Conflict in Borderlands/ La Frontera

Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera has been labeled as “the bible” of Chicana studies, and rightfully so. Her text explores the history of her people and herself, in an autobiographical tone that merges with poetic prose, mythical narrative, political manifesto, critical essay and historical document. Writing in an Anglo dominated industry, she has little choice but to cast down all clear generic boundaries in genre and form her own in this postmodern masterpiece. In Borderlands/La Fontera, Anzaldúa reaches out of the mystical and physical space of the borderlands to negotiate the conflict that arises from the two opposing cultures. Her conflicting identities, the dualities within her writing and use of high/low theory make up the heart of Borderlands/La Fontera.

She describes herself and other women in her position as having a sense of fragmented self, multiple, conflicting identities that are common characteristics to postmodern writing. Anzaldúa is a woman torn between three cultures; they are cultures that make up herself, her family, her history. She illustrates this division as,

Cradled in one culture, sandwiched between two cultures, straddling all three cultures and their value systems, la mestiza undergoes a struggle of the flesh, a struggle of the borders, an inner war. (Anzaldúa 2436)

For her, the struggle has always been inner, and historically it has been played out in the land. She notes that understanding of the situation must come before internal changes and changes in society. Nothing can happen in the “real” world unless it first happens psychologically (Anzaldúa 2443). In an effort to spur the physiological change, she uses these conflicting identities as a collective force. Anzaldúa describes it as, “[A] racial, ideological, cultural, and biological cross pollination, an “alien” consciousness is presently in the making – a new mestiza consciousness, una conciencia de mujer. It is a consciousness of the Borderlands” (Anzaldúa 2436). She gives life to the otherwise overlooked issue of the Chicana, forgotten between two worlds in a purgatory like terrain. In an interview with Anne E. Reuman entitled, “Coming Into Play,” she reflects how this “consciousness” brought about risk, “I think what's probably one of the riskier things that I did in Borderlands/La Frontera was to open up the concept of mestizaje, of the new mestiza and hybridity, to be non-exclusive, to be inclusive of white people and people from other communities” (6). Writing in different tones, she illustrates the multitude of women that she embodies and unifies them by giving them a voice. In the same interview Anzaldúa explains, “In Borderlands [I] tried to let the different ‘me's' speak out: the me that was pissed off, the me that was very diplomatic, the me that loves nature, the me with the hate and the anger, and not apologize for any of these.” (qtd. in Reuman 8). All the “me’s” that she uses, take on different tones: historical, mystical, political. Through the mestiza, Anzaldúa's autobiographical persona, she teaches the reader, who is typically not of the borderlands but from a white/Anglo space, and forges new paths for the Chicana.

Faced with cultural oppositions her struggle is most defiantly postmodern. She describes the clash from the mestiza point of view as a “constant state of mental nepantilism, an Aztec word meaning torn between ways.” Anzaldúa goes on to explain that the mestiza is the result of a shift of the cultural and spiritual values of one group to another. She faces the dilemma of a mixed breed (Anzaldúa 2437). Dealing with Mexican, Anglo, and Indian backgrounds Anzaldúa not only strategically identifies what causes the struggle of the mestiza but offers solutions to the problem. She presents her self as the mediator and a source of healing for “la gente mexcicana” (Anzaldúa 2444). By identifying and voicing Chicana needs she begins the process of casting off history written by dominate white culture and making her own.

Anzaldúa struggles and attempts to mediate between dualities. These dualities are within herself as a writer and in her work. The dualities can be seen by her conflicting identities, and the title of her work. The terms "Borderlands /La Frontera" is a prime example. The title easily accommodates the contradictory categories that she is concerned with. This struggle with conflicting sides is tied with Anzaldúa’s concern to forge and heal wounds. Maria Antònia Oliver Rotger, in her article, “Sangre Fértil’/Fertile Blood: Migratory Crossings, War and Healing in Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands /La Frontera,” comments that, “Anzaldúa is concerned with the material, psychological and emotional pain of those who live in the geographical, political, cultural and economic frontier between Mexico and the US. This is a struggle with contradictory notions of self-imposed by a variety of cultures” (Rotger 4). She knows that her voice will not be heard if her argument isn’t eloquently forced upon the reader. To Anzaldúa, her language and voice are everything. She observes,

Chicanos and other people of color suffer economically for not articulating. This a voluntary (yet forced) alienation makes for a psychological conflict, a kind of dual identity- we don’t identify with the Anglo-American cultural values and we don’t identify with the Mexican cultural values. (Anzaldúa 2454)

The psychological conflict she describes is the two cultures pulling on one soul; the person must appease both sides while maintaining their own. This self actualization can be a difficult position to achieve especially as a woman in the strong patriarchal Hispanic space. This pull comes from all sides for the woman. When she is a child mixed messages are given, be strong/subservient, rebellious/ conforming (Borderlands, Second Edition 40). The Chicana has little option if she chooses to stay within the dualities. Anzaldúa accepts the task of changing this, and gives the option to follow the path of the “new mestiza”.

