Gloria Anzaldúa (1942-2004) was a scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory.
All month, we're celebrating Pride. Tune in to hear about amazing members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know -- but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Leading Ladies, Activists, STEMinists, Local Legends, and many more. Encyclopedia Womannica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.
Encyclopedia Womannica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard and Lindsey Kratochwill. Special thanks to Shira Atkins, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Ale Tejeda, and Sundus Hassan.
We are offering free ad space on Wonder Media Network shows to organizations working towards social justice. For more information, please email Jenny at jenny@wondermedianetwork.com.
Follow Wonder Media Network:
Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
It’s a new month and that means it’s time for a brand new theme.
This month we’re celebrating Pride! We’ll be highlighting amazing members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Today’s Wommanican knew what it meant to straddle a border, culturally and literally. Much of her work centered around being in between, being from neither here nor there. For her, borderlands were not just physical. They were psychological, spiritual, and sexual. Please welcome the Chicana feminist and queer scholar: Gloria Anzaldúa.
Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa was born on September 26, 1942 in the Río Grande Valley of south Texas. This region lies at the southern coastal tip of Texas, and includes the north-eastern part of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. This land is a crossroads, a collision of worlds and people. Gloria’s legacy began in this place of Indigenous origin and Spanish and American conquest. Gloria was the daughter of a Spanish American and a Native American and the oldest of four children. She was born and raised on a ranch. Her family worked the land and she came to know the landscape intimately.
When she was 6 years old, Gloria was diagnosed with a rare hormonal condition. It caused her to go through puberty much younger than other children, and then ended bone growth early. In her essay “La Prieta” she would later write:
“I saw myself reflected as ‘strange,’ ‘abnormal,’ ‘QUEER.’ I saw no other reflection. Helpless to change that image, I retreated into books and solitude and kept away from others.
The whole time growing up I felt that I was not of this earth.“
When she was 11 years old, Gloria’s father moved the family to Hargill, Texas, where the family worked the fields. At some point they worked as migrant workers in Arkansas before returning to Hargill. These years formed part of the foundation for Gloria’s ethos, her study of marginalization, and her work with migrant peoples.
Gloria’s father died when she was 14. In the same essay she wrote:
“It irrevocably shattered the myth that there existed a male figure to look after me. How could my strong, good, beautiful godlike father be killed? How stupid and careless of God. What if chance and circumstance and accident ruled? I lost my father, God, and my innocence all in one bloody blow.”
Gloria worked with migrant farm worker children in the 1960s and then university students for much of the rest of her career. In 1969, Gloria received her B.A. in English, Art, and Secondary Education from Pan American University, now the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She started a job as a preschool and special education teacher. She then earned a masters in English and Education from the University of Texas in 1972.
A few years later she taught a course at UT-Austin called “La Mujer Chicana,” which she described as a turning point for her. She felt more connected to the queer community, writing, and feminism. In 1977, she moved to California to devote herself to writing. She also continued to take part in political activism and looked to build and be a part of a multicultural feminist movement.
Gloria’s disappointment in the lack of writing published by women of color could be seen as the fertile soil on which her work over the next decade would grow. Her two major works were released in the 80’s. The first, a groundbreaking anthology she co-edited titled: This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. This anthology became hugely influential in academic circles, linking race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality in unprecedented ways. One of the contributors, Barbara Smith, later wrote that Black, Native American, Asian American, and Latina women "were involved in autonomous organization at the same time that we [were] beginning to find each other.” She called This Bridge Called My Back, “a document of and a catalyst for these coalitions.”
The book also brought a framework of race and ethnicity analysis to queer studies.
In 1987 Gloria published the semi-autobiographical work titled Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. The hallmark of her work, prose interspersed with bold poetry, was on full display in this book. She wrote in a unique blend of English and several variations of Spanish, creating a kind of interstitial language that was daunting for a non-bilingual reader to untangle. That was exactly the point.
In the highly acclaimed Borderlands, Gloria confronted her past growing up on the Mexico-Texas border. She highlighted the uncomfortable territory of fringes and contradictions. A major theme in this work is “Nepantla”, an Aztec word meaning “in the middle”. Gloria described herself as a “Nepantlera”, as someone who moves between worlds and is unable to align with one group, one society, one language, or one belief system.
In 1986, Gloria won the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award for This Bridge Called My Back: Writing by Radical Women of Color.
In 1987, Borderlands was named one of the 38 best books of 1987 by Library Journal and one of the 100 Best Books of the Century by Hungry Mind Review and Utne Reader. Gloria also recieved a National Endowment of the Arts Fiction Award, the Lambda Lesbian Small Book Press Award, and a Sappho Award of Distinction. The National Women’s Studies Association awards the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize annually.
Gloria's body of work left an indelible mark at the crossroads of history, sexuality, and ethnicity and transformed American and Chicano studies. Her writing continues to have a wide influence. It’s not hard to imagine why. As another example, she wrote:
“I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice. Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue--my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.”
Gloria died on May 15, 2004 from complications associated with diabetes. She was 61 years old.
All month, we’re celebrating Pride.
For more on why we’re doing what we’re doing, check out our newsletter Womannica Weekly.
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @encyclopediawomannica.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!