Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004) was a prolific Chicana writer of prose, fiction, and poetry. After moving from her native Texas to California in 1977, she exclusively focused on her writing, publishing dozens of pieces of writing before her death. She left behind several manuscripts in progress when she died.
Among her most popular pieces of writing are This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981) and Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987; especially a section entitled "La conciencia de la mestiza/Towards a Mestiza Consciousness"). She wrote variously about feminism, the role of women of color in feminism, self-reflection, borderlands (particularly the space around the Mexico–United States border), Indigenous mythology and culture, and identity and contradiction. She developed the framework of mestiza consciousness, contributed to the field of queer theory, and valued intersectionality over single-identity movements. She is remembered as an especially influential writer in late nineteenth century cultural studies.
Books
| Title | Year | Publisher | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color | 1981 | Persephone Press | Edited collection with Cherríe Moraga | |
| Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza | 1987 | Aunt Lute Books | A text that exists within several genres | |
| Making Face, Making Soul / Hacienda Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color | 1990 | Aunt Lute Books | Edited collection | |
| Interviews/Entrellistas | 2000 | Routledge | Edited by AnaLouise Keating | |
| this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation | 2002 | Routledge | Edited with AnaLouise Keating | |
| Light in the Dark / Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality | 2015 | Duke University Press | Published after her death | |
| La Serpiente Que Se Come Su Cola: The Death and Rebirth Rites-of-Passage of a Chicana Lesbian | — | — | Never published | |
| La Prieta | — | — | Never published, intended to be a "novel/collection of stories" |
Articles and essays
| Title | Year | Publication | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers" | 1981 | This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color | Written in the epistolary format | |
| "La Prieta" | 1981 | Anzaldúa began writing this essay in 1979 and finished it in 1981. An autohistoria | ||
| "En Rapport, In Opposition: Cobrando cuentas a las nuestras" | 1987 | Sinister Wisdom | — | |
| "Bridge, Drawbridge, Sandbar, or Island: Lesbians-of-Color Hacienda Alianzas" | 1990 | Bridges of Power: Women's Multicultural Alliances | A longer version of a 1988 speech | |
| "Metaphors in the Tradition of the Shaman" | 1990 | Conversant Essays: Contemporary Poets on Poetry | — | |
| "To(o) Queer the Writer – Loca, escritora y chicana" | 1991 | Inversions: Writing by Dykes, Queers, and Lesbians | An edited transcript | |
| "Border Arte: Nepantla, el Lugar de la Frontera" | 1993 | La Frontera/The Border: Art about the Mexico/United States Border Experience | Discussion of Coyolxauhqui, autohistoria, nepantla, and the visual arts | |
| "Foreword" | 1996 | Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit | Discusses spirituality. Worked on a longer version until her death | |
| "Let us be the healing of the wound: The Coyolxauhqui imperative – la sombra y el sueño" | 2005 | One Wound for Another / Una Herida por otra: Testimonios de Latin@s in the U.S. through Cyberspace (11 de septiembre de 2001 – 11 de marzo de 2002) | Final essay published before her death, about post-September 11th policy and nepantla | |
| "Born Under the Sign of the Flower: Los jotos in Ancient Mexico and Modern Aztlán" | — | — | Unpublished essay, written in the 1980s about the HIV/AIDS pandemic | |
| "S.I.C.: Spiritual Identity Crisis" | — | — | Unpublished essay, written before 1999 about her diabetes diagnosis | |
| "Spiritual Activism: Making Altares, Making Connections" | — | — | Unpublished essay, written before 1999 about the HIV/AIDS pandemic |
Fiction
| Title | Year | Publication | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "El Paisano is a Bird of Good Omen" | 1982/1983 | Conditions and Cuentos: Stories by Latinas | Began writing in 1974 as "La Boda" and conceptualized in the early 1980s as a sequence in a novel. Prietita story | |
| "People Should Not Die in June in South Texas" | 1985/1993 | My Story's On: Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives and Growing Up Latino: Reflections on Life in the United States | Prietita story | |
| "La historia de una marimacha" | 1989 | Third Woman Press | — | |
| "Life Line" | 1989 | Lesbian Love Stories, vol. 1 | — | |
| "She Ate Horses" | 1990 | Lesbian Philosophies and Cultures | — | |
| "Ms. Right, My True Love, My Soul Mate" | 1991 | Lesbian Love Stories, vol. 2 | — | |
| "Ghost Trap / Trampa de espanto" | 1992 | New Chicana/Chicano Writing | First written in 1990. Included in La Prieta. Humorous story | |
| "Puddles" | 1992 | Published in 1992, revised until at least 1998. Some of the revisions were substantial, including changing the point of view and the title (to "Velada de una lagartija") | ||
| "Swallowing Fireflies / Tragando Luciérnagas" | 2003 | Telling Moments: Autobiographical Lesbian Short Stories | — |
All of her children's books, and many of her short stories for children, feature Prieta/Prietita as the main character. Most of the Prietita stories remain unpublished, as do many stories about childhood or written for children. She wrote for stories for Mexican-American children to challenge the feelings of inferiority they learned in school as a project of "decolonizing, disindoctrinating ourselves from the oppressive messages we have been given".
