Borderlands | 
Culture forms our beliefs. We perceive the version of reality that it communicates. Dominant paradigms, predefined concepts that exist as unquestionable, unchallengeable, are transmitted to us through culture. Culture is made by those in power. Men make the rules and laws; women transmit them . . . The culture expects women to show greater acceptance of, and commitment to, the value system than men.
pickGloria Anzaldua is an icon: it‘s an honor to finally get to read one of her greatest works. This is for anyone who thinks that a border is just an arbitrary line: through essays and poetry in both Spanish and English (reflecting the code-switching incumbent upon all residents of the U.S./Mexican Borderlands), Anzaldua relates the forces that shape her Mexicana-Chicana-Tejana heritage, growing up in Texas‘s Rio Grande Valley.
pick#ReadHarder2021: a book you've been intimidated to read.
I'm not easily intimidated by books, but a fully bilingual text that's cited in just about everything I've read about the US-Mexico border will do it. It's chilling to read about the border in the 1980s, knowing what was still to come.
I wish I'd read this book 20 years ago, when I had more patience for academic analysis and I think the spiritual aspects would have resonated more.
“The psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual borderlands are not particular to the Southwest. In fact, the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.†—introduction to the first edition
"Ethnocentrism is the tyranny of Western aesthetics. An Indian mask in an American museum is transposed into an alien aesthetic system where what is missing is the presence of power invoked through performance ritual. It has become a conquered thing, a dead "thing" separate d from nature and, therefore, it's power."
I‘m memorizing this poem en español and it just so happens to be poetry month.
In about 10 days I‘m setting off to hike 700 miles across the desert so I‘m memorizing this poem in hopes that it will give me strength when times get hard.
#poem #poems #espanol #spanish #librosenespanol #poetry #nationalpoetrymonth
It is about a desert woman who takes on the characteristics of desert denizens to survive and is resilient.
pickWe had to read this for class tonight. There‘s so much to unpack in this book. I‘m going to have to re-read it, slowly. I love her poetry, some of it made me want to cry, especially the poems about migrant workers. She gives me so much to think about in regards to inclusivity and how we can resist others‘ need to label us. Read this! I wish I could say more but I have a lot to think about. I‘m so glad I‘m taking this class.
She goes through her backpack, keeps her journal and address book, throws away the muni-bart metromaps. The coins are heavy and they go next, then the greenbacks flutter through the air. She keeps her knife, can opener and eyebrow pencil. She puts bones, pieces of bark, hierbas, eagle feather, snakeskin, tape recorder, the rattle and drum in her pack and she sets out to become the complete tolteca.
"The basic concept [of Borderlands theory] involves the ability to hold multiple social perspectives while simultaneously maintaining a center that revolves around fighting against concrete material forms of oppression."
pickFierce and beautiful. The piece itself lies at the borderlands of form, multilingual and multi-genred. In no way derivative, it sits in fine company w Adrienne Rich's What is Found There. A staple in any feminist library, long neglected Chicanas' voices. It is theory-narrative-prose-poetry.
Searching for something to read in the aftermath of the #orlandoshooting, then I remembered I had this. Nothing more perfect.
