Indigeneity, diaspora, and ethical turn in Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera

Abstract

In her article “Indigeneity, Diaspora, and Ethical Turn in Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera” Hsinya Huang discusses indigeneity vis-à-vis diaspora, two concepts often used as if they were necessarily antagonistic and antithetical to one another. While in diaspora studies Native people are marginalized, Huang resituates the figure of the Native to the core of diasporic discussion by tracing the movement, migration, or scattering of Native people from their established or ancestral homeland. Drawing on Gloria Anzaldúa’s life narrative in Borderlands/La Frontera, Huang advances the concept of the ethical turn in diaspora studies by questioning the master narrative regarding the diasporas. Huang argues that the othered Native should be redeemed to the center of diaspora studies not as alterity within the self, but as a subject that comes to meet us face-to-face.