Summary and Epitome of Borderlands - La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldua

Gloria Anzaldúa, the author of this book, is attempting to define the “New Mestiza” throughout its contents and does so by examining her self, her land, and her language. The dictionary definition of a mestiza is “a [woman] of mixed parentage, esp the offspring of a Spanish American and an American Indian”. The “borderlands” she is a descendant of are the familiar borderlands between Mexico and the United States, specifically Texas. However, this is simply the tangible borderland that she discusses. The important counterpart to these physical borderlands that she addresses throughout this book are “[t]he psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands, and the spiritual borderlands [that] are not particular to the Southwest.” (preface).

Her book is broken into two main sections. The semi-autobiographical first section that deals with life on the borderlands and the challenges faced during this time in her life and the challenges faced by all mestizos. This first section is broken down into seven parts. The first discussing the homeland, the next discusses rebellion and betrayal. The third section is entitled “Entering Into the Serpent”. The next section is called “La herencia de Coatlicue / The Coatlicue State”. The final three sections discuss language, writing, and speaking in the borderland world. The second “notes” section is a poetic homage to the native people of these “borderlands”, not just the physical, but the mental, as well.

While readingBorderlands, unless the reader is multi-lingual, you find some frustration while reading it. This frustration comes from the language not being English, and not being Spanish, but an amalgamation of both. This frustration is ironic because Anzaldúa describes this frustration felt having a confused language, and identity herself. This book is more powerful and real with the “Spanglish” language and would not be the book it is and the book it is trying to be without it. The book is written in a way that it becomes an extension of the author rather than just something the author has produced. It feels that way from the beginning and continues to the end.

The first chapter of the book, Anzaldúa describes her homeland, the border that separates the safe from the unsafe, and us from them (25). Those in power, the rich whites, live to the north and look down upon the “half-breed” and “queer”. This border is the white man’s way to keep them from harm and to keep themselves safe from the mixed culture people in the south. Anzaldúa gives a brief traditional history of Mexico, describing how the original people came from the Bering Straits and down into Mexico. The traditional Aztec story goes:

“Huitzilopochtli, the God of War, guided them to the place (that later became Mexico City) where an eagle with a writhing serpent in its beak perched on a cactus. The eagle symbolizes the spirit (as the sun, the father); the serpent symbolizes the soul (as the earth, the mother). Together, they symbolize the struggle between the spiritual/celestial/male and the under world/earth/feminine. The symbolic sacrifice of the serpent to the “higher” masculine powers indicates that the patriarchal order had already vanquished the feminine and matriarchal order in pre-Columbian America.” (27)

Anzaldúa next goes into the Spaniards invading Mexico and how they conquered it. This brief history is given to better illustrate how the land was originally inhabited by people migrating, and has been taken over and rearranged several times over to get where it is today. The author goes into detail of the Mexican-American war and the takeover of Mexican land and how they created foreigners out of natives overnight. This was the beginning of American creation of Mexican dependence on the U.S. For many Mexicans illegal crossing to the U.S. is the only choice for survival. They will either cross into the U.S. and live or stay in Mexico and struggle and perish. Their crossing into the U.S. continues their history of migration, only this time it is from south to north. The illegal migration of women is especially dangerous, for they can be abused and raped, and will continue on this dangerous journey for fear of being deported and typically have no understanding of English. This lacking of English language and fear of being deported leads to vulnerability and they tend to not be able to, and not want to get help.

The next chapter is Anzaldúa’s personal migration. She was the first one in her family in six generations to leave home; she took with her, however, many aspects of her home. She describes how women, in her culture and many others, are to serve and beneath the men in the culture. The men hold the power and the men make the rules. These women who do not follow the rules become “mujer mala” or bad women, while the good women are those who remain virgins until married (39). In her culture and time, the only options for a woman were to become a nun, prostitute, or a wife. There is now a fourth option to become educated and autonomous; however, very few make up this category. These roles are to keep women “safe”. The only safe woman is one who is stuck into a rigid culture sector. This is said to keep the women “safe” however, it seems it is in place to just keep them in their defined roles. Next, Anzaldúa explores her homosexuality and male/female identity. She discusses how, being raised Catholic, she made the choice to be homosexual. She recognizes that in some people it is genetically inherent and understood. She is said to make the “choice” because she was raised Catholic and homosexuality is a choice, and that nobody is created that way. She continues with her idea into the dealing with homophobic ideas, and the fear of being rejected. She goes on to say that, for some, groups will conform to societies norms to be accepted and wanted in a culture. Those who go against have a much harder time being a part of the group. She brings these thoughts back to the borderlands, where one feels alienated from their original culture and alien in the dominant culture (42). She describes her struggle between being of her “home” culture and yet finding faults and betrayal within the culture. This leads to her fear of “going” home. Her going home is to accept her home for what it is, not just in the physical sense, but really believing in what is happening within her home or native culture.

