• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Culture

Chicana Writer Gloria Anzaldua Lives on as Her Memory is Celebrated

  • Anzaldua drew inspiration from her childhood along the Mexico-U.S. border as a sixth generation Mexican immigrant.

    Anzaldua drew inspiration from her childhood along the Mexico-U.S. border as a sixth generation Mexican immigrant. | Photo: The Poetry Foundation

Published 26 September 2017
Opinion

“Her work as a theorist, writer and activist continues to impact generations of Latinas living on the borderlands, both geo-politically and metaphorically,” wrote one admirer.

Gloria E. Anzaldua is being remembered for her strong words and activism by Latinxs in the United States as they celebrate her 75th birthday.

RELATED:
Meet the Afro-Latinx Activists Empowering Black Immigrants

Known for her feminism and LGBTQ work, Anzaldua was awarded numerous prestigious awards for her work during her lifetime. Some of these include the Lambda Lesbian Small Book Press Award, the Sappho Award of Distinction, and the NEA Fiction Award, among others.

“Her work as a theorist, writer and activist continues to impact generations of Latinas living on the borderlands, both geo-politically and metaphorically,” wrote Raquel Reichard about the literary artists a few years ago.

Anzaldua was born to a family of ranchers in 1942, in the Rio Grande Valley at the southern tip of Texas and drew inspiration from her childhood along the Mexico-U.S. border as a sixth generation Mexican immigrant. She faced discrimination in school from both students and teachers alike because of an unusual health condition and her inability to speak English.

“Her main focus was the border created by language and even writes in a bilingual manner in order to highlight the distinct troubles with language. By using the two variations of English and the six different variations of Spanish in 'Borderlands/ La Frontera,' Anzaldua puts the reader right in her mind and exposes the way she thinks,” stated a foundation that bears her name.

“I recognized the women she spoke of,” Maria P. Chaves told Latina about her connection with the writer. “They were me and I was them. Suddenly, the woman had become not any and all women. She was specific. She was Chicana. She was Mexican. She was Pocha. She was lesbian. She was defiant. She was a survivor, a warrior, and a goddess.”

RELATED:
Mystery Behind Neruda's Death to Be Revealed

Anzaldua pursued her love of literature, studying English, Art and Secondary Education in college and going on to obtain a Masters in English and Education. According to her biography, Anzaldua used her education to help others, working first in a bilingual preschool program, then moving on to dedicating her gifts to a Special Education program for mentally and emotionally handicapped students.

“Anzaldua taught us that we are multidimensional, in a constant state of becoming, and, despite dominant culture’s obsession with placing people in fixed, binary boxes, our plurality, and its intersections, makes us whole and gives us la facultad, a perspective and power that’s all our own,” Reichard said.

Anzaldua died in 2004 from complications with diabetes. Some of her most famous pieces include "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)," her essay, “La Prieta,” and "This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color."

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.