Anzaldua Notes
Preface to the First Edition
Physical vs. psychological borderlands
Border woman: between two cultures
"Living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one's shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an 'alien' element."
Evolution
Awakening faculties and areas of consciousness
This book, then, speaks of my existence.
Knowledge:
La madre naturaleza
Succor
Roots
Anchor to the earth
Images:
Words: rendering images concrete, flesh, alive
Code-switching: a new language of the Borderlands
Chicano Spanish: bastard language
But we Chicanos no longer feel the need to beg entrance.
To be met halfway
This book is our invitation to youfrom the new mestizas.
You (the implied reader) = non-Chicanos
PART ONE: ATRAVESANDO FRONTERS / CROSSING BORDERS
Chapter 1: The Homeland, Aztlan / El otro Mexico (23-35)
The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third countrya border culture. . . . A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. (Anzald™a 3)
Los atravesados vs. the "legitimate" inhabitants
El cruzar del mojado / Illegal Crossing (31)
dispossessed
maquiladoras
devaluation of the peso
the choice to stay in Mexico and starve or move north and live
a tradition of migration
Today we are witnessing la migracion de los pueblos mexicanos, the return odyssey to the historical/mythological Aztlan. (33)
The Mexican woman is especially at risk.
This is her home
this thin edge of
barbwire
CHAPTER 2: Movimientos de rebeldia y las culturas que traicionan (37-45)
CHAPTER 3: Entering Into the Serpent (47-61)