Anzaldúa states frequently that she is that of a “mediator” who speaks of herself as both subject and object and that she attempts to forge a place out of a sense of unvarying displacement. By taking a dual position and refusing to do away with it, she uses her “knowledge, her privilege and her personal experience as a woman of Mexican origin, a descendant of migrant workers, and a lesbian, to establish a dialogue between these multiple locations and identities” (Rotger 4). The persona of the new mestiza is used as a tool to forge the dualities as one conscious force that can begin to heal itself. This synthesized consciousness is not perfect though. Torres explains,

The social act of writing is a moment of unity for the new mestiza not so much because consciousness achieves a synthesis of those contradictory forces, as it does not, but because taking up the pen signifies that the new mestiza makes herself responsible for the process of constructing her own identity in the face of those unremitting forces. (4)

This unity becomes ironic because it leads Anzaldúa to compose her work in a different “consciousness.” The new mestiza seeks to find unity on her own terms but can only by developing a tolerance for contradictions. She has to learn to be “an Indian in Mexican culture, to be Mexican from an Anglo point of view” (Anzaldúa 2437). Anzaldúa makes clear that an end to dualistic thought and the formation of a collective consciousness is only the beginning of the end to the long struggle that festers within the borderlands. Torres explains that Anzaldúa is calling out to all America to “think of the differences, accept them as part of the same” (13). The mestiza consciousness elaborates on difference, lives and writes on it.

Anzaldúa reflects a hybrid of cultural forms and attempts to synthesize them yet still attempting to dictate her thoughts in high/low theories. What she calls the “mestiza consciousness” overlaps countries and people, much like her ideas. Many times this causes contradictions in her writing and in her tone. Hector Torres, who became close to Anzaldúa through a series of interviews notes in his piece, “Genre, Gender, and the Mestiza Consciousness in the Work of Gloria Anzaldúa,” that, “This is why she takes up the project of performing the deconstruction of dualities through the theoretical practice of mestiza consciousness, which she calls Low theory. The new mestiza borrows from the canon of Western theory, High theory, to produce Low theory, theory that is closer to the lows and highs of her daily life” (5). His argument is that Anzaldúa seeks to displace the authority of the oppositions composing Western theory but she also recognizes the in hospitability of Western theory to women of color (Torres 4). Although Torres suggests that there is a mixture of high theory, which can be described as the technical historical voice, and western theory to produce low, I disagree. Many of her contradictions come from her attempts to write in her “peasant tongue” or what would be described as low theory.

Anzaldúa is an extremely well educated woman. Her biography in the Contemporary Authors Database reveals that after receiving a master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1973, she taught high-school English. Later, she became a lecturer in feminist literature at San Francisco State University, and in the 1980’s she taught creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz (Contemporary Authors 2). Her peasant, or “common voice” has been refined by her education; she no longer has the ability to speak in low theory. Born on a ranch settlement in Texas, she states in Borderlands /La Frontera, that she had to leave home to find herself and that her basic nature was buried under the personality that had been forced on her (qtd. in Rotger 5). Separation can make the heart grow fonder, but it cannot heal the fact that she found Chicano society oppressive and sexist. Anzaldúa’s separation from the borderlands to pursue an education prohibits her from picking up the pen and dictating in low theory. The contradiction that this forms is compelling and genius.

In Borderlands /La Frontera Gloria Anzaldúa writes the autobiography of her self, the people, and the land. Picking up the task of mediating conflict in the borderland region, she attempts to re-write its history in the view of the mestiza. Successfully, she raises the voice of Chicana women everywhere, and deals with classic postmodern conflict. She gracefully addresses issue

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Fontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999<

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Fontera. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Nina Baym. 6th. Ed. Norton & Company.
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“Coming Into Play: An Interview with Gloria Anzaldúa” Summer 2000 v25 i2 p3 (Aug. 1996): Houston Community College Library, Alief, TX.
http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.librus.hccs.edu/

“Gloria Anzaldúa” Contemporary Authors Online, Thomson Gale, 2004. Houston Community College Library, Alief, TX. http://0galenet.galegroup.com.librus.hccs.edu/

Rotger, Maria Antònia Oliver. “Sangre Fértil’/Fertile Blood: Migratory Crossings, War and Healing in Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands /La Fontera.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, Thomson Gale, 2004. Houston Community College Library, Alief, TX. http://0galenet.galegroup.com.librus.hccs.edu/

Torres, Hector. “Genre, Gender, and the Mestiza Consciousness in the Work of Gloria Anzaldúa” Contemporary Literary Criticism, Thomson Gale, 2004. Houston Community College Library, Alief, TX. http://0galenet.galegroup.com.librus.hccs.edu/