Gloria Anzaldúa, 1942-2004
Gloria Anzaldúa, 1942-2004
Gloria E. Anzaldúa was a pioneering queer Chicana feminist poet, theorist, essayist, and activist, born to descendants of ranching families in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. In 1977, she moved to California, where she wrote, lectured, and taught about Chicano studies, feminism, and creative writing at San Francisco State University, UC Santa Cruz, as well as Florida Atlantic University, and other schools. Anzaldúa’s essays and poems explore the anger, oppression, and isolation she experienced growing up in Texas, with one foot in the colonial culture and the other in the indigenous culture. She introduced the concept of mestizaje (meaning in-betweenness, multiplicity, non-binariness) to academia, advocated doing away with labels and, for those occupying this intersectional space, to challenge binary thinking and share their own unique vision. In her essay “La Prieta,” Anzaldúa questioned who is to blame for the othering she always felt, and advocated for “the queer groups” to band together and “transform the planet.” She authored and edited several books, including This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981), Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), and Friends from the Other Side/Amigos del otro lado (1997).
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Gloria Anzaldúa, 1942-2004
Gloria E. Anzaldúa was a pioneering queer Chicana feminist poet, theorist, essayist, and activist, born to descendants of ranching families in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. In 1977, she moved to California, where she wrote, lectured, and taught about Chicano studies, feminism, and creative writing at San Francisco State University, UC Santa Cruz, as well as Florida Atlantic University, and other schools. Anzaldúa’s essays and poems explore the anger, oppression, and isolation she experienced growing up in Texas, with one foot in the colonial culture and the other in the indigenous culture. She introduced the concept of mestizaje (meaning in-betweenness, multiplicity, non-binariness) to academia, advocated doing away with labels and, for those occupying this intersectional space, to challenge binary thinking and share their own unique vision. In her essay “La Prieta,” Anzaldúa questioned who is to blame for the othering she always felt, and advocated for “the queer groups” to band together and “transform the planet.” She authored and edited several books, including This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981), Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), and Friends from the Other Side/Amigos del otro lado (1997).