[a] 227-246, Interview with Gloria Anzaldúa by Karin Ikas
[b] In this interview, Anzaldúa discusses her childhood and background, such as growing up and missing some of her education because her father was a migrant worker (228). She describes how she has changed since writing Borderlands, though she states “I was always angry and I am still angry“ (229). She describes the Movimiento Macha, which she sees as replacing the Chicano Movement and which celebrates an aggressive woman who demands change (229).
Anzaldúa expresses her frustration and dismay with white feminists who pretend they have left behind the dominant paradigm but are still living a very white experience and still expect her to “leave my race at the door“ (231). She later discusses her desire to break down genre boundaries, to change disciplinary boundaries and studies (232-233). Her book has been used by Chicanas as a way to legitimize themselves (231).
Anzaldúa states that she writes because of “something that is bothering me“ (236). She is concerned with the way that reality is constructed and made with language and how people and their identities are created (237). Anzaldúa has a spiritual and philosophical mestizaje, which seems to be a collage, or a mixing of a variety of cultures and sources (238-239).
She also analyzes the facade of equality in this country and how really there is a deep-seeded fear and hatred of women, exemplified by all the violence against women in this country. She goes on to later describe some of her writing projects.
[c] I found this part really interesting. I especially found it fascinating that men would tell her how much they liked Borderlands until they found out Anzaldúa was queer, at which point they would change their mind. This was interesting to me because I thought it was obvious that Anzaldúa was queer from reading Borderlands: She comes out and says pretty much “I am queer“ many times in the book. What is wrong with these readers if they didn’t know that from reading it (I suspect they have not read it all or, if they had, hadn’t payed attention to what they read.
I appreciated some of the clarification. For example, I was confused earlier in the book when Anzaldúa said that she was first visited by Coatlicue when she was three or four, and I wasn’t sure what she meant. Now that I’ve read this, and discovered that Anzaldúa entered puberty very early, I now understand the “cut“ to possibly symbolize her menstruation (238).
[d] How much of what Anzaldúa was planning on writing actually got finished? How often does her work get excerpted and co-opted by whites in classrooms and misunderstood, as Anzaldúa is concerned about in this interview?
[e] This section is particularly illuminating in regards to dominant culture and how it assumes everyone is like them and can assume that race doesn’t matter. Because the white feminists expect Anzaldúa to not care about her race, as they don’t (or claim to not) care about their own, we can see that they have some privilege they are not considering.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands: La Frontera. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1999.
