Gloria Anzaldúa 1942-2004

Life

• Born to a ranch owner in Texas, worked the fields throughout high school
• Indigenous, Basque and Spanish descent
• Endocrinology issues led to menstruate at a few months old and to an early hysterectomy- “I was born queer”
• B.A in English, Art, and Secondary Education from Pan American University
• M.A. in English and Education from the University of Texas at Austin

Professional Career

• Non-tenure track positions at San Francisco State University, the University of California, Santa Cruz and Florida Atlantic University
• Co-editor (with Cherrie Moraga) of This Bridge Called My Back
• National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Award 1991
• Post-humously awarded PhD from UC Santa Cruz 2005

Theoretical Contributions: New Mestiza

• Borderland subjectivity/ Nepantilism: torn between ways – mental state of the mestiza who speaks multiple tongues and is the result of multiple ethnicities
• Divergent Thinking: Challenges Western binary thinking
• Multiracial or multiethnic
• Believes in, embraces and promotes multisexuality – professes her love freely
• Queerness connected with Mestiza and Indigenous soul
• Counterstance is step toward liberation, but not a way of life. Either live in two shores or abandon “white” culture

Death

Anzaldúa died at 62 from complications of diabetes.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://openbooks.library.umass.edu/radicalsocialtheory/?p=256

“Borderlands/LaFrontera” by ThirdWorldThirdSpace https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2jvSN_-JS4