Class 6   Anzaldúa Reading Response

Delicia Alarcón

10/15/2023

dda8357@nyu.edu

Sanamos en dos idiomas/ we heal in two languages

My first reading of Anzaldúa Borderlands/La Frontera was in 2017 when I began my other MA program in American Studies. Borderlands/ La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa examines the notion of borders and the creation of a borderland. She is a Chicana Author and Activist who revolutionized the narrative around Latinas in the United States. She has provided a new framework and lens through which women could analyze their personhood in the United States and the world. Her Borderland politics has shifted the way in which Latinas identify within themselves, their heritage, and how they navigate all the spaces they inhabit. As a first-generation Latina, this book resonated with my experiences growing up in the United States. Though I grew up in the Northeast and my family ancestry is not from México; rather Paraguay, South America, there is a shared identity. Anzaldúa describes this as “el choque de un alma atrapado entre el mundo del espíritu y el mundo de la técnica a veces las déjà entullada. Cradled in one culture, sandwiched between two cultures, straddling all three cultures, and their value systems, la mestiza undergoes a struggle of flesh, a struggle of borders, and inner war. Like all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates. Like others having or living in more than one culture, we get multiple, often opposing messages. The coming together of two self-consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural collision” (Borderlands, 100). Engulfed in my experiences are these layers of identity. I live in U.S. “American” culture daily through schooling, friendships, and daily interactions within the society. Then at home, the Paraguayan value system and customs shape the language spoken at home, the food my family eats, and how we collectively move in the United States. In reading through Light in the Dark text Anzaldúa expands the idea of
Nepantla, “Este choque shifts us to nepantla, a psychological, liminal space between the way things had been and an unknown future. Nepantla is the space in-between, the locus and sign of transition. In nepantla we realize that realities clash, authority figures of the various groups demand contradictory commitments, and we and others have failed living up to idealized goals. We’re caught in remolinos (vortexes), each with different, often contradictory forms of cognition, perspectives, worldviews, belief systems—all occupying the transitional nepantla space” (17). Nepantla illustrates this in-between notion of identity similar to her work in Borderlands. This new framework applies to the in-between feeling of healing. Healing too can be a “remolino” que va y viene. Como un vaivén. Another notable part of Anzaldúas work is this language exchange between Spanish and English which illustrates the notion that we can exist in two languages, feel in two languages, experience trauma in two languages and eventually heal in two languages. With multiple languages one has in a way more vocabulary to use to share and express what needs to be healed. In processing this Anzaldúa says, “I name this searching, inquiring, and healing consciousness “conocimiento” (19). This in-between space allows for a search, healing consciousness that moves toward ‘conocimiento”. The in-between space holds the shadows or sombras we need to work through in order to heal. If we are not aware of these sombras and trauma that resides and hides in the sombras then we cannot heal like Freud states in his work. “Conocimiento urges us to respond not just with the traditional practice of spirituality (contemplation, meditation, and private rituals) or with the technologies of political

activism (protests, demonstrations, and speakouts), but with the amalgam of the two: spiritual activism, which we’ve also inherited along with la sombra. Conocimiento pushes us into engaging the spirit in confronting our social sickness with new tools and practices whose goal is to effect a shift. Spirit-in-the-world becomes conscious, and we become conscious of spirit in the world. The healing of our wounds results in transformation, and transformation results in the healing of our wounds.” (19). These two must operate in tandem much like using two languages operare in tandem. The healing begets the transformation and the transformation begets the healing. In order to arrive at both we must shed light on the shadows and open up space for light to come through the shadows.