Borderlands/La Frontera, By Gloria Anzaldúa

682 Words2 Pages

Being culturally conscious in the United States opens a door of complications for minority people whose cultures differ from the American standard. While the option to assimilate is tempting due to the widespread unacceptance of non-US cultural traditions, people of other cultures are under constant pressure to maintain their heritage and accept American views. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s book Borderlands/La Frontera, Anzaldúa explains the complications of the mestiza consciousness where a person is pressured on multiple cultural fronts. However, Anzaldúa develops the argument that this consciousness allows for the mestiza to move past a position of “counterstance’ with the white majority and have the option to act instead of react. In Emma Tenayuca’s excerpt in Herencia: The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United State and Maria …show more content…

Emma Tenayuca develops her argument by initially insinuating that the Mexican people should establish a counterstance position to confront the mistreatment by the Anglo-Americans. Her rhetoric is very critical of the Anglo-American attitudes towards Hispanics as she states early, “From the very beginning they were robbed of their land” (158). This is the initial condition set by Tenayuca in analyzing the Anglo-American and Mexican-American relationship. She expands the depth of the suffering through exposing the fact “Mexican labor imported into the United States has uniformly received lower wages” (159), “Mexicans…are subject to smaller relief portions” (159), “disenfranchisement has resulted in nearly complete Anglo-American domination politically…where Mexican people are a majority” (160), and many

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