Pushing through Dominant Borders

“Culture forms our beliefs. We perceive the version of reality that is communicates. Dominant paradigms, predefined concepts that exist as unquestionable, unchallengeable, are transmitted to us through the culture. Culture is made by those in power – men” (38). It is hard to combat ideas that have been imposed and imperialized on generations of peoples, but combating those ideas is exactly what Anzulada does in her text, Borderlands: La Frontera. Anzulada uses numerous rhetorical strategies to use and enact her writing as a form of resistance against the white-male- paradigms that have imperialized and is slowly diminishing her culture. One strategy that was extremely effective for me was her use of Spanish-English in her text. Anzulada’s book is an autoethnographic text; this text is a representation of the Mexican “border” culture. Because of invasions by European explorers and the massive loss of Mexican land after the war in 1846 at the hands of the United States, Mexico and its Us-Mexican border has become a representation of these merging cultures.

Anazulada argues that the US-Mexican border has become a faded line between two merging cultures. That line has become more then a border; it is now a country of its own, a “border country”. She comments that “The convergence has created a shock cultures, a border culture, a third country, a closed country” (33). This “border country” is a representation of two cultures the US and the Mexican; two cultures that as Azuluada argue are very much defined by their language and dialect. That precisely is why Anzulada’s use of English-Spanish and Spanish-English is such a strong rhetorical tool. Anzulada comments that, “Ethnic identity is two skins to linguistic identity – I am my language” (81).

One of Anzulada’s main arguments is a call for a shift in history. It is the claim as human as an individual – one that is not defined or molded by dominant-white-masculine paradigms but to be an human begin that creates oneself and is not confined to “absolute despot duality” (41). She comments, “… that human nature is limited and cannot evolve into something better. But I, like other queer people, am two in one body, both male and female. I am the embodiment of the heiros gamos: the coming together of opposite qualities within” (41). Anzulada’s main challenge is for humans to become a participant in humanity, in society, to think and create, instead of to follow. “… yet I am cultured because I am participating in the creation of yet another culture, a new story to explain the world and out participation in it, a new value system with images and symbols that connect us to each other and to planet” (103).

It is precisely the merge of these two cultures the Mexican and the American, the male and the female, the individual and the society that Anzaluda created her identity; a self-created identity that she is challenges other to self-create. In Anzaluda’s self-created identity she challenges the foundations of both languages and dialects; she refuses to choose one over the other and instead merges and created a new dialogue between the two languages, the two identities. Anzulada’s choice to create is a rhetorical tool, and he choice to write within that creation is a rhetorical strategy; a strategy she uses well and very effectively.

Similarly to Dussel and Mignolo, after defining the problem or fallacy in history Anzulada proposes an innovative way to create and develop a new history. Similar to ideas of transmodernity or colonization Anzulada is calling for a shift; a shift in the way history is drafted, in its creation itself. She comments, “Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe to distinguish us from the. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge” (25). Anzulada is calling for the fading of divisions in history. History is compiled of borders; nations crossing borders into other nations, dominant cultures imperialized, conolonization – these words are the borders. Similar to Mignolo’s discussion of historical terminology and the redefining of those dominating terms – Anzulada is calling for the redefining of culture and history itself.

Culture defines history; but who defines culture? Dominant paradigms do. How do you change those definitions? How do you change those borders? ASSESS AND COMMUNICATE.

“Her first step is to take inventory… She communicates that rupture, documents the struggle. She reinterprets history and using new symbols she shapes new myths” (104).