Without Borders

Heritage and culture are two elements that are incredibly significant to most individuals. Those two items are essential to the foundation of a person. The way a person looks, sometimes acts, religious views, social environment, and more are derived from a person’s heritage and culture. These elements are sometimes difficult to identify with when a person is a “mulatto” meaning mixed in heritage, or when a person has been raised predominantly around one specific culture. Gloria Anzaldua’s poem, “To Live in the Borderlands Means You,” emphasizes the importance of staying true to a person’s ancestral roots and not circumventing to the western culture or stereotypically “white” culture.

One point that Anzaldua highlights is the idea that a person should remain true to their heritage no matter what his/her race or religion. The Borderlands seems to be a manifestation of a utopian place where each individual can be who he/she is without any criticism or discrimination from anyone else who is attempting to live or already lives in the Borderlands. One of the only negative things that a person can do in the Borderlands is resist their heritage; Anzaldua states that it is “bad having denied the Indian or Black” inside a person or any other nationality if that is what contributes to a person’s foundation. The reason why denying where an individual came from is negative is due to Anzaldua’s opinion expressed in her poem that a person should embrace where he/she came from because if one does not know where he/she came from, then one does not where he/she is going. She implies that dissention amongst an individual and his/her heritage can be compared to “[he/she] being at home, a stranger” indicating the feeling of being lost in a familiar place or a place that a person should be very comfortable at like a sanctuary. Anzaldua symbolizes her staying true to her heritage by the utilization of her native language, Spanish. Using Spanish is a direct reflection of her culture, and it reinforces the theme that each person can learn more about his/her culture in order to teach and learn about other backgrounds. The learning of each other’s backgrounds will further induce a better understanding of where we all come from and what is common in the various cultures. The education of each other’s heritages will lead to “chile in the borscht, whole-wheat