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On Borderlands/La
An InterpretiveEssay
MARIA LUGONES
Borderlands
has been a very importanttext for me. I have foundcompanyin
it. Desdeel primermomentopenseque eramoshermanasen pensamiento.I have
carriedAnzaldua'sinsightsand metaphorswith me forseveralyearsin mydaily
ruminationsand in my daily exercise of triple vision. I could say that I have
lost perspectiveon this text in makingit mine, or I could saythat I have gained
perspective in finding borderdwellingfriendshipin it. I find her thinking
intertwinedwith my own. Thus this essayis highly interpretive.I will explain
what I learnedfromBorderlands
and I will try to think my way aroundsome of
the troublethat I have with some of the living that it suggeststo me.
Workon oppressedsubjectivityfocuseson the subject at the "moment"of
oppressionand as oppressed.Oppressiontheorymayhave as its intent to depict
the effects of oppression (alienation, ossification, arrogation,psychological
oppression,etc.), without an intention to rule out resistance.But within the
logicalframeworkof the theory,resistanceto oppressionappearsunintellligible
becauseit lacks a theoreticalbase. Anzaldua'sBorderlands
is a workcreatinga
theoreticalspace for resistance.
Anzaldua focuses on the oppressedsubject at the "moment" of being
oppressed.Thus she can captureboth an everydayhistory of oppressionand
an everydayhistoryof resistance.Her culture,though oppressive,also grounds
her resistance:
vol. 7, no. 4 (Fall1992)? byMariaLugones
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She throwsout what is worthless,the lies, the dullingof life, the runaways.
She effects a rupturewith all oppressivetraditionsat the same time that she
makesherselfvulnerableto foreignwaysof thinking, relinquishingsafety.
Anzaldua makes it clear that remaining a being in two worlds without
is deadlyfor Chicanasand other women of color. It is to
"cross-pollinization"
become a hyphenated being, a dual personalityenacted from the outside,
without the ability to fashion her own responses.She would agree with the
Pachuco speaking in Peregrinosde Aztlan by Miguel Mendez-M.When the
Pachuco asks the question "quesemos ese?"(what are we?) and hears the
he responds:
response"Bueno. . . puesmexicoamericanos,"
Chale,ese, es purapinchimadera,la demexicanodomaspa'meterlo
al surco,a las minas,nel, pos otrachingapior.Lo de americanos,
posya tedarascola, camarada,pa'darnosen lamadreen suspinchis
guerraspuercas.
[Roughly:Mexicanosto be put to workthe land, or the mines,
or something worse.Americansto kill us in their filthy wars.]
(Mendez-M.1979, 25)
BecauseI think it is importantto distinguishthis dualpersonality2fromthe
pluralpersonalityand the operatingin a pluralisticmode of new mestiza,I will
venturemy own sense of the distinction. I think this sense fits Anzaldua'stext
well. The dual, hyphenated,personalityis an Anglo creation. According to
this concept, there is no hybridculturalself. It is partof the Anglo imagination
that we can keep our cultureand assimilate,a position that would be contradictory if both cultures were understoodas informing the "real"fabric of
everydaylife. But in thinkingof a Mexican-American,the Anglo imagination
construes "Mexican" as the name for a superexploitablebeing who is a
practitionerof a superfluous,ornamental,culture.Being "American"is what
supposedlygives us (dubious)membershipin that "real"culture, the culture
of the ideallyculturally-unified-through-assimilation
polls illegitimatelycalled
"America."Being American is what makesus functioningcitizens.
The Mexican and the American in the dual-personalityconstructareboth
animated from the outside; that is why there is no cultural"cross-pollinization." But the pluralityof the new mestizais anchoredin the borders,in that
spacewherecritique,rupture,andhybridizationtakeplace.Thoughshe cannot
choose not to be read, constructed,with a logic of hyphenation, demoralization, instrumentality,stereotyping,anddevaluation,she can imbuethatperson
with a senseof conflictedsubjectivityandambiguity.3
So the dual,hyphenated,
personality is externally animated and characterizedby an absence of the
ability to respondand create. The pluralpersonalityof the new mestizais a
self-critical,self-animatedplurality.
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NOTES
1. I have analyzedthese defensestrategiesin "Liberatory
Strategiesof the Chicana
Lesbian:Active Subjectivityin the Absenceof Agency,"andin "Hardto HandleAnger,"
to appearin (Lugones,forthcoming).
2. Forworkon dual personality,see Rosaldo(1989), Madrid-Barela(1973), Chin
(1991) and my "Colonization",unpublishedmanuscript.
3. I have developedthese ideasfurtherin Lugones(1987).
REFERENCES
Anzaldua,Gloria.1987.Borderlands/la
frontera.San Francisco:Spinsters/AuntLuteBook
Company.
Chin, Frank.1991. Come all ye Asian Americanwriters.In Thebigaiiieee!An anthology
ed. JeffreyChan. New York:
of ChineseAmericanandJapaneseAmericanliterature,
Meridian.
and loving perception.Hypatia
Lugones,Maria. 1987. Playfulness,"world"-travelling,
2(2): 3-19.
.Forthcoming. Pilgrimages/peregrinajes:
Essaysin pluralistfeminism.Binghamton:
SUNY Press.
Arturo.1973. In searchof the authenticpachuco.Aztlan4(1): 31-60.
Madrid-Barela,
de Aztlan.Berkeley:EditorialJustaPublications.
Mendez-M.,Miguel. 1979. Peregrinos
Rosaldo,Renato. 1989. CultureandTruth.Boston:BeaconPress.