The+New+Mestiza


 * Gloria Anzaldua: The New Mestiza (1987) in //Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings//. Edited by Charles Lemert. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Westview Press, 2010. **

__ Summary by __ : Namalie

Gloria Anzaldua begins by describing the border culture between the US and Mexico. The borderland is a place of barriers, an open wound, a place of constant transition. To be part of the borderland culture is to no longer be considered normal or legitimate.

The US occupation of Texas transformed overnight the identity of the Spanish, Indian and mestizo occupants that were living there, from that of rightful inhabitants to that of foreigners. Even though the Indians and Mexicans still lived in their “homeland,” they were “jerked out by the roots, truncated, disemboweled, dispossessed, and separated from [their] identity and [their] history” (556).

Anzaldua then talks about being trapped amidst one’s multiple identities, of having no place to call home or being taken in. Like the border culture that exists between the US and the Mexico, Anzaldua talks about the borderland within oneself, where one does not feel quite normal, always changing and being judged on either side of the divide – “[alienated] from her mother culture, ‘alien’ in the dominant culture, the woman of color does not feel safe within the inner life of her Self. Petrified, she can’t respond, her face caught between //los intersticios//, the spaces between the different worlds she inhabits” (557). Such feelings can render a person immobile, weak and powerless.

The solution to this problem, of being trapped between these two worlds and stuck in the borderlands, is to become secure within yourself in order to live life on your own, to create your own home – to have “the freedom to carve and chisel” your own face (558). Even though Anzaldua understands why we defend our culture to “offset the extreme devaluation of it by white culture,” she believes she has the right to criticize parts of her culture that she does not like and has injured her.

** Discussion Questions ** · What purpose does Anzaldua’s poetry serve in this essay? · Anzaldua identifies as a queer Chicano woman. Why is important to have a social theory that incorporates a person’s multiple identities? Why do we even consider “identity” to represent only one thing (i.e. woman, person of color, etc.)?