Maddie Galvan
Prof. Aquino
Ethics: Decolonizing Religion
12 December 2015
Latin American Methodologies of Anzaldúa and Althaus-Reid
In her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Anzaldúa details the various borders she found present in her life. Through personal experience, by means of prose and poetry, she highlights these invisible fronteras between men and women, Latinas/os and non Latinas/os, and homosexuals and heterosexuals. However, Anzaldúa most closely examines the condition of women in Latino, specifically Chicano culture. Her work is semi-autobiographical as seen in how she often personally recounts the oppression she faced as a Chicana and a lesbian, and how this went against the gendered expectations of her culture. She delves into this topic by explaining her concept of the "borderlands," and expanding on their diverse forms and meanings, both to her personally …show more content…
Anzaldúa challenges the common conception of borders as being simple, structural barriers, and describes them as invisible divides, constructed by social, institutional and cultural means. She discusses how borders appear on geographical, linguistic, ethno-cultural, sexual, gendered, and psychic levels. Anzaldúa calls for these borders to be taken down, and criticizes the oppressors, often of Western culture, as nurturers of oppression. The borders Anzaldúa discusses are both physical and ideological. For example, she discusses her life growing up in South Texas, as being a literal border between the United States and Mexico (Anzaldúa 3). This geographical border highly influenced her positions on culture as she saw, first hand, the clash between gringos and Latinos. Anzaldúa delves into the dynamics of this border, by commenting on its cause of culture clash. She uses a series of essays in the first half of her book, detailing the loneliness and isolation in the "borderlands" between the Latino and American
Prof. Aquino
Ethics: Decolonizing Religion
12 December 2015
Latin American Methodologies of Anzaldúa and Althaus-Reid
In her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Anzaldúa details the various borders she found present in her life. Through personal experience, by means of prose and poetry, she highlights these invisible fronteras between men and women, Latinas/os and non Latinas/os, and homosexuals and heterosexuals. However, Anzaldúa most closely examines the condition of women in Latino, specifically Chicano culture. Her work is semi-autobiographical as seen in how she often personally recounts the oppression she faced as a Chicana and a lesbian, and how this went against the gendered expectations of her culture. She delves into this topic by explaining her concept of the "borderlands," and expanding on their diverse forms and meanings, both to her personally …show more content…
Anzaldúa challenges the common conception of borders as being simple, structural barriers, and describes them as invisible divides, constructed by social, institutional and cultural means. She discusses how borders appear on geographical, linguistic, ethno-cultural, sexual, gendered, and psychic levels. Anzaldúa calls for these borders to be taken down, and criticizes the oppressors, often of Western culture, as nurturers of oppression. The borders Anzaldúa discusses are both physical and ideological. For example, she discusses her life growing up in South Texas, as being a literal border between the United States and Mexico (Anzaldúa 3). This geographical border highly influenced her positions on culture as she saw, first hand, the clash between gringos and Latinos. Anzaldúa delves into the dynamics of this border, by commenting on its cause of culture clash. She uses a series of essays in the first half of her book, detailing the loneliness and isolation in the "borderlands" between the Latino and American