The Extremities of the Borderlands

Gloria Anzaldúa, Sandra Cisneros and Chicana Identity Politics

Abstract

Writing from the border of Mexico and America, Gloria Anzaldúa and Sandra Cisneros are two Mexican female authors that have embraced poetry, prose and word art to articulate the ‘Chicana’ experience of life. Both writers engage with the concept of the ‘border’ within their work, both physical and theoretical. Through literary analysis of the work of these writers, more can be understood about the pressures and expectations that are placed upon the Chicana subject. The Chicana subject lives a life within a liminal space, within two or more cultures. A struggle to assimilate both Anglo and Mexican ideologies and mythologies is articulated by both of these writers. Cisneros and Anzaldúa overcome the dichotomies of North and South, male and female, Spanish and English by engaging in the act of ‘revisionist’ writing, adopting various forms and languages in their style to articulate the experience of the ‘borderland’ subject.