And Discrimination In Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands, La Frontera

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Recommended: An essay on Gloria Anzaldua Borderlands

At the opening of the book Borderlands, La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as being a burden and a cause of her pain and hopelessness. Anzaldua expresses her feelings towards the boarder using physical traits, but also using non-material descriptions. Anzaldua then goes on to talk about the experiences of oppression and, violence and discrimination of those queer folks of color and how her metaphors used in this book help understand better the meaning of such experiences. She also examines how the queer bodies are marked as locations for all kinds of violence through the power of gender binaries. In the first chapter of her book, Anzaldua explores many aspects of the borderline, and she portrays strong feelings about this matter. The borderline brings many emotions to Anzaldua, right from the start she …show more content…

Her metaphors help the readers understand in a better way how those experiences affect those who are labeled as “queer.” She explains that a queer is someone seen as different than the rest, like the underdog, the abnormal, etc. She quickly dives into the situation by talking about “los atravesados” which translates to “the crossed” the ones who are discriminated. She adds “Los atravesados live here… Gringos in the U.S. Southwest consider the inhabitants of the borderlands transgressors, aliens- whether they possess documents or not,” (Anzaldua pg.3) These lines express how those people are being discriminated against. These lines by the author makes me think about my own personal situation, because being a legal resident of the U.S. gives the chance to be here legally, but it does not take the fact that I am an ‘alien’ and number that will be there unless I become a citizen, so those feelings I understand completely because I have lived that and I see what the author is

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