The next chapters are entitled Entering into the Serpent and La herencia de Coatlicue – The Coatlicue state. Anzaldúa explores an experience with a snake she had once. It tried to bite her and only got her boot. It had scared her and from that day on she sought them and shunned them. When she saw them she was fearful yet elated (48). She goes on to describe the folk-Catholic heritage she has come from. She describes the pagan ideas that link up with the Catholic religious stories. She describes how the goddesses were disfigured and underground. Again, the male dominance was cemented further into the culture through religious stories. She goes on to describe how the Catholic Church had combined La Virgen de Guadalupe and la Virgen Maria into one woman. She is now the “most potent religious, political and cultural image of the Chicano/mexicano” (52). This symbol unites the cultures of Mexico through a woman figure. The mother figure represents the Indian side of the culture and the father or male identities represent the Spanish sides. These arguments can be looked at further as the native Indians were simply people migrating from one land to another. These people were being peaceful and looking for comfort and stability. This idea is more feminine due to its passive and peaceful nature. Thus the feminine side lies with the Indian culture in a mestizo. The powerful takeover of Mexico by the Spanish conquistadors for money and power is wholly masculine and power driven, thus male figures are related to the Spanish culture. The idea of snakes is also tied to woman. The author has claimed to have “died” several times throughout her life and had an out of body experience. She has said to have seen a snake each time she has had this experience. The snake is a pre-human idea of woman’s sexuality, her creativity, her energy, and life. Superstition and otherworldly spirituality is then discussed by Anzaldúa. She describes how pagan spirituality is looked down upon in the formal religions and in simply accepting those given religions you lose touch with nature and with yourself. The next chapter discusses the duality of life and death. She discusses ideas of duality in her own life, and how her experience of being an “alien” in her own culture represents these ideas. The duality is expressed in wanting to be one with her culture but being uncomfortable inside of the culture.

The next chapter deals with the languages used by the author and the identities that they hold. Anzaldúa recalls being punished for speaking in Spanish in school. Even her own mother was upset that she spoke English like a Mexican. In the university she attended, she was required to take two speech classes to get rid of her accent. This was not only an attempt to “cut out” her wild tongue, to eradicate any identity with her culture, but it was an attempt to assimilate her into American culture. According to Anzaldúa, Spanish language has a way of putting women down. It has many derogatory sayings for women who speak up or out. The author then goes on to discuss how she, being a border woman, and other people in this area did not identify with any of the languages spoken by the majorities of people around her, and had to create their own language by combining several languages and dialects. Language identifies people, and Chicanos needed a language to identify themselves with. They needed a language to use to communicate within their group, a language to call “home”. A lot of Chicanos identify their language with their home. It is closer to home than the southwest is for some. They speak a combination of several languages. Anzaldúa listed several that she uses.

