Border identity politics: The new mestiza in Borderlands

Abstract

This paper investigates Anzaldua's Borderlands, first, for its radical theory of the mestiza consciousness and how it would establish the border identity for the Chicana/o people.Anzaldua's Borderlands exemplifies the articulation between the contemporary awareness that 'all' identity is constructed across difference and argues for the necessity of a new politics of difference to accompany this new sense of self. Borderlands maps a sense of the plurality of self, which Anzaldua calls mestiza or border consciousness. This consciousness emerges from a subjectivity structured by multiple determinants - gender, class, sexuality - in competing cultures and racial identities.