actual border, and face possible death because “race hatred” has turned “into an all out war,” (30) they must also deal with non-physical manifestations due to this unnatural boundary, such as constant racism, fear, and neglect. Gloria Anzaldúa, while born and raised in the U.S., is, herself, a border woman. She is a Chicana and has faced the same effects as a result of the borderland she lived only twenty-five miles away from (3). She recalls from her childhood living on a farm in Texas, “Sometimes we earned less than we owed, but always the corporations fared well,” (31) exemplifying the situation of many as a result of the borderland created through the Anglo imperialism.
ReplyDeleteGloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as a place that creates a physical, social, and ideological division among Americans and Mexicans. She describes the borderlands as "vague and undetermined"; though, the border itself is very clearly the culture of the surrounding area becomes a little foggy. This is because of people allowing the border to become more than a line that shows where one country begins and another one ends. The borderland culture has accepted the division of people and allowed it to leak that into the way that they interact with those on the other side and the way that they think about their country. Because of this border Americans have been bred to believe that its essential to separate from the other side and consequently those from the other side, even when they have crossed over. The people are no longer separated by the border so now people must find an arbitrary means of separation. Whether by language, color, social class, or background because of the "need" to separate those trapped in the thinking of the borderlands will find some means to do so.
ReplyDeleteI think you have some interesting points to make, but I think you need to work on how you deliver your ideas. I'm still kind of confused about the points your trying to make, it's all a little scattered and unclear. Just focus all your language on your ideas and I think you could improve your argument a lot
DeleteEthan, you make some bold statements. I am not sure if Anzaldua actually made these points, it seems unlike her. I think that borderlands are not about the separation between Mexico and America, but the fusion between them. I also do not understand you when you make the point that Humans need separation, even arbitrary separation. I think you could improve this a lot.
Delete"This is my home this thin edge of barbwire"(Anzaldua 25).As Gloria Anzadua elaborates in the first chapter of Borderlands the border is more than a physical boundary it is also a symbol of change between the people that cross it becomes the place "where the Third world grates against the first and bleeds"(Anzaldua 25) as the border unites two identities it also forms a need for a hybrid self or a separation from either culture.Such decision depends on the self evaluation of the person.Gloria Azaldua self evaluates her self a border woman and has found her self feel the calling of her indigenous blood in a country where such blood has put her in a place of oppression,and such state has made her come to the realization of being true to herself and at the same time acknowledging the borders that were created with in her.
ReplyDeleteI agree on your point of how Anzaldua has a calling from her indigenous blood. It shows her struggle in a country where someone is only set to sort of culture/identity and how she tries to validate both sides of her identity.
DeleteAnzaldua's depiction of the border in the first chapter of her piece Borderlands is a complex, multifaceted one. To her, the border is more than just a symbol of oppression and exclusion. It is also the catalyst for an entirely new culture; a border culture. In the borderland, "the lifeblood of two worlds [merge] to form a third country--a border culture." (Anzaldua 25). Anzaldua transcends the traditional view of the border as a simply evil entity, showing that there is some good along with the evil. Because she has experienced this border culture firsthand, and has lived on both sides of the border, Anzaldua categorizes herself as a border woman.
ReplyDeleteGloria Anzaldua characterizes the borderlands as a place of extreme tension. This tension is created by the subconscious internal definition of borders as a divide "to distinguish us from them" (Anzaldua 25). This othering of an entire nation of people creates a tension that manifests itself in a borderland. The borderlands, where "Tension grips the inhabitants...like a virus. Ambivalence and unrest reside there and death is no stranger" (Anzaldua 26). This othering permeates the borderland wrapping it in tension, and Anzaldua is a product of this.
ReplyDeleteLeo, I enjoy how you discuss the subconscious and metaphysical background of a border such as the Mexican American border that Anzaldua is a product of, but I would like to have heard what makes Anzaldua a product of this tension and unrest.
