#anzaldua

[whentherewerebicycles]

There is no need for words to fester in our minds. They germinate in the open mouth of the barefoot child in the middle of restive crowds. They wither in ivory towers and in college classrooms. Throw away abstractions and the academic learning, the rules, the map and compass. Feel your way without blinders. To touch more people, the personal realities and the social must be evoked--not through rhetoric, but through blood and pus and sweat. Write with your eyes like painters, with your ears like musicians, with your feet like dancers. you are the truthsayer with quill and torch. Write with your tongues of fire. Don't let the pen banish you from yourself. Don't let the ink coagulate in your pens. Don't let the censor snuff out the spark, nor the gags muffle your voice. Put your shit on the paper.

Gloria Anzaldúa, “Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers”

[tesohro]

“Nobody’s going to save you. No one’s going to cut you down, cut the thorns thick around you. No one’s going to storm the castle walls nor kiss awake your birth, climb down your hair, nor mount you onto the white steed. There is no one who will feed the yearning. Face it. You will have to do, do it yourself.”

Gloria Anzaldúa

[vyet-blog]

GLORIA ANZALDUA in BORDERLANDS LA FRONTERA

[whentherewerebicycles]

We all know that women read as men and women write as men, because that’s how we were taught. We were trained to read as men. Little girls read the books that boys read, but the boys never read the books with little girl heroines, and so women are taught to read westerns and spy novels and mysteries, and the ‘serious’ literature, but we also read ‘women’s literature,’ watch soap operas, read romances, read women’s mysteries. But men aren’t taught to read women. How and why do we break with this gender socialization? Isn’t the departure as significant as establishing the criteria? Reading affects the development of female and male identity. I, for one, define my life and construct my identities through the process of reading and writing—dyke detective novels, cultural theory, Latin American fiction.

Gloria Anzaldúa, “To(o) Queer the Writer: Loca, escritora, y chicana”

[theshatterednotes]

Gloria Anzaldúa, American scholar of chicana feminism och queer theory

[la-poesia-femenina]

Where You From?

Gina Valdés (Estados Unidos, 1943)

Soy de aquí y soy de allá from here and from there born in L.A. del otro lado y de éste crecí en L.A. y en Ensenada my mouth still tastes of naranjas con chile soy del sur y del norte crecí zurda y norteada cruzando fron teras crossing San Andreas Tartamuda Y mareada where you from? soy de aquí y soy de allá I didn’t build this border that halts me the word fron tera splits on my tongue

[godmechanic]

Gloria Anzaldúa - Speaking in Tongues

[ronnie5280]

Part 1- Gloria Anzaldua

Reincarnation-

            for Julie 

                           I

                               slithered shedding 

                my self 

                           on the path

                                  then  

                                           looked back and

                                    contemplated 

                                the husk 

                                          and wondered

                                             which me 

                                                             I had discarded  

                                                               and was it the second  

                                                               or the two thousand and 

thirty-second 

                                                     and how many me's 

                                            would I slough off

                                                  before voiding

                                                        the core

                                                               if ever. 

This poem is about Gloria's reaction to her new self, whether in the moment or in the long run. She sees herself being transformed and losing old habits of life. She sees numerous different versions of herself. When I initially read this, I thought she was talking to her adolescent self because there's a sense of finding one's identity in this poem. Keep in mind Gloria is a scholar in feminist theory, queer theory and Chicana culture theory. So, I believe that many of her experiences in various areas opened up her mind to perceive many other versions of herself, and that you should never try to hide who you are. This poem was exciting to read because of the message it conveyed through a visual of the text imitating a crawling snake. Gloria is a very talented poet who has a lot to say about her respective experiences and interests.