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Walking a
tightrope
Gloria Anzaldua walks a tightrope suspended between white
and Chicana cultures
by Marilyn Davis
loria Anzaldua is probably best
known among lesbians as the co-
editor (with Cherrie Moraga) o f This
Bridge Called My Back: Writings
by Radical Women o f Color, pub
lished in 1981 by Kitchen Table: Women of
Color Press. She is also the author of Border
lands! La Frontera: The New Mestizo, published
in 1987 by Spinsters-Aunt Lute, and chosen as
oneofthe38best
books of 1987 by
the Library Jour
nal. M ost re
cently she has
edited Haciendo
Caras: Making
Face, M aking
Soul (Aunt Lute
Foundation,
1990), an anthol
ogy of creative pieces and theoretical essays by
women of color which tackles issues of spiritual
and cultural identity, racism, feminism, and m ul
tilingual, multi-ethnic literacy. Anzaldua is also
the narrator o f Prieta Has a FriendJPriettita tiene
un amigo, a bilingual children’s book published
in 1991 by Children’s Book Press. In 1991 she
was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts
Grant in Fiction.
Borderlands!La Frontera , Anzaldua’s explo
ration of her personal history as well as her
cultural history, is an intricately textured book,
woven from prose and poetry, history, fable, and
personal experience. It alternates between En
glish and Spanish. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz,
writing about the book inThe Village Voice, says:
"Anzaldua moves with grace and erudition
through a sprawling landscape, nothing less than
a history o f the people o f the Southwest, a survey
o f both sides o f the border, a critique o f Western
patriarchal civilization, and a manifesto o f true
counterculture: the nondominants, the Third
World, women, queers, outsiders."
In her autobiographical essay, “La Prieta,”
from This Bridge Called My Back, Anzaldua
describes herself as a “third-world lesbian femi
nist with Marxist and mystic leanings.” She says,
“The mixture o f blood and affinities, rather than
confusing or unbalancing me, has forced me to
achieve a kind of equilibrium. Both cul tures deny
me a place in their universe. Between them and
others, I build my own universe, ElMundo Zurdo.
I belong to myself and not to any one people.”
Anzaldua walks a tightrope suspended be
tween worlds. While recognizing that many
women of color reject alliances with white people
because educating them “takes too much time and
energy,” she has chosen to mediate between white
and Chicana cultures. She says, “We must share
our history with them so that...they won’t turn
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people away because of their racial fears and
ignorances. They will come to see that they are
not helping us but following our lead." In her
Foreward to the Second Edition of This Bridge
Called My Back, Anzaldua says, “We have come
to realize we are not alone in our struggles nor
separate nor autonomous but that w e-w hite black
straight queer female m ale-are connected and
interdependent. We are each accountable for
what is happening down the street, south of the
border or across the sea.”
The topic of Anzaldua’s address at Portland
State will be the need for multi-culturalism at the
university. Anzaldua is well acquainted with
universities. She has taught Chicano Studies at
the University of Texas, and W omen’s Studies at
San Francisco State. She has also served as
Chicana Artist in Residence in Chicano Studies at
Pomona College in California. Currently she is
enrolled in the doctoral program at U.Ca. Santa
C ruz. D raw ing on her ex p erien ces w ith
“multiculturalism in the university,” Anzaldua
says in Borderlands:
1 am the only round face,
Indian beaked, off-colored,
in the faculty lineup, the workshop, the panel
and reckless enough to take you on.
Gloria Anzaldua, Chicana tejana lesbian-
feminist poet, fiction writer, teacher, healer,
and cultural theorist, will speak at Portland
State University in the Vanport Room on
Tuesday, April 14, at 7 pm.
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