| Title | Year | Publisher | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friends from the Other Side / Amigos del Otro Lado | 1993 | Children's Book Press | Illustrated, bilingual | |
| Prietita and the Ghost Woman / Prietita y la Llorona | 1995 | Inverts the traditional reading of la Llorona as fearful |
Poems
Anzaldúa included poems in her other writing, including her book Borderlands / La Frontera. Scholar Ariana Vigil characterizes the poetry of Anzaldúa as a site of "necessary social critique", drawing upon her experiences that are "linked to a raced, working-class condition and subject".
| Title | Year | Publication | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Tihueque" | 1976 | Tejidos | Her first publication. Tihueque is Nahuatl for "now let us go". | |
| "To Delia, Who Failed on Principles" | 2009 | The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Reader | Written in 1974, published posthumously | |
| "Reincarnation" | ||||
| "I Want to be Shocked Shitless" | ||||
| "The Occupant" | Written around 1975, performed often in the 1980s; published posthumously | |||
| "The New Speaker" | Written in the 1970s, published posthumously | |||
| "The coming of el mundo surdo" | Written in 1977. Surdo is usually spelled zurdo, but Anzaldúa altered the spelling; published posthumously | |||
| "Enemy of the State" | Included in the 1985 version of Borderlands / La Frontera but not the published version; published posthumously | |||
| "Del Otro Lado" | ||||
| "Encountering the Medusa" | ||||
| "The Presence" | Written between 1984 and 1990, published posthumously | |||
| "La vulva es una herida abierta / The vulva is an open wound" | Written around 1990, published posthumously. Autobiographical poem | |||
| "Yemayá" | Written before 1991, published posthumously. Discusses the Yoruban goddess Yemayá | |||
| "How to" | Written and revised until 1997, published posthumously | |||
| "Healing Wounds" | Written and revised until 2002, published posthumously | |||
| "Like a spider in her web" | ||||
| "The Postmodern Llorona" | Written and revised until 2003, published posthumously | |||
| "Llorona Coyolxauhqui" | Written and revised until 2003, published posthumously. Discusses la Llorona, Coyolxauhqui, nepantla, and el cenote | |||
| "When I write I hover" | Prose poem, published posthumously |
Notes and references
Notes
- Prieta means 'the dark one' and Prietita means 'the little dark one'. Anzaldúa was referred to by these names and reclaimed them in her fiction.
Citations
- Keating 2009, pp. 1, 4, 325, 335.
- Keating 2009, p. 4.
- ^ Keating 2009, pp. 4, 6.
- Keating 2009, pp. 5, 8.
- Keating 2009, pp. 8–10.
- Perez 2022, p. 160.
- Keating 2009, pp. 5, 10.
- ^ Perez 2022, p. 154.
- Keating 2009, pp. 72, 337.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 337.
- Gutierrez-Perez 2017, p. 306.
