Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives - Chapter 8 Notes

The Homeland (1987) by Gloria Anzaldúa

Gloria Anzaldúa

• Gloria Anzaldúa (1942-2004) was a Chicana lesbian-feminist poet and fiction writer.
• Co-edited This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color with Cherrie Moraga.
• Authored Borderlands: La Frontera-The New Mestiza and co-edited The Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation with Analouise Keating.

Aztlán / El otro México

• The author describes Aztlán as the U.S. Southwest, the homeland of Chicanos.
• References Los Tigres del Norte, highlighting the idea of progress for Latinos.
• Anishinabeg (Indians) consider themselves Chicanos whose true homeland is Aztlán.

Borderlands and Identity

• The border is depicted as a site of both gentle coming together and violent clash, a physical and emotional boundary.
• The border fence is described as a "Tortilla Curtain" turning into el río Grande, a 1,950 mile-long open wound.
• This division splits the pueblo and culture, staking fence rods in the author's flesh.
• The earth's skin is seamless; the sea cannot be fenced, emphasizing the unnaturalness of borders.
• Yemaya is referenced to show defiance against the white man's arrogance.
• The land was Mexican once, was Indian always, and will be again.
• The author identifies as a bridge between the gabacho (white) world and the mojado (wetback) world, pulled by the past and the future.

The U.S.-Mexican Border as a Wound

• The border is described as an open wound where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds, forming a third country – a border culture.
• Borders are meant to define safe and unsafe places, distinguishing "us" from "them."
• A borderland is a vague, undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary, constantly in transition.
• Inhabitants of the borderlands are considered transgressors, aliens by Gringos in the U.S. Southwest.
• Tension grips the inhabitants of the borderlands like a virus; ambivalence, unrest, and death are common.

Experiences in the Borderlands

• An anecdote about la migra (immigration enforcement) taking Pedro, a fifth-generation American who couldn't speak English, illustrates the injustice and shame experienced by those without papers.
• Pedro was deported to Guadalajara, despite having never been further into Mexico than Reynosa.

Historical Context of Aztlán

• The first inhabitants of the Americas migrated across the Bering Straits.
• The oldest evidence of humankind in the U.S. (Chicanos' ancient Indian ancestors) was found in Texas and dated to 35000 B.C.
• Archeologists found 20,000-year-old campsites in the Southwest.
• Descendants of the original Cochise people migrated into Mexico and Central America around 1000 B.C., becoming the ancestors of many Mexican people.
• The Aztecs (Nahuatl for people of Aztlán) left the Southwest in 1168 A.D. following their god Huitzilopochtli.
• Huitzilopochtli, the God of War, led them to the place that became Mexico City, symbolized by an eagle with a serpent in its beak on a cactus.
• This symbolizes the struggle between the spiritual/celestial/male and the underworld/earth/feminine, with the serpent's sacrifice indicating the dominance of the patriarchal order.

The Spanish Conquest

• In the 16th century, the Spaniards and Hernán Cortés invaded Mexico, conquering it with the help of subjugated tribes.
• The Indian population decreased drastically from twenty-five million before the Conquest to under seven million immediately after, and only one-and-a-half million by 1650.
• Mestizos, who were genetically equipped to survive Old World diseases, founded a new hybrid race.
• In 1521, a new race was born: the mestizo, the Mexican (people of mixed Indian and Spanish blood).
• Chicanos, Mexican-Americans, are descendants of those first matings.

Ancestral Explorations and Settlements

• Spanish, Indian, and mestizo ancestors explored and settled the U.S. Southwest as early as the sixteenth century.
• For every gold-hungry conquistador, ten to twenty Indians and mestizos came along as porters.
• This constituted a return to Aztlán, making Chicanos originally and secondarily indigenous to the Southwest.
• Intermarriage between Mexican, American Indians, and Spaniards formed a greater mestizaje.

El destierro/The Lost Land

• References Violeta Parra's song, "Arauco tiene una pena," about the loss of land.
• In the 1800s, Anglos migrated illegally into Texas, driving tejanos (native Texans of Mexican descent) from their lands.
• The Battle of the Alamo became a symbol for the cowardly and villainous character of Mexicans.
• With the capture of Santa Anna in 1836, Texas became a republic, and Tejanos lost their land and became foreigners.

The U.S.-Mexican War

• In 1846, the U.S. incited Mexico to war, invading and occupying Mexico and forcing her to give up almost half her nation.
• The U.S. victory pushed the Texas border from el río Nueces to el río Grande.
• South Texas was separated from the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
• The border fence was born on February 2, 1848, with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, leaving 100,000 Mexican citizens annexed by conquest.
• The treaty was never honored, and restitution has never been made.

