Borderlands La Frontera By Gloria Anzaldúa

1358 Words3 Pages

The discovery of self-identity is a reoccuring theme in a multitude of Chicano and Race and Ethnicity literature. Gloria Anzaldúa’s compilation of essays and poetry, Borderlands La Frontera, best exemplifies this example as the author gives her story to finding herself in as a lesbian chicana in a predominantly white and straight society. Anzaldúa drags the reader through this by not limiting the problems she faces, but problems that everyone could face. She addresses the importance of overcoming conflicts with not only oneself, but society as well. Though these messages she portrays in her writing are not just hers, other popular authors such as August Wilson and Thomas King epitomize them in their writings as well. August Wilson’s African …show more content…

This was evident in Anzaldúa’s case as she was a lesbian woman who always challenged her duties of being a woman making her life a lot harder, “To this day I’m not sure where I found the strength to leave the source, the mother, disengage from my family, mi tierra, mi gente, and all that picture stood for. I had to leave home so I could find myself…” (Anzaldua 38). Anzaldua goes against her roles of a woman and leaves her household to further discover herself as a chicana in another confusing society. As a woman she is expected to live with her family and help with cooking and cleaning until she is married. Though Anzaldúa realizes that this is not the life for her and that for her to grow and really find herself she has to leave her family and find her own path rather than just be given one. While this seems scary for a woman to go off into the world not knowing what to really expect, it really reflects the strength to her character. She leaves her patriarchal household to find her own path in society veering off from the path that many women choose to follow. This closely relates to the character Rose Maxwell in Thomas King’s African American novel, Fences. Rose put up with a lot of her her husbands, Troy, immature behavior as he cheated on her, and even had a child out of wedlock with his mistress. This strength in character shows how empowered she is as she does not just let him walk all over him, but rather leaves him and finds her own path, leaving behind that strong patriarchal influence, “ ” (Wilson

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