Something struck me about Gloria Anzaldua's book. I was leafing through the initial parts of it Friday night, and the next thing I know, it was 3 AM, and I could not get enough of it. I am still not sure about what it is was exactly that had me so enraptured in her writing. Inspired by the legacy of Brenda Allen, I am going to do a 'self-interview' about my own reactions to the book. Reflexivity and spontaneity are the goals here, but if nothing else, this way promises to be a way out of a severe writer's block. So here goes.
What was it about the writing that struck you? Was it the constant mixing of codes, from Spanish to English, to Spanish again?
I speak no Spanish, and was only sort of second-guessing when she went back and forth. It frustrated me, at times; there was an unsaid richness to the Spanish parts of the text that even to my incomprehensible eyes, was decidedly observable. For those amongst us who have grown up constantly switching between two, three or even more codes, this move was at once recognizable, and yet alien. It was familiar in the fact that the most poignant moments were left to the native tongue, letting the foreign tongue lay all the groundwork. And yet, having no Spanish, it sometimes felt like I was reading half the text. At one point, I started reading the Spanish verses aloud, and merely enjoyed their cadence.
What role does the 'poetic' play in establishing an argument?
As far as a Verstehen moment goes, the poetic allows you to capture your audience. But more than rhetorical strategy, mere 'hudibrastic tricks', as Vikram Seth calls them, the poetic IS the political; as we've recently read. I think one reason I like Anzaldua so much is the fact that the poetic in her case in an expression of decades of exploitation, cultural and material-this is key- that Mexican, Mexican-American and Chicana people have been subject to. Unlike so much postcolonial writing that seems to be little more than middle-class meditations on alienation, Anzaldua writes of poverty, of the imperialism of the maquiladoras. The link to the material makes the symbolic so much stronger.
So Postcolonial writing needs to be constantly undergirded by the economic?
What was it about the writing that struck you? Was it the constant mixing of codes, from Spanish to English, to Spanish again?
I speak no Spanish, and was only sort of second-guessing when she went back and forth. It frustrated me, at times; there was an unsaid richness to the Spanish parts of the text that even to my incomprehensible eyes, was decidedly observable. For those amongst us who have grown up constantly switching between two, three or even more codes, this move was at once recognizable, and yet alien. It was familiar in the fact that the most poignant moments were left to the native tongue, letting the foreign tongue lay all the groundwork. And yet, having no Spanish, it sometimes felt like I was reading half the text. At one point, I started reading the Spanish verses aloud, and merely enjoyed their cadence.
What role does the 'poetic' play in establishing an argument?
As far as a Verstehen moment goes, the poetic allows you to capture your audience. But more than rhetorical strategy, mere 'hudibrastic tricks', as Vikram Seth calls them, the poetic IS the political; as we've recently read. I think one reason I like Anzaldua so much is the fact that the poetic in her case in an expression of decades of exploitation, cultural and material-this is key- that Mexican, Mexican-American and Chicana people have been subject to. Unlike so much postcolonial writing that seems to be little more than middle-class meditations on alienation, Anzaldua writes of poverty, of the imperialism of the maquiladoras. The link to the material makes the symbolic so much stronger.
So Postcolonial writing needs to be constantly undergirded by the economic?
If it aspires to enact any politics of transformation, yes. Not all postcolonial writing aspires to. Postcolonial fiction has a different problem. As communication scholars, our adoption of postcolonial theories must envisage a politics of change. Without that, the enterprise becomes pointless. Anzaldua really manages to make the two worlds meet. I love how she places her sexuality as the fulcrum on which her ambivalence towards her own culture lies. She talks about how traditional Mexican culture situates the woman in a particular economic context and places on her responsibilities of the domestic economy. How many times have we seen a situation similar to what she lays out, where mothers-in-law berate their sons for not keeping their wives 'in check'. The woman is a hegemonic subject; and this is unbearable for Anzaldua. She distances herself from her culture at that point, she openly despises this patriarchy. (Like all good postcolonial theorists though, she worries about criticizing them too loudly -lest the white man hear her, and use her work to once again primitivize her culture.) Anzaldua moves the fulcrum by 'choosing to be queer', as she explicitly states. This is not merely identity politics. I think there's a qualitative difference her. In choosing to be queer, and in doing so, engaging in constant logger-heading with the dominant male position in Chicana culture; and is aware of her privileged position in doing so.
In what way?
By the fact that she has the option to be queer. This is a privilege. And she's acutely aware of that, is my sense. I guess what we need to know is how Chicana lesbian feminists today understand her resistive stance. Do they see it as revolutionary? Did she want other women to think of this as a resistive act? In one sense, we might never know, given her recent death; but through her writing, and the legacy it inspires, maybe we will. There's already a Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldua. That's a start.
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