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Rooted in Gloria Anzalda's experience as a Chicana, a lesbian, an activist, and a writer, the groundbreaking essays and poems in this volume profoundly challenged how we think about identity. Borderlands/La Frontera remapped our understanding of what a "border" is, seeing it not as a simple divide between here and there, us and them, but as a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us. This twentieth-anniversary edition features new commentaries from prominent activists, artists, and teachers on the legacy of Gloria Anzalda's visionary work.

Average Customer Rating:

One of the best books about chicano identity	Customer Rating:
I'm very satisfied with my order because in my opinion Borderlands/La Frontera is one of the best books about chicano identity.

Classic

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Not much can be said to some of the postings I see here--to those that suggest the third tier prose, those that call this work "racist," those that implore statements like "I hated it." These are the same people that vote for their own oppression, these are the very people that fancy their success on some sense of entitlement. Relax, you do not have to agree, but hear me out. Classic. Classic. With the colorful enagement of gender, consciousness, and subconscious indeterminacy, the creation of a new utopia (racial, linguistic, gender, cultural, etc) is suggested by the prose of self actualization. This book is about all of us--it is about the exchanges we have with domination, be it familial or societal. It's loose diction is its very strength, it does not confide to the subordination of patriachal, hegemonic forces of tradition. The reflexive allegorical stories and unpacking of our human complexity give it a breathing body and a compelling face. Anzaldua suffered greatly for not writing like "the male pimps," those that claim a fanatical space in some high art and legitimacy canon. It was her filter of difference, it was her cries for something else, that connects with everyone at a spiritual level. I do not know how this can be connected to some mundane powerpoint presentation at a university; this piece involves the full of enagement of mind, body, and soul. To contextualize it--one needs to read consistently. In order to feel out her domain, one must be willing go beyond what "our mom said" or "what our 6th grade teacher" told us about this and that. This about the struggle for agency; this about search for Thoreau's Walden amidst sociohistorical forces that still "do not see." Welcome it. This classic work of literature, philosophy, education...remains one of the most unrecognized treatises on being and becoming.

Overrated Drivel

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I find it interesting that such a supposedly important and relevant contemporary work has only been reviewed by 11 people at the time of this writing. That alone tells you all you need to know since this is a book that is classed under both Latino and Women's Studies, and is part of many university literary programs. The book is pretentious claptrap of the worst kind. If this book were judged on its merits rather than by popular, politically correct notions, it wouldn't come close to making the cut. Alas, academia has embraced the book as a great work, and so it is required reading for an English M.A. program at a major university that I was accepted into. An English M.A.! Once I saw that this book was part of the program, I didn't even bother registering. I don't mind rants against social, cultural and economic injustices. I've read many. But Ms. Anzaldua is no James Baldwin, that's for sure.

an excruciatingly painful read - only do so if you must

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This book is a tormented stream of consciousness from a lady who was obviously fighting major demons. It is exactly the type of book that you would expect an amateur academic to "wow" and "gush" over, as it nicely fits into the dogmatic radicalism of Chicano Studies. The discerning reader, on the other hand, sees page after page of outdated cliches, sob-stories, and anger-filled tantrums. Anzaldua would like you to believe her suffering and self-searching is all the fault of the "white" culture encroaching upon the enlightened cosmic race of the mestiza. She'd like you to think that her mestiza/chicana/lesbian/female identity is the sole cause of her misfortune and hardship. What becomes overwhelmingly evident upon reading her unabashed torrent of decadent self-pity is the learned and self-enforced quality of her "opression". Anzaldua helplessly wallows in her romantic fatalism dreaming of the great mestiza revolution that will fix all of the world's problems by turning the middle class value system upside down. If you like romantic literature, and enjoy the hopeless and sorrowful ramblings of society's self-marginalized, I might suggest "The Sorrows of the Young Werther" by Goethe or some poems by Lord Byron - at least then you get some literary value.

Racist Garbage

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While most reviewers seem to be bent on lauding Gloria Anzaldúa's "insightful and progressive" writings, I can't help but take a different viewpoint. The vast majority of her essays, while cloaked in a sense of righteous equality, are quite simply racist drivel. She speaks of acceptance and tolerance for foreign cultures in America, and harps on the evils of correcting students when they use improper English, yet instills her writing with a blatant and offensive racism. I make specific reference to the article "How to Tame A Wild Tongue". In her conclusion, she praises the perseverance and endurance of the mestizo race/culture, making reference to walking by "the crumbling ashes" of American civilization. An eagerness is felt to see the day that "white laws and commerce will rot in the desert". One would be hard pressed to come up with a more hypocritical conclusion. Here is an author preaching tolerance and acceptance of different languages and cultures throughout her entire article. She whines about the troubles she had fitting in with English speaking people. She goes in depth to explain the numerous bastardizations of Spanish that are spoken in various Hispanic cultures and tries to convince us of how each is a viable language, even so-called "Spanglish", just a blend of English and Spanish that you might hear in a high school Spanish I class ("el chairo = chair,la ceilingo = ceiling, etc.) . And after all that talk of acceptance, she ends by completely blasting American culture and expressing her wish to see it crumble to dust, while at the same time presenting the mestizo as the dominant race which will endure this fall. Talk about racist. I understand pride of your country and people, but this goes far beyond simple nationalism, especially in light of the overall message of the article. Tolerance is right out the window here. Don't be fooled by Anzaldúa's overly wordy diction and pseudo-intellectualism. She is a flat out racist that for some reason is tolerated (forget that, praised to the roof!) in many academic circles. Her educational philosophy is naive, irresponsible, and fundamentally flawed. Hopefully her writings will soon fall out of the limelight.