1. Standard English

2. Working class and slang English

3. Standard Spanish

4. Standard Mexican Spanish

5. North Mexican Spanish dialect

6. Chicano Spanish (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California have regional variations)

7. Tex-Mex

8. Pachuco (called caló) (77).

She considers all of these languages to make up her “Spanglish” language. Anzaldúa considers some of these languages her home languages that she feels more comfortable talking to her siblings in. She then goes into the evolution of the Spanish language that Chicanos speak today. She shows how the languages have evolved pronunciations, adopted words from English, and how it has changed with the culture. She goes on to discuss how people who grow up speaking Chicano Spanish feel that it is an illegitimate language. They are ashamed of speaking it because they feel that it is a false or incorrect way of speaking. Even though it is their native tongue, “repeated attacks on our native tongue diminish our sense of self.” (80). People who look down upon the language that the person is speaking have a tendency to look down upon that person and write them off as stupid or uneducated. The language they are speaking, however, is simply what has developed over years and years of exposure to several languages for different needs. This is a legitimate language and should not be looked down upon by anyone because they feel that they speak “correct” Spanish or English. Until one accepts the legitimacy of their own language, they won’t accept the legitimacy of their own self and culture. Language is vital to worldview and ways of thinking and doing. One can’t accept their self until they have accepted their language. The author felt that the language was legitimized once she began to see literature and great speakers presenting this language. Anzaldúa feels that until 1965 Chicanos didn’t feel connected as a people. When Cesar Chavez and the farm workers united, I am Joaquín was published, and La Raza Unida party was formed in Texas was when they felt connected as a people. With all of these reasons, finally, Anzaldúa felt that they had started to become a distinct people, with a distinct language.

In the next chapter, the author discusses how she created stories in her head and how she releases herself through her writing. She begins by telling how she used to have to tell stories to her sister at night in bed. She goes on to say how important these forms of art are to her people. She describes how her people would not separate “the artistic from the functional, the sacred from the secular, art from everyday life.” (88). She continues to explain how her art, or her writing, is not an inert object, but a living thing, like a person. All art created and seen by her people is a living thing, whereas in western culture it tends to be something that is dead and valued on a monetary system rather than a spiritual one. Art should be a product of, and window into, one’s soul. The art also obtains its power from how it is used and how its power is invoked, such as a mask being worn during a dance. She also discusses how writing was seen as a connection between humans and gods. She elaborates on how the black and red colors used in codices were signs of writing and wisdom. Metaphor and symbols, truth and poetry could be used as a tool to achieve communication with the gods. She continues to discuss how the borderlands create unease between cultures and ideas, and how this unease and unbalance creates a need to write. The duality of it is just like how the writing process is a process of sickness and health and a willingness to write and an anxiety to write. There is a dual feeling to all of these ideas and they all relate to one another within the context of writing, language, and expressing the self.

The final chapter of this first half deals with her race, ethnicity, and culture as a whole. She begins by discussing a “cosmic race”, one that consists of all races, an intermixed species that resembles those people on the borderlands. It resembles them that they are a mix of several cultures, races, and ethnicities. However, this idea is hard to sort out because one struggles to find a harmony within their self when they have a mixed background tugging them constantly in different directions. She describes this as standing on banks of a river, shouting questions, and challenging ideas of one another. Trying to tear one down to take it over is not the solution. She says that for this to work they have to rebel against the ideology of having one right and one wrong, and have two separate ideas alongside each other in harmony. If this can’t be achieved then the ideas should simply move on from this battle between sides all together. She explains that in order to achieve this type of freedom, one must move from convergent thinking, moving to a single goal, and move to divergent thinking, and working towards a whole perspective that includes rather than excludes (101). She describes how the new mestiza must cope by learning to tolerate contradictions and ambiguity. She explains that as a mestiza, a lesbian, and a feminist she claims no race or ethnicity, but all races and ethnicities because she (‘she’ meaning mestiza, lesbian, and feminist) is a member of all of these groups. She claims that she and her people have not melted in the pot, but rather stuck out and they have become a separate group of Americans. She knows that someday her people will be a real ethnicity with real culture like it had been in the past. That day will come again.

The second half of the book contains poetry both in Spanish and English that deals with the struggles and lives of these New Mestizas. Some deal with crossing the border, while some deal with life on either side of it. It is all a good representation of the actual lives and feelings of the people whom Anzaldúa describe and defend throughout the first half of her book.

All in all, this is a wonderful look into the whole being of a borderlander. It shows how the mental borderlands, as well as the physical, are a constant struggle of identity. She shows how the border pulls people to be something new. It pulls them to be something original. And at the same time, it pulls them to stick to the traditions. The borderlands can tear parts of you down while building other parts up. Anzaldúa shows that if someone is to overcome the struggle of the borderland, they have to understand their own self as well as where they have come from. Gloria Anzaldúa has accomplished a wonderful understanding of where she is, has come from, and will be within her own mental borderlands, and does a wonderful job describing where many people like her are.

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