Writing 21 Spring 2015 Peer-Review Instructions for Essay 1
Damaris Alvarado
English 1b
March 24, 2015
Essay 2
Gloria Anzaldua experienced firsthand the hardships of racism, homophobia, poverty and
other forms of exclusion while growing up in South Texas California. Her experiences served
her as inspiration for her book Borderlands - La Frontera, she interpreted her hardships in her
book as her “open wounds” of her soul by describing her experience as a Chicana, a lesbian and
a writer. Throughout the book Borderlands Anzaldua poetically describes what she believes the
“New Mestiza” is by examining herself, her land, her culture and her language. The borderland
Anzaldua refers to in her book is the physical border that mankind have set between México and
the United States however, Anzaldua also refers to borderlands in a psychological way, the
spiritual and religious borderland that she believes people in her culture mentally set among
themselves. Although most critiques praise the combination of historical information, personal
experiences and her indigenous upbringing in Anzaldua’s essays as influential to the Chicano
culture, critique Gorge Capetillo categorized Anzaldua’s writing style as dialectical and
“postmodern” simply because it is hard to pin down her meaning. However, Anzaldua’s
dialectical writing style enables the book to have a strong meaning, without it would be difficult
to decode the meaning behind her indigenous culture.
Critiques like Gorge Capetillo dislike the way author Gloria Anzaldua uses her dialect
method of writing in Borderlands. He believes her style of writing alienates other ethnicities
from truly diving in and understanding the meaning behind the entire book because for one, it is
partially written in “slang” Spanish with a few indigenous words and because Anzaldua only
makes references to her ethnicity group in which other races can’t relate to. However, I believe
Anzaldua’s dialectical method of writing is inspiring and crucially important because she is
using it to convey a point. On the general side, she wanted to encourage all Chicanos who read
her books to become creative writers and break the boundaries of being the average, ordinary
writer. In the complex side Anzaldua wrote in a complex way because that’s the best way she felt
would describe the complexity of her culture. On the other hand, by using this style of writing
Anzaldua established a connection with the readers particularly Chicanos which she would’ve
never established thus she not had written her book the way she did. I also don’t believe
Anzaldua is alienating any ethnicities, on the contrary I believe anyone who isn’t Chicana/o –
indigenous and has read this book left with a much broad understanding of what it means to be a
Chicana, what it means to be Indigenous, what it means to be a Mestiza.
Anzaldua uses a unique blend of languages a variation of English and a few different
forms of Spanish because she purposely wanted to show the reader that the feeling of frustration
and irritation were the very same feelings she experienced throughout her life as she struggled to
communicate in a country where non- English speakers are rejected and pushed aside. By writing
in Spanglish Anzaldua purposely created a task for the non- bilingual readers, she wanted them
to decipher the hidden meaning of the text. However, Mr. Capetillo does not agree with her
unique style, he says is too challenging to comprehend Anzaldua’s book. For the average reader
it can become frustrating and irritating trying to decipher the text and pin point what she is trying
to convey but, Anzaldua’s language and writing style is an essential feature to her writing. Her
book is dedicated to being proud of her heritage and recognizing the dimension of her culture,
and one of the borders Anzaldua addresses is language. Her writing is clearly very powerful and
profound when it comes to the criticism of Borderlands because some people do not agree with
her style but if she would’ve limited her language in her writing, it would’ve been difficult to
decode the meaning behind her indigenous culture.
Gloria Anzaldua was a great creative writer and thinker who influenced many readers of
all ethnicities. Her struggles and experiences while growing up helped shape her into the writer
she became. All though her style of writing is very bold to some people like to Gorge Capetillo, I
think it was her own unique way of communicating her feelings to the world. Without her unique
style she would’ve never been able to convey her message; there is many physical borders/
boundaries that mankind has set but borders should never exist in the soul.