Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004) was a prolific Chicana writer of prose, fiction, and poetry.[1] After moving from her native Texas to California in 1977, she exclusively focused on her writing,[2] publishing dozens of pieces of writing before her death.[3] She left behind several manuscripts in progress when she died.[3]
Among her most popular pieces of writing are This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981) and Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987; especially a section entitled "La conciencia de la mestiza/Towards a Mestiza Consciousness").[4] She wrote variously about feminism, the role of women of color in feminism, self-reflection, borderlands (particularly the space around the Mexico–United States border), Indigenous mythology and culture, and identity and contradiction.[5][6] She developed the framework of mestiza consciousness, contributed to the field of queer theory, and valued intersectionality over single-identity movements.[7] She is remembered as an especially influential writer in late nineteenth century cultural studies.[8]
Books
edit| Title | Year | Publisher | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color | 1981 | Persephone Press | Edited collection with Cherríe Moraga | [9] |
| Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza | 1987 | Aunt Lute Books | A text that exists within several genres | [10][8] |
| Making Face, Making Soul / Hacienda Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color | 1990 | Aunt Lute Books | Edited collection | [10] |
| Interviews/Entrellistas | 2000 | Routledge | Edited by AnaLouise Keating | [10] |
| this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation | 2002 | Routledge | Edited with AnaLouise Keating | [10] |
| Light in the Dark / Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality | 2015 | Duke University Press | Published after her death | [11] |
| La Serpiente Que Se Come Su Cola: The Death and Rebirth Rites-of-Passage of a Chicana Lesbian | — | — | Never published | [12] |
| La Prieta | — | — | Never published, intended to be a "novel/collection of stories" | [13] |
Articles and essays
edit| Title | Year | Publication | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers" | 1981 | This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color | Written in the epistolary format | [14] |
| "La Prieta" | 1981 | Anzaldúa began writing this essay in 1979 and finished it in 1981. An autohistoria | [15] | |
| "En Rapport, In Opposition: Cobrando cuentas a las nuestras" | 1987 | Sinister Wisdom | — | [16] |
| "Bridge, Drawbridge, Sandbar, or Island: Lesbians-of-Color Hacienda Alianzas" | 1990 | Bridges of Power: Women's Multicultural Alliances | A longer version of a 1988 speech | [17] |
| "Metaphors in the Tradition of the Shaman" | 1990 | Conversant Essays: Contemporary Poets on Poetry | — | [18] |
| "To(o) Queer the Writer – Loca, escritora y chicana" | 1991 | Inversions: Writing by Dykes, Queers, and Lesbians | An edited transcript | [19] |
| "Border Arte: Nepantla, el Lugar de la Frontera" | 1993 | La Frontera/The Border: Art about the Mexico/United States Border Experience | Discussion of Coyolxauhqui, autohistoria, nepantla, and the visual arts | [20] |
| "Foreword" | 1996 | Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit | Discusses spirituality. Worked on a longer version until her death | [21] |
| "Let us be the healing of the wound: The Coyolxauhqui imperative – la sombra y el sueño" | 2005 | One Wound for Another / Una Herida por otra: Testimonios de Latin@s in the U.S. through Cyberspace (11 de septiembre de 2001 – 11 de marzo de 2002) | Final essay published before her death, about post-September 11th policy and nepantla | [22] |
| "Born Under the Sign of the Flower: Los jotos in Ancient Mexico and Modern Aztlán" | — | — | Unpublished essay, written in the 1980s about the HIV/AIDS pandemic | [23] |
| "S.I.C.: Spiritual Identity Crisis" | — | — | Unpublished essay, written before 1999 about her diabetes diagnosis | [24] |
| "Spiritual Activism: Making Altares, Making Connections" | — | — | Unpublished essay, written before 1999 about the HIV/AIDS pandemic | [25] |
Fiction
