La Frontera By Gloria Anzaldua Summary

In Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera, she discusses the people who are in between – how people can’t be put into boxes. Anzaldua (1987) talks about embracing the in between and getting past cultural tyranny, which is where the culture forms what we believe about these certain identities. These identities, or boxes, that culture gives us consist of a number of different labels: male, female, white, black, Mexican, gay/lesbian, and straight. The list goes on and on. People are given these labels and expected to live up to them, but if they are in between, which expectations are they supposed to meet. They disappoint the people of both groups because they can’t fully please either one of them. However, by embracing the in between, we can overcome the borders, boxes, and identities that culture uses to define us. For example, cultural tyranny tells people that they shouldn’t believe in other spirits, like La Virgen de Guadalupe.
La Virgen de Guadalupe’s Indian name is Coatlalopeuh (Anzaldua 1987). Coatlalopeuh is a very similar idea and goddess as Coatlicue. The Indian and feminine parts were taken out of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Because Coatlalopeuh was Indian, she was taken out of La Virgen de Guadalupe. “The male-dominated Azteca-Mexica culture drove the powerful female deities underground by giving
This is seeing beyond what culture considers reality. “It is an instant ‘sensing’, a quick perception arrived at without conscious reasoning” (p. 60).You usually hit rock bottom or come to a really hard point in your life and you don’t know what to do with yourself for a little bit, so you don’t do anything. If you choose to grow from this, you have the ability to reach La Facultad. You then see beyond common sense. Instead of just seeing things as everyone else sees them and taking things for what people tell you they are, you see them for what they really are. You see through what people say it