- Keating 2009, p. 70.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 157.
- Keating 2009, p. 26.
- Keating 2009, p. 38.
- Keating 2009, p. 111.
- Keating 2009, p. 140.
- ^ Keating 2009, p. 338.
- Keating 2009, p. 163.
- Keating 2009, p. 176.
- Keating 2009, p. 229.
- Keating 2009, p. 303.
- Hey-Colon 2022, p. 39.
- Hey-Colon 2022, p. 25.
- Hey-Colon 2022, p. 32.
- ^ Keating 2005, p. 11.
- Woodward 1989, p. 530.
- Keating 2009, p. 51.
- Blanchard 2005, p. 35.
- Keating 2005, pp. 11, 256.
- Hey-Colon 2022, pp. 17, 22, 37.
- Vásquez 2005, p. 64.
- ^ Millán 2015, p. 204.
- Blanchard 2005, p. 34.
- Rebolledo 2006, p. 283.
- Lunsford 1998, p. 2.
- Millán 2015, p. 207.
- Rebolledo 2006, pp. 279, 284.
- Rebolledo 2006, pp. 279, 283–284.
- Vásquez 2005, p. 66.
- Vigil 2016, p. 86.
- Vigil 2016, pp. 87–88.
- Keating 2009, p. 19.
- Keating 2009, p. 20.
- Keating 2009, p. 21.
- Keating 2009, p. 23.
- Keating 2009, p. 22.
- Keating 2009, p. 24.
- Keating 2009, p. 36.
- Keating 2009, p. 97.
- Keating 2009, p. 99.
- Keating 2009, p. 101.
- Keating 2009, p. 119.
- Keating 2009, p. 198.
- Keating 2009, p. 242.
- Keating 2009, p. 232.
- Keating 2009, p. 249.
- Keating 2009, p. 276.
- Keating 2009, p. 280.
- Keating 2009, p. 295.
- Keating 2009, p. 238.
Works cited
- Gutierrez-Perez, Robert (2017). "Anzaldúa, Gloria E. Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality". Women's Studies in Communication. 40 (3): 306–308. doi:10.1080/07491409.2017.1334446. S2CID 149070380.
- Keating, AnaLouise, ed. (2005). EntreMundos/AmongWorlds: New perspectives on Gloria E. Anzaldúa. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781403977137.
- Blanchard, Mary Loving. "Reclaiming pleasure: Reading the body in 'People Should Not Die in June in South Texas'". In Keating (2005).
- Vásquez, Edith M. "La gloriosa travesura de la musa que cruza / the misbehaving glory(a) of the border-crossing muse: Transgression in Anzaldúa's children's stories". In Keating (2005).
- Hey-Colon, Rebeca L. (2022). "Chronic illness and transformation in Gloria Anzaldúa's "Puddles"". Aztlán. 47 (1): 15–42.
- Keating, AnaLouise, ed. (2009). The Gloria E. Anzaldúa reader. Duke University Press.
- Lunsford, Andrea A. (1998). "Toward a mestiza rhetoric: Gloria Anzaldúa on composition and postcoloniality". JAC. 18 (1): 1–27. JSTOR 20866168.
- Millán, Isabel (2015). "Contested children's literature: Que(e)ries into Chicana and Central American autofantasías". Signs. 41 (1): 199–244. doi:10.1086/681919. hdl:2097/32551. JSTOR 10.1086/681919. S2CID 147670637.
- Perez, Domino Renee (2022). Fatherhood in the borderlands: A daughter's slow approach. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9781477326350.
- Rebolledo, Tey Diana (2006). "Prietita y el otro lado: Gloria Anzaldúa's literature for children". PMLA. 121 (1): 279–284. JSTOR 25486306.
- Vigil, Ariana (2016). "Heterosexualization and the state: The poetry of Gloria Anzaldúa". Chicana/Latina Studies. 16 (1): 86–109. JSTOR 45186447.
- Woodward, Carolyn (1989). "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa". NWSA Journal. 1 (3): 530–532. JSTOR 4315935.