Summary Book 5. Wekker, Gloria. 2018. “The Arena of Borders: Gloria Anzaldúa,
Intersectionality and Interdisciplinarity.” In Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture.
Elena van Hattum
Gloria Anzaldúa (1924-2004) was a Chicana lesbian, feminist, theoretician, poet, author of
children’s books and fiction and an activist. Chicanos are a culturally hybrid population, they
inhibit the border area between the US and Mexico and have strands of Mexican, American
Indian and Anglo-American culture. Gloria helped at the farm. Whilst her mother raised her
to become an obedient and docile wife who would bear children, her father urged her to read
and study. Her experiences as a Spanish-speaking brown girl in a dominant culture
preferring English-speaking white or light coloured boys were a lasting influence on her life
and thoughts. Yet she still managed to attend university and studies English and Pedagogy
while writing and teaching primary and secondary school. In the mid-1970s she moved to
San Francisco, where she got in touch with the flourishing feminist movement. She wrote
radically and introduced the term ‘of colour’. She helped formulate a type of feminism that
met with general recognition, also in the Netherlands. This type of feminism amply
accomodated the differences among women: gender was not the only factor making a
difference but was connected to others (intersectionality).
Adrienne Rich formulated ‘politics of location’ in the eighties by her encounters with women
of colour, arguing that the unproblematized feminist ‘we’ should be deconstructed. One
should be accountable for the significance of their location (within groups). With this the
insight was gained that ‘women’ also exclude other ‘women’. Accepting responsibility for
one’s embedded positionings forms the core. These are never without meaning. The
‘situatedness’ of the subject influences the knowledge that one produces. Linked with this is
the politics of citation and the power relations in this. Feminists of colour have pointed out
that much of their knowledge was only validated once a white feminist had given her
approval.
Anzaldúa uses the metaphor of the bridge: it signifies the abandonment of thinking in
terms of binary oppositions. She has managed to compose a multi-faceted oeuvre from a
strongly underprivileged background, which speaks to people both within and outside
academia. She introduced the notion of ‘the Borderlands’: abandoning the habit of thinking
in terms of binary positions in order to attempt to conceptualise a state of in-betweenness, of
mestizaje.
- She rewrote the history of southwest US largely repressed in dominant historiography
from a feminist and gender-sensitive perspective. In this she exposed the
mechanisms of in- and exclusion behind language politics (English v. Spanish v.
Spanglish etc.): Tex-Mex=Spanglish, Chicanos developed this language in the times
of colonisation. Tex-Mex does not rank highly within the hierarchical relations of
different US populations and is considered to be deficient and incorrect; it is seen as
a ‘bastard language’. Chicanos dispose of a number of additional languages for daily
use (code switching). Anzaldúa thinks Chicanos can claim ownership over any of
these languages, or employ multiple to resist boundaries. What she speaks, and her
culture and identity is hybrid and plural.
She writes the history of her homeland from a feminist and woman-identified
perspective and calls the genre ‘autohistoria’: in telling the writer/artist’s personal
Intersectionality and Interdisciplinarity.” In Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture.
Elena van Hattum
Gloria Anzaldúa (1924-2004) was a Chicana lesbian, feminist, theoretician, poet, author of
children’s books and fiction and an activist. Chicanos are a culturally hybrid population, they
inhibit the border area between the US and Mexico and have strands of Mexican, American
Indian and Anglo-American culture. Gloria helped at the farm. Whilst her mother raised her
to become an obedient and docile wife who would bear children, her father urged her to read
and study. Her experiences as a Spanish-speaking brown girl in a dominant culture
preferring English-speaking white or light coloured boys were a lasting influence on her life
and thoughts. Yet she still managed to attend university and studies English and Pedagogy
while writing and teaching primary and secondary school. In the mid-1970s she moved to
San Francisco, where she got in touch with the flourishing feminist movement. She wrote
radically and introduced the term ‘of colour’. She helped formulate a type of feminism that
met with general recognition, also in the Netherlands. This type of feminism amply
accomodated the differences among women: gender was not the only factor making a
difference but was connected to others (intersectionality).
Adrienne Rich formulated ‘politics of location’ in the eighties by her encounters with women
of colour, arguing that the unproblematized feminist ‘we’ should be deconstructed. One
should be accountable for the significance of their location (within groups). With this the
insight was gained that ‘women’ also exclude other ‘women’. Accepting responsibility for
one’s embedded positionings forms the core. These are never without meaning. The
‘situatedness’ of the subject influences the knowledge that one produces. Linked with this is
the politics of citation and the power relations in this. Feminists of colour have pointed out
that much of their knowledge was only validated once a white feminist had given her
approval.
Anzaldúa uses the metaphor of the bridge: it signifies the abandonment of thinking in
terms of binary oppositions. She has managed to compose a multi-faceted oeuvre from a
strongly underprivileged background, which speaks to people both within and outside
academia. She introduced the notion of ‘the Borderlands’: abandoning the habit of thinking
in terms of binary positions in order to attempt to conceptualise a state of in-betweenness, of
mestizaje.
- She rewrote the history of southwest US largely repressed in dominant historiography
from a feminist and gender-sensitive perspective. In this she exposed the
mechanisms of in- and exclusion behind language politics (English v. Spanish v.
Spanglish etc.): Tex-Mex=Spanglish, Chicanos developed this language in the times
of colonisation. Tex-Mex does not rank highly within the hierarchical relations of
different US populations and is considered to be deficient and incorrect; it is seen as
a ‘bastard language’. Chicanos dispose of a number of additional languages for daily
use (code switching). Anzaldúa thinks Chicanos can claim ownership over any of
these languages, or employ multiple to resist boundaries. What she speaks, and her
culture and identity is hybrid and plural.
She writes the history of her homeland from a feminist and woman-identified
perspective and calls the genre ‘autohistoria’: in telling the writer/artist’s personal
