Translation of “Borderlands: Tlilli, Tlapalli / The Path of the Red and Black Ink” by Gloria Anzaldua

Abstract

Gloria Anzaldua in her book Borderlands, talks about spirits, multiple voices and hybrid identity. She also talks about community, love, sharing and nurturing. Only people who share her mental space and history of oppression can understand her edge of madness, the urge to transcend the past and present to move forward with a new identity -“the new mestiza”i.Borderlands holds up American and Latino cultural differences for its readers and elaborates how one can exist in between. The book as a whole presents a complex account of Chicana culture. Some readers have struggled with the co-existence of multiple languages in her writings – namely English, Spanish and the variations of those languages. Anzaldúa, in an interview observes the importance of the mixed experience: “I think what's probably one of the riskier things that I did in Borderlands/La Frontera was to open up the concept of mestizaje, of the new mestiza and hybridity, to be non-exclusive, to be inclusive of white people and people from other communities. And the risk was in having again Euro-Americans take over the space. And I don't think that's happened very much.” (Durrow, Heidi) Hybridity