edit| Title | Year | Publication | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "El Paisano is a Bird of Good Omen" | 1982/1983 | Conditions and Cuentos: Stories by Latinas | Began writing in 1974 as "La Boda" and conceptualized in the early 1980s as a sequence in a novel. Prietita story | [26][27][28] |
| "People Should Not Die in June in South Texas" | 1985/1993 | My Story's On: Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives and Growing Up Latino: Reflections on Life in the United States | Prietita story | [29][30][18] |
| "La historia de una marimacha" | 1989 | Third Woman Press | — | [18] |
| "Life Line" | 1989 | Lesbian Love Stories, vol. 1 | — | [18] |
| "She Ate Horses" | 1990 | Lesbian Philosophies and Cultures | — | [18] |
| "Ms. Right, My True Love, My Soul Mate" | 1991 | Lesbian Love Stories, vol. 2 | — | [18] |
| "Ghost Trap / Trampa de espanto" | 1992 | New Chicana/Chicano Writing | First written in 1990. Included in La Prieta. Humorous story | [13] |
| "Puddles" | 1992 | Published in 1992, revised until at least 1998. Some of the revisions were substantial, including changing the point of view and the title (to "Velada de una lagartija") | [31][18] | |
| "Swallowing Fireflies / Tragando Luciérnagas" | 2003 | Telling Moments: Autobiographical Lesbian Short Stories | — | [18] |
All of her children's books,[32] and many of her short stories for children, feature Prieta/Prietita[A] as the main character.[34] Most of the Prietita stories remain unpublished,[26] as do many stories about childhood or written for children.[33] She wrote for stories for Mexican-American children to challenge the feelings of inferiority they learned in school as a project of "decolonizing, disindoctrinating ourselves from the oppressive messages we have been given".[35]
| Title | Year | Publisher | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friends from the Other Side / Amigos del Otro Lado | 1993 | Children's Book Press | Illustrated, bilingual | [36][37][38] |
| Prietita and the Ghost Woman / Prietita y la Llorona | 1995 | Inverts the traditional reading of la Llorona as fearful | [39][40] |
Poems
editAnzaldúa included poems in her other writing, including her book Borderlands / La Frontera.[41] Scholar Ariana Vigil characterizes the poetry of Anzaldúa as a site of "necessary social critique", drawing upon her experiences that are "linked to a raced, working-class condition and subject".[42]
| Title | Year | Publication | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Tihueque" | 1976 | Tejidos | Her first publication. Tihueque is Nahuatl for "now let us go". | [43] |
| "To Delia, Who Failed on Principles" | 2009 | The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Reader | Written in 1974, published posthumously | [44] |
| "Reincarnation" | [45] | |||
| "I Want to be Shocked Shitless" | [46] | |||
| "The Occupant" | Written around 1975, performed often in the 1980s; published posthumously | [47] | ||
| "The New Speaker" | Written in the 1970s, published posthumously | [48] | ||
| "The coming of el mundo surdo" | Written in 1977. Surdo is usually spelled zurdo, but Anzaldúa altered the spelling; published posthumously | [49] | ||
| "Enemy of the State" | Included in the 1985 version of Borderlands / La Frontera but not the published version; published posthumously | [50] | ||
| "Del Otro Lado" | [51] | |||
| "Encountering the Medusa" | [52] | |||
| "The Presence" | Written between 1984 and 1990, published posthumously | [53] | ||
| "La vulva es una herida abierta / The vulva is an open wound" | Written around 1990, published posthumously. Autobiographical poem | [54] | ||
| "Yemayá" | Written before 1991, published posthumously. Discusses the Yoruban goddess Yemayá | [55] | ||
| "How to" | Written and revised until 1997, published posthumously | [56] | ||
| "Healing Wounds" | Written and revised until 2002, published posthumously | [57] | ||
| "Like a spider in her web" | [58] | |||
| "The Postmodern Llorona" | Written and revised until 2003, published posthumously | [59] | ||
| "Llorona Coyolxauhqui" | Written and revised until 2003, published posthumously. Discusses la Llorona, Coyolxauhqui, nepantla, and el cenote | [60] | ||
| "When I write I hover" | Prose poem, published posthumously | [61] |
Notes and references
editNotes
editCitations
edit- ^ Keating 2009, pp. 1, 4, 325, 335.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 4.
