Why Most People Oppress Others because of Their Different Ethnicity, Race or Gender - Essay Example

 Literary Anthology: Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Introduction: 2 Literary Works: 3 Borderlands/La Frontera: 3 Homeland, Aztlan/El Otro Mexico 4 How to tame a wild Tongue 5 This Bridge Called My Back: 6 La conciencia de la Mestiza 7 Conclusion: 8 References: 9 Introduction: This essay anthology is an assortment of essays that are in Gloria Anzaldúa’s collection; Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras. The anthology shows about people’s views of why most people oppress others because of their different ethnicity, race or gender. I have chosen essays that she edited because she has widely talked about the topic. The literary works expressed in this case show how the poets and authors in Anzaldua’s anthology described their understanding of the connections that exist between all individuals and how they have to fight for themselves. A theorist and feminist writer; Gloria Anzaldúa’s works were of vital significance for the last two decades. Her work should be noted that it is now anthologized systematically in different compositions that reach different audiences on an annual basis. Her theory of Mestiza and borderland identifies the fuller theory of a culture which is different and broadly deployed in most disciplines and lecture halls. In most lecture halls across the state, most students read the chapters and excerpts from her Borderland text. Anzaldúa’s work serves in a primarily essayist fashion. She explicitly shows that an individual’s act of writing assists the person in identifying and expressing his or her identity complexities. Anzaldúa described her strong belief in the need for individuals to form coalitions in their different groups. My choice of Gloria Anzaldúa’s literary works in her anthology of essays and poetry; Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras include: Borderlands/La Frontera, La conciencia de la Mestiza, The Homeland, Aztlán/El Otro México, How to Tame a Wild Tongue and This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. They are all arranged in order of significance. The first three literary works are some of Anzaldúa’s best works and stand out from the other two. Anzaldua understood that individuals have diverse ideas and identity and that inter-sectionalism often creates conflicts between different people (García, 2006). Thesis Statement: Anzaldua understood and recognized the different ways that people use to oppress others, and the constituents that were overlapping their identity. Literary Works: Borderlands/La Frontera: One of Anzaldua’s outstanding works was Borderlands/La Frontera, which was published in the year 1987. Borderlands traces back to the personal and historical journey of people who are on the border between United States and Mexico. Additionally, it talks about the political, spiritual and the European socioeconomic impact that they have on conquering the indigenous and marginalized people on the borderland. All the contributors in Anzaldua’s works got affected by Anzaldua’s willingness to face her personal risks. Through Anzaldua’s acts and words, people learn to take risks on their own. These are the risks that form blurred boundaries and the identities challenge people’s ways of thinking (Anzaldúa, 1987). By use of her words, she invites critics to engage with her theories and how they impacted on her life and work. In bridging, the contributors explore and discuss on Anzaldua’s spiritual and intellectual contributions of how new bridges are created through the community and diverse disciplines. The contributors and Anzaldua represented numerous generations of diverse ages of twenties to seventies. This connection among many people could be seen in Anzaldua herself. Anzaldua’s words have touched most of the contributors separately. Through this, each of the contributors had a personal transformation to enact similar transformations to other people. Anzaldua used words like nosotras; a word that represented a group’s identity and when divided into two words it affirms of the diverseness that she often experienced during her life. The word “nos” refers to the society and otras refer to otherness (Anzaldúa, 1987). When the two are joined as a word, it brings out the promise of healing. However, the word does not represent the similarity among the contributors in the book, but the differences that existed between them. Anzaldua’s theory of nos/tras, therefore, gives an alternative of the binary-individual self which enabled her contributors to transform and acknowledge that there was a bridge between different individuals. The recurring theme in Bridging can be identified through her radical resistance to identity categories, which were convectional. Through this compilation of essays, it is clear that Anzaldua clearly thought of this theoretical evolution. The contributors of the essays also demonstrated that people do not have to hide behind labels of convectional identity while risking their individual demands. Homeland, Aztlan/El Otro Mexico In the essay; Homeland, Aztlan/El Otro Mexico” Anzaldua offers a far reaching view point of the historical events that were substantial and resulted in the border that is there between Mexico and United States. In the second part of this essay, Anzaldua provides an individual perspective on the issues she highlighted. Much of the information that Anzaldua presented to the readers is what people today got exposed to all along. This is due to the fact that most of them do not bother to view it from her perspective. Through her literary work, she was reminding the people from her ethnic group along with Americans who were too busy with their way of life on the new ideas that diverse cultures and lifestyles could bring (García, 2006). In addition to this, the themes of race and race relations can be retrieved from her works. How to tame a wild Tongue In the essay “How to tame a wild Tongue”, Anzaldua explored the negative attitudes in the social life of the Chicano and their ways of speaking. This also had a negative effect of the lives of the Chicano and their identity. In this essay, she points out the significance of language in people’s lives and how if they are not careful, they can suffer if they do not use it appropriately. From the evidence given in the essay, it is clear that language is a beneficial tool or in other cases a disadvantage, which is all dependent on if people use it wisely. The idea that can be derived from this essay is on the Chicano which is a Spanish language. It was unfortunately believed to be the bastard language because most of them believed that it was not the standard Spanish language. This belief made the people who were Chicanos extremely uncomfortable with how they expressed themselves. Anzaldua believed that this could be changed and that if a person had a low estimation of people’s native language, then they must have the same negative thoughts of such people. She believed that language was a necessary part of her identity, particularly her ethnicity. She stated that this was not an issue that people were to be ashamed about and gave illustrations of her life was extremely difficult for people who were immigrants. In addition to this, Anzaldua states that there was a gendered and cultural crash of this language. According to Anzaldua (1990), girls are educated at an early age ask unnecessary and many questions. She gives an illustration of Mexico, where she viewed that the female plural was debarred from language thereby leaving most women to be under the masculine plural. Ironically, the Chicano language was in general viewed as a form of language that was of poor quality in relation to all the other languages. In the entire essay; "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," Anzaldua gives an example of her repudiation when it came to declining her traditions. She focuses on her anecdote with the devastating incident that occurred in the dentist’s office, which further elucidated, her view point of the social injustices that were carried out. The essay examines the challenges of this language which shows how she struggled against a culture that was against hers. The key focus, which is the Mexican language, can be viewed to be in a different aspect. This Bridge Called My Back: The essay in “This Bridge Called My Back” (1981), her choice of setting can be noted to be intensified in a metaphoric way. An illustration is given, which shows that the dentist’s place is where people go but feel edgy despite their efforts to avoid the place. In the same sense, Anzaldua illustrates that she felt the same way when she was in America. In reality, when people go to the dentist they do not get any rewards but have to undergo the process whether they anticipate it or not (Anzalda︢ and Moraga, 1983). In the same way, Anzaldua has to gain control of her life in America despite trying to avoid cultural and racial divisions. In this essay, the author does not stop giving her analysis, but includes the application and excavation of her thoughts. The contributors analyzing Anzaldua’s writing do not only investigate her writings, but they also apply these writings in their own lives and work. The contributors of essays and poems discussed how her writings transformed them, and they took this as an outward into how they could continue exploring her theories. Anzaldua’s writings demonstrated her use of different concepts with an aim to expand on her sociological imagination. La conciencia de la Mestiza In her works, the last essay of La conciencia de la Mestiza/towards a new consciousness is deeply rooted in borderlands, and it introduces the Mestiza concept of consciousness. This also shows the synthesizing of different languages, cultures and races and the breaking down of boundaries. In Mestiza, there is an amalgamation of concepts as a result of new awareness of traditional perspectives that create a paradigm. In this essay, Anzaldua also touches on the Chicano culture, homophobia and sexism. By referring to herself as Mestiza, Anzaldua showed that she rejected the sexual and gender boundaries, thereby she attempted to form a new identity. Gloria Anzaldua was clearly demoralized by the white side of what the gender system consisted of and at the same time, by her own culture. In this case, there is capitalism, colonialism and race, which are the three things that cannot be divided when taking a look at the system that is stands for gender. The whole gender system can be noted to be one, which is racial, showing a relationship that exists between the intersections. Through intersections, the classical methods can be noted to be related to sexuality and gender as some of the indicators that were vital to most people. With colonialism, there were no divisions of race, and it was only gendered as a classification of people based on their race. Contrary to colonialism, gender was only constructed socially. According to the contributors, the dichotomy of different individuals was made up of the light side, the luminal and lastly the dark side. In this case, the light side was depicted to be that of the colonial masters, white men and women and the white bourgeois. The light side seems to be regarded to be dichotomous. The men are portrayed as the minded, public and reasonable ones. But women are depicted as people who are emotional, non promiscuous, weak in body and mind and extremely passive (García, 2006). The luminal are depicted as prostitutes, criminals and servants. The dark side has had to deal with capitalism and colonialism, which are seen as animals without a side (Anzaldúa, 1990). Conclusion: Gloria Anzldua’s writings turn out to be extremely poignant, and her choice on how to use imagery can be noted to be her intent to let her readers aware of what she means. She used effectual methods, which allowed most of the readers to understand her writings. The methods were appropriate in showing the Chicano’s struggles and strife. It may appear as if her work was only a form of misinformation, but in reality she explicitly targets the intended readers. The audience is not other Hispanics, African American or Caucasians but the Chicanos (Anzaldúa, 2002). The key points in all the essays are meant to be read by all people, but most specifically meant to instill some sense in the Chicanos. References: Anzalda︢, Gloria, and Cherre̕ Moraga. (1983). This Bridge Called My Back Writings by Radical Women of Color. New York: Kitchen Table. Anzaldúa, Gloria. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute. Anzaldúa, Gloria. (1990). Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color, Aunt Lute Books Anzaldúa, Gloria. (2002). This bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation. New York: Routledge. García, Cristina. (2006). Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature. New York: Vintage. Read More