A Sense Of Self Identity

Developing a sense of self is an essential part of every individual in which each person's self-conception is a unique combination of multiple identifications, composed of gender, race, class and language. Although self-identity is a part of every individual, it is often lost when individuals migrate to another country. Hispanic women migrating to the Borderlands of the United States and Mexico experience a number of events, it begins with a sense of stigmatization, that arises from their race, culture, tradition and language, which differ from that of the pre-dominant Anglo-Saxon. This rejection impacts their identity, creating a sense of loss, dislocation, alienation, and isolation. How do these women living in the borderlands battle against

When women migrate from one nation or culture to another they carry their knowledge and expressions of distress with them. On settling down in the new culture, their cultural identity is most likely going to change and that encourages a degree of not belonging; they also attempt to settle down by either assimilation or biculturalism. Consider identity issues of women from the borderlands like feminist Gloria Anzaldua. Her life in the borderlands was a constant battle of discrimination from the Anglo, she was caught in a world of two cultures, various languages, and male domination, “She realized she had two options, to be the victim or to take control of her own destiny” (Borderlands). In her book, Borderlands/La Frontera, she discusses conflicts of linguistic, sexual, and ethnic identity that exists on the border of Mexico and the United States. Gloria Anzaldúa articulates in one of her chapters, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, that “ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity;” the languages she possess wield extraordinary influence over her cultural identification (Borderlands). In her book she combines both Spanish and English to emphasize the significance of the position from which she writes, yet Anzaldúa also depicts the near impossibility of reconciling the cultures her speech reflects. When she speaks English, she speaks “the oppressor’s language” (Borderlands); when she speaks Chicano Spanish, she speaks “an orphan tongue” (Borderlands). As a result, the implications of language on her identity are, at times, problematic. Since the English speakers she must accommodate deem her tongue “illegitimate,” she deems herself illegitimate (Borderlands). Her life struggles in the borderlands compelled Gloria Anzaldúa to be resilient and even hopeful. She will use her native tongue to “overcome the tradition of