Anglo-American Domination

• Quotes William H. Wharton on the Anglo-American race being destined to possess Texas.
• Gringos, believing in white superiority, seized political power, stripping Indians and Mexicans of their land.
• Con el destierro y el exilo fuimos desuñados, destroncados, destripados – we were jerked out by the roots, truncated, disemboweled, dispossessed, and separated from our identity and history.
• Under the threat of Anglo terrorism, many abandoned homes and went to Mexico.
• Tejanos who protested were penalized, leading to armed retaliation.

Violence and Loss of Land

• After Mexican-American resisters robbed a train in Brownsville, Texas, in 1915, Anglo vigilante groups began lynching Chicanos.
• Texas Rangers killed hundreds of Chicanos, causing thousands to flee to Mexico.
• The U.S. brought in 20,000 troops to end the social protest movement.
• The author's grandmother lost all her cattle and land due to drought and legal manipulation.
• Families lost land due to unpaid taxes and inability to speak English.
• Even cemetery land was padlocked by ranch owners, preventing families from visiting graves.

Transformation of the Land

• In the 1930s, corporations cheated Chicano landowners of their land and hired Mexicans to clear it.
• Later, machines scraped the land clean of natural vegetation.
• In the 1950s, the land was cut into rectangles and squares and constantly irrigated.

Sharecropping and Economic Exploitation

• The author's father became a sharecropper, repaying loans and forking over 40% of earnings to Rio Farms Incorporated.
• The family lived on three Rio farms, including a dairy farm and a chicken farm.
• The author remembers attending meetings sponsored by Rio Farms and the modern techniques of food canning learned by her mother.

El cruzar del mojado/Illegal Crossing

• References Ismael Rodriguez' film, Nosotros los pobres, about family devotion.
• By the end of the 19th century, powerful landowners in Mexico, in partnership with U.S. companies, had dispossessed millions of Indians of their lands.
• Mexico is dependent on the U.S. market; maquiladoras (factories) are a major source of U.S. dollars, employing mostly young women.
• The infusion of white culture values and exploitation is changing the Mexican way of life.

Economic Crisis and Migration

• The devaluation of the peso and Mexico's dependency on the U.S. have led to la crisis (economic crisis).
• Half of the Mexican people are unemployed, and wages are significantly lower than in the U.S.
• Many Mexicans choose to migrate north to survive.
• Mexicanos dream of la conquista (conquest) in the arms of gringas rubias (blonde white women) and the lost territorial treasure.
• North Americans view this return as the silent invasion.
• Mexicanos congregate in plazas to discuss the best way to cross the border, seeking smugglers (coyotes, pasadores, enganchadores).

La Migración de los Pueblos Mexicanos

• A tradition of migration and long walks exists.
• Today, witnessing la migración de los pueblos mexicanos, the return odyssey to Aztlán, with traffic from south to north.
• This retorno (return) began with Indians and mestizos in the 1500s and continued with braceros (laborers) who built railroads and picked fruit.
• Thousands of Mexicans cross the border, legally and illegally; millions without documents have returned to the Southwest.

Life on the Border

• They are faceless, nameless, invisible, taunted, trembling with fear yet filled with courage.
• Mexicans gather by the river, where two worlds merge, creating a war zone.
• The convergence has created a shock culture, a border culture, a third country.

Crossing the Border

• Mojados (wetbacks) float on rafts or swim across el río Grande, praying to la Virgen de Guadalupe.
• The Border Patrol hides near border towns, setting traps and using electronic sensing devices to track refugees.
• Los mojados are handcuffed, frisked, and kicked back across the border.
• Many attempt to cross multiple times a day.
• Some fall prey to Mexican robbers or face suffering, pain, and death.

Exploitation and Racism in the U.S.

• Those who make it past the Border Patrol face racism in Chicano barrios and northern cities.
• Living in a borderland, they are treated as criminals and exploited for their labor, without minimum wages or adequate housing.

The Mexican Woman's Plight

• The Mexican woman is especially at risk, facing sexual violence, lack of food, and inability to access resources due to language barriers and fear of deportation.
• American employers exploit her helplessness, paying low wages.
• Isolated and worried about her family, she suffers serious health problems.
• La mojada, la mujer indocumentada, is doubly threatened, facing sexual violence and physical helplessness.
• As a refugee, she leaves her safe home for dangerous terrain.
• This is her home, this thin edge of barbwire.