Borderlands La Frontera

Anzaldúa cites José Vasconcelos and his vision of “una Raza mestiza […] a cosmic race” (99). From this, the new mestiza consciousness arises, a consciousness of the borderlands. The Chicano people, Anzaldúa argues, embody psychic restlessness and cultural collision; therefore, they have the potential to look beyond the overly simplistic binaries of the present world. The mestiza must be fluid; she must embrace ambiguity and contradiction. According to Anzaldúa, “[T]he work of mestiza consciousness is to break down the subject-object duality that keeps her a prisoner” (102). Only then will violence end.

As a lesbian and Chicana woman, Anzaldúa pushes back on the notion that she is raceless and cultureless; instead, she argues she is all races and all cultures. She is the act of kneading, always questioning reality as it is. She draws an analogy between the mestiza and corn: Both are the product of “crossbreeding.” As a mestiza, her first step is to take inventory of what she has inherited, choosing to rupture with those histories. She shapes new myths, deconstructing herself, becoming a nahual (in Mexican folk religion, a human who can transform into an animal).

Anzaldúa then parses apart the meaning of machismo, indicating it reveals a sense of racial shame for Chicano men.