DeleteOverall good response with interesting ideas. I am still s little confused about your statement "Anzaldúa is a product of this" is she a product of her environment, the border, or is she a product of the mestizaje race?
DeleteGloria Anzaldua's conceptualization of the borderlands is expressed perfectly in the final phrase of this chapter. "This is her home. This thin edge of barbed wire."
ReplyDeleteThe reason I find this quote to completely summarize this chapter and its concepts is because it adresses all aspects of her message. It shows that she defines herself as "A Border Woman", it metaphysically describes the borderland as "barbed", and physically describes it as "wire", or in the context of the chapter, a fence. Her home is not America, nor Mexico, but the border between. She has grown on this land that was once Aztlan, the home of her ancestors, but now it is so full of tension that its barbed wire pricks all those who live there with immense cultural and ethical tension, making its Mexican/Mestiz@/chican@ residents struggle to find a stable and confident identity. She further explains how it is even more difficult for a woman to survive and have power and equlity on the borderlands. For years, on both sides of the border, society has been built on patriarchy. Anzaldua discusses how on the Mexican flag, the Eagle (masculine) has the serpent (feminine) in its beak, visually exemplifying Men's supposed dominance over women. On the American side, one of the documents that built the political structure of the country states, "All men are created equal," giving no reference to where women stand in terms of equality. Mexican women have to fight against not just American men and woman, but Mexican men as well, making their struggle for equality that much more difficult.
Gloria Anzaldua uses the border as the physical and psychological blending of two worlds. It has its own culture and people, people who do not belong nor are accepted either side. "Gringos in the US Southwest consider the inhabitants of the borderlands transgressor, aliens - whether they posses documents or not... (Anzaldua, 25)" This conflict that is present, not only to Anzaldua but to all Chicanos in the US, leaves everyone inside an internal struggle that leaves the person to either choose between one side and be hated by the other or to make up their own side, one which has no borders, where the individual can truly be individual and not fall into any sort of social norms and expectations.
ReplyDeleteAnzaldua claims to be a "border woman" woman because she is the product of the border. She grew up in a household that blended both sides of the border; Mexican and American. She, along with many other chican@s, have an unique perspective of their themselves as they are the result of a new culture
Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands by saying the border is "una herida abierta, where the third world grates against the first and bleeds." (Anzaldua 25). This encompasses her entire theory of the borderlands as a place where two worlds merge and create a new culture, a border culture. Created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary, the borderland is at a constant state of transition, a place full of contradiction. "Trembling with fear, yet full of courage," (Anzaldua 33) is one of the many contradictions that the borderland personifies. Anzaldua forces the readers to realize the actuality of the border culture and of the border people, for she is a border woman. She recognizes herself as a border woman due to her constant rejection and her struggle for survival in the U.S., as demonstrated by the realization of the struggle for a woman, especially a lesbian Chicana woman, when she "leaves the familiar safe-home ground to venture into unknown and possibly dangerous terrain." (Anzaldua 35)
ReplyDeleteAnzaldúa conceptualizes the borderlands as a “vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” (25). Anzaldúa defines herself as a border woman when she physicalizes her home as a “thin edge of barbwire” (35). Anzaldúa grew up on the U.S.-Mexican border and identifies herself as a woman of both cultures. A physical and non-manifested border separates these two cultures. This border is described as “una herida abierta”, or an open wound, in which a scab forms and hemorrhages again, “merging to form a third country—a border culture” (25). Anzaldúa experiences xenophobia on both sides of the border, therefore self-identifying herself with two distinct cultures.
ReplyDeleteThe borderlands are what run from the valley of Texas to the cities that surround the Mexican border. What was once Aztlan and is now inhabited by a large number of Mexican/chicanos and descendants that make up a vast amount of both the US and Mexico. It is where the Spaniards took over the indio lands, and where people where stripped of their land and promise. Where the mesitza raza was created, and flourished. Borderlands are a "herida abierta" (25) that remind of the pain, but heal as the culture does. The land divided by the Rio Grande and fence that hits the San Diego waters. a culture is created by these physical and conceptualized ideologies. The Border woman is "two cultures" (Preface) who lives in the world of contradictions to shift "multiple identity and integrity" (Preface) in order to exist. This is Azaldua's recollection of her life, as a border woman in the borderlands.
ReplyDeleteIn the first chapter of "Borderlands," Anzaldua rejects the common perception of what a border is. Borders are seen as mere separations between countries and cultures, but Anzaldua argues that a border is more than just a fence running between countries. According to Anzaldua, there lies around the fence an area of amalgamation between these cultures. This mix of cultures creates its own culture, a borde rculture. "The lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country- a border culture." (Anzaldua 25). Anzaldua herself embodies this culture because she is amalgamation of US and Mexican culture, as well as a queer, rejecting the social norms and embracing the border culture created by what is meant to maintain separation, but instead catalyzes cultural fusion,
ReplyDeleteGloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as,"... a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundry.,"(Anzaldua 25) She describes it as being in a constant state of transition. The transgressors, as referred to by the U.S., are of whom reside in the
ReplyDeleteborderlands. These borderlands are an actual physical border between the U.S. and Mexico but also a mental border. Anzaldua is a birse woman because she is of both Mexican and white culture. Her testimony supports the idea of the border having a psychological impact of the persons of mixed descents. Anzaldua is a key concept in order to defy the idea that a border is able to, "... distinguish us from them." (Anzaldua 25) Since she id the, "... lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country."(Anzaldua 25) She is constantly trying to fight to accept her future while keeping her roots thriving.
In chapter one of Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualizes the borderland as "a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" which serves as a home to the prohibited and forbidden (Anzaldúa 25). Anzaldúa proceeds to proclaim that "it is in a constant state of transition" (Anzaldúa 25). Anzaldúa's conceptualization of the borderland serves as both the tangible and non-tangible evidence of the numerous problems that constructing the border has caused. Building the border resulted in the formation of "una heriba abierta (an open wound) where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds" (Anzaldúa 25), while justifying the need to "distinguish us from them" (Anzaldúa 25). Although this massive physical border was placed between Mexico and the United States, the two cultures could never truly be isolated, due to the creation of the mestizaje race centuries earlier. Anzaldúa reflects on her experiences as an American citizen and as a Latina woman, as a means to establish herself as a border women. Anzaldúa concludes her argument by proclaiming, "1,950 mile-long open wound/ running down the length of my body/splits me," solidifying her place as a border woman.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the quote you closed your response with. It is a powerful metaphor that really captures what Gloria Anzaldua means when she says she is a border woman. The non physical manifestation of the borderland was a little unclear however but other than that I understood what you were trying to say perfectly.
DeleteGloria Anzaldua says the borderland is a home for prohibited and forbidden. It is a home for "in short, those who cross over, pass over, or go through the confines of the 'normal'." (Anzaldua 25) Normal is used in quotes because in reality, Anzaldua claims that the border itself is unnatural, not the people separated by it. The injustices that the inhabitants of the borderlands face are a physical manifestation of the borderland."...whether they possess documents or not, whether they're Chicanos, Indians, or Black. Do not enter, trespassers will be raped, maimed, strangled, gassed, shot." (Anzaldua 25) This violence occurs daily for borderland inhabitants. A non physical manifestation of the borderland is seen in the "lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country." (Anzaldua 25) While the borderlands are not a physical third country, the overlap of American and Mexican culture has formed a border culture. Anzaldua says she is a border woman because although she has papers she is not seen as a legitimate inhabitant of the United States. She is split in half by the same "herida abierta" that seperates Mexico and the U.S.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you connected the idea of "una herida abierta", which was referring to the borderlands, back to Anzaldua's own identity. It was a nice conclusion.
DeleteGloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as "una herida abierta" (Anzaldua 25) that cannot heal because we fail to create and recognize unity between the U.S and Mexico. The border is a place that separates "us from them"(Anzaldua 25) and the borderlands are the result of the dangers of such a "vague and undetermined" (Anzaldua 25) environment. Where does the border begin? Where does it end? "who are "los atravesadores"(Anzaldua 25)? A social hierarchy is born because of the distinctions of "us and them" -the distinctions that place those who "pass over the confines of the normal"(Anzaldua 25) for example, the hyphenated American at the bottom of this hierarchy. And in attempt to rise in this hierarchy Chicanos fall into complete assimilation without realizing that even Pocho's, as much as they percieve to be acccepted by social normality, are not respected and will not be until this unity is formed.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you mentioned the part when Anzaldua states that the border separates us from them (Anzaldua 25). I also liked how you stated the idea of assimilation, that it is very true because we Chicanos we fail to have the rights we deserve and we work so hard to live a better life we lose ourselves and our culture just by trying to fit the norms of our society.
DeleteGloria Anzaldua defines borders as a "vague and undetermined place" (Anzaldua 25) It is a space that keeps things in while simultaneously keeping others out. People living on this border in a hybridism of race often have hard times being accepted socially. They are constantly struggling to pick between their two identities which are divided by the border. This undecided space is theoretical in the way that it forces people to define themselves based on hypothetical restrictions. These restrictions define much of peoples lives and force them to live in a social hierarchy. People at the top are often times people of pure breed race, the people that know exactly who they are and are the exact stereotype of their race. People at the bottom are those split down the middle between two races. Unable to completely identify with one side, they are often rejected from both.
ReplyDeleteHow does Gloria Anzaldúa conceptualize the borderlands? What are its physical as well as its non-material manifestations? Why does she say that she is a border woman? Explain using textual support to validate your claims and warrants:
ReplyDeleteAnzaldua describes the borders as an "open wound" (Anzaldua 24) and how it separates one from their home and culture. These borders were built and have made a big impact on the lives of those that live on either side of them. Their effect on each side is powerful, they separate countries to differentiate their citizens from foreigners. The borders has separated those people with nationalities from both sides of the border and their identity. This brings doubt and confusion because one begins to rethink where they belong and struggle to accepted in one culture or the other. When Anzaldua states she is a border woman, it is because she lives in the "open wound" because she has lived and witnessed the results from it. She states that she is from a "third country" that embraces the cultures that the borders have separated in her identity (Anzaldua 25).
In the beginning of the book, Anzaldua describes one of the most concrete yet abstract idea of the book, the border. The borders separated the Mexican-Americans, mentally and physically from their home land. Anzaldua described herself as a border woman, and many like her, because she is Mexican-American, therefore she is not accepted by either side. For Individuals who identify theirselves as Mexican-American, the border serves "as a dividing line" that divide their identity into two parts that never recognize the other as equal (Anzaldua 25). Being a border woman or living on the border land, you are caught between two cultures who never acknowledge each other for it's true influence over Mexican-American.
ReplyDeleteGloria Anzaldua establishes the Borderlands as the birthplace of a dichotomy that alienates anyone that deviates from the norm. Anzaldúa says that borders "distinguish us from them”( Anzaldúa, 25), and this creates an American Non-American paradigm that dehumanizes people of color into "aliens-whether […] they're Chicanos, Indians, or Blacks"( Anzaldúa, 25). The creation of borders turned Tejanos into foreigners as Anzaldúa describes on page 28. Anzaldúa sees herself as a woman who deviates from the norm established by the white non-white paradigm. She was one of "the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome"( Anzaldúa, 25) that was not "normal". The border that alienates Gloria as a Chicana also alienates her as a lesbian. Her being a Chicana forces her to exist as a split between the white and non-white, making her a border woman.
ReplyDelete