What is the border? The border is a marginalized, liminal space of contradictions. A space of shifting multiple identities. Life on the borders is life in the shadow. The border is where two or more cultures, classes, races, ideologies, et cetera edge or confront each other. There is a space between cultures, classes, races, sexual orientations--call them worlds or world views-- where they meld, where they mix, where they are both worlds/world views and neither world/world views. They are what Anzald a calls los intersicios--the spaces between.
Identity for Anzald a is about language--about borderlands defined by the mixture of language, ideologies, et cetera. For her, there are psychological borders, sexual borders, and spiritual borders among others, not just physical borders.
Anzald a speaks about the politics of language. Language speaks us; language defines our identity, our cultural makeup, our ideologies, our definition of self. Anzald a says "language is a homeland. . . . Un leguaje que corresponde a un modo de vivir [a language that corresponds to a way of living]- (Anzald a 895). She writes further that "ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity--I am my language- (Anzald a 898). So, what about a border language? People who live in the borderland are "deslenguadas [without language],"" she writes. "Somos los del espanol deficiente. [We are the ones with deficient Spanish.] We are your linguistic nightmare, your linguistic aberration, your linguistic mestizaje [mixture], the subject of your burla [ridicule]. Because we speak with tongues of fire we are culturally crucified. Racially, culturally and linguistically somos huerfanos [we are orphans]--we speak an orphan tongue- (Anzald a 897). What happens when your language is illegitimate, an unacceptable language? How does this shape your identity against the dominant culture? Anzald a argues that an illegitimate language effects and defines self-esteem, and defines Chicanos (or who ever speaks an unacceptable language) as outsiders--in other words, as the other.
Gloria Anzaldua's "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza," is a novel which encompasses the life of a Chicana living in the United States-Mexico border area. ... Guadalupe is of major relevance in "Borderlands: La Frontera," appearing in a chapter when her story is told. ... She is said to be one of the three mothers of the Chicana along with la Malinche and la Llorona. ...
America is a nation founded on the phrase "all men are created equal"," yet we still find time to scrutinize and pick apart our every difference. Our nation is so diverse that it is commonly referred to as a "melting pot". This label implies that all of our different cultures, beliefs, and heritages...
Author of Borderlands/La frontera: The New Mestiza, Gloria Anzaldua would describe the new mix of people at Jericho High as a "borderland". According to Anzaldua, "the borderlands are present where two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle, and upper class shrinks with intimacy." ...