- ^ a b Keating 2009, pp. 4, 6.
- ^ Keating 2009, pp. 5, 8.
- ^ Keating 2009, pp. 8–10.
- ^ Perez 2022, p. 160.
- ^ Keating 2009, pp. 5, 10.
- ^ a b Perez 2022, p. 154.
- ^ Keating 2009, pp. 72, 337.
- ^ a b c d Keating 2009, p. 337.
- ^ Gutierrez-Perez 2017, p. 306.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 70.
- ^ a b Keating 2009, p. 157.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 26.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 38.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 111.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 140.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Keating 2009, p. 338.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 163.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 176.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 229.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 303.
- ^ Hey-Colon 2022, p. 39.
- ^ Hey-Colon 2022, p. 25.
- ^ Hey-Colon 2022, p. 32.
- ^ a b Keating 2005, p. 11.
- ^ Woodward 1989, p. 530.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 51.
- ^ Blanchard 2005, p. 35.
- ^ Keating 2005, pp. 11, 256.
- ^ Hey-Colon 2022, pp. 17, 22, 37.
- ^ Vásquez 2005, p. 64.
- ^ a b Millán 2015, p. 204.
- ^ Blanchard 2005, p. 34.
- ^ Rebolledo 2006, p. 283.
- ^ Lunsford 1998, p. 2.
- ^ Millán 2015, p. 207.
- ^ Rebolledo 2006, pp. 279, 284.
- ^ Rebolledo 2006, pp. 279, 283–284.
- ^ Vásquez 2005, p. 66.
- ^ Vigil 2016, p. 86.
- ^ Vigil 2016, pp. 87–88.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 19.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 20.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 21.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 23.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 22.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 24.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 36.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 97.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 99.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 101.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 119.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 198.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 242.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 232.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 249.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 276.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 280.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 295.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 238.
Works cited
edit- Gutierrez-Perez, Robert (2017). "Anzaldúa, Gloria E. Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality". Women's Studies in Communication. 40 (3): 306–308. doi:10.1080/07491409.2017.1334446. S2CID 149070380.
- Keating, AnaLouise, ed. (2005). EntreMundos/AmongWorlds: New perspectives on Gloria E. Anzaldúa. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781403977137.
- Blanchard, Mary Loving. "Reclaiming pleasure: Reading the body in 'People Should Not Die in June in South Texas'". In Keating (2005).
- Vásquez, Edith M. "La gloriosa travesura de la musa que cruza / the misbehaving glory(a) of the border-crossing muse: Transgression in Anzaldúa's children's stories". In Keating (2005).
- Hey-Colon, Rebeca L. (2022). "Chronic illness and transformation in Gloria Anzaldúa's "Puddles"". Aztlán. 47 (1): 15–42.
- Keating, AnaLouise, ed. (2009). The Gloria E. Anzaldúa reader. Duke University Press.
- Lunsford, Andrea A. (1998). "Toward a mestiza rhetoric: Gloria Anzaldúa on composition and postcoloniality". JAC. 18 (1): 1–27. JSTOR 20866168.
- Millán, Isabel (2015). "Contested children's literature: Que(e)ries into Chicana and Central American autofantasías". Signs. 41 (1): 199–244. doi:10.1086/681919. hdl:2097/32551. JSTOR 10.1086/681919. S2CID 147670637.
- Perez, Domino Renee (2022). Fatherhood in the borderlands: A daughter's slow approach. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9781477326350.
- Rebolledo, Tey Diana (2006). "Prietita y el otro lado: Gloria Anzaldúa's literature for children". PMLA. 121 (1): 279–284. JSTOR 25486306.
- Vigil, Ariana (2016). "Heterosexualization and the state: The poetry of Gloria Anzaldúa". Chicana/Latina Studies. 16 (1): 86–109. JSTOR 45186447.
- Woodward, Carolyn (1989). "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa". NWSA Journal. 1 (3): 530–532. JSTOR 4315935.