Chicana-American lesbian-feminist poet and writer. Born on a ranch in southern
Texas, Anzaldúa worked as an agricultural laborer as an adolescent until she
went to Pan American University, the first woman from her family to attend
college. She received an M.A. in English from the University of Texas, Austin,
and taught writing at several colleges, including San Francisco State
University; the University of California, Santa Cruz; and Vermont College. She
has also been active in the migrant workers' rights movement. Her most ambitious
work, Borderlands/La Frontera
(1987), explores the situation of "border women'' like herself who grew up
neither within their Mexican Indian heritage nor within the Anglo-American
society that considered them outsiders. Her other works include the American
Book Award–winning anthology,
This Bridge Called My Back
(1981), and Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras (1990).
Sites about Gloria Anzaldúa:
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The Voices from the Gap Web site, created at the University of Minnesota,
provides biographies, critiques, and references for North American women writers
of color. Their page on Anzaldúa offers an interesting critique of
Borderlands/La Frontera
and a selected bibliography students can use to explore literary criticism about
their reading.
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A Chicana feminist homepage containing news, discussions, interviews, literature,
and academic resources. This site takes its title from Anzalúda's
Haciendo Caras/Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Perspectives by
Women of Color, and opens with a quote from Anzaldúa's
Borderlands/La Frontera. You can find a brief description of Anzaldúa at
http://chicanas.com/chingonas.html as well as "a variety of resources
ranging from short biographies of Chicanas, to Chicana poetry and literature,
cultural resources, academic resources, otras chicanas on the 'net, and more..."
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On this page from QueerTheory.com you’ll find a review of
Interviews/Entrevistas
(2000), a recent work that compiles ten years of interviews with Anzaldúa,
bringing insight into Anzaldúa’s theories and writings, as well as her personal
influences.
What is a borderland? Is it geographical, cultural, physical,
psychological, sexual, political? Look through the following
Web sites about different aspects of border cultures and
consider the various ways in which the concept of a
borderland is used both literally and metaphorically in
these Web sites and in Anzaldúa's piece.
Link 1 (Border Music):
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/benson/border/
Link 2 (Border Culture):
http://www.folklife.si.edu/frontera/start.htm
The Chicana feminist Web site includes a page of quotes from a number of Chicana
authors who define Chicana feminism and, in one way or another, explore ideas
similar to those you read about in "How to Tame a Wild Tongue." You'll find this
page at
http://www.chicanas.com/defs.html. Read through these quotes and choose at
least three. Write about the relationship between these quotes and Anzaldúa's
notions of language and identity.
Thinking about both Maxine Hong Kingston's "Tongue-Tied" and Gloria Anzaldúa's
"How to Tame a Wild Tongue," consider what both authors have to say about the
notion of a “public” and a “private” voice. What, according to these authors, is
the distinction between the two? In what situations might the “public” voice be
privileged over the “private” and what does one stand to lose in these
situations? You may want to read another excerpt from Kingston's
Women Warrior at
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/kingston_maxine_hong.html.
Answer the following question from the point of view of Anzaldúa, Rodriguez,
and/or Kingston: Is there a place for native languages (other than English) in
college writing? If so, where and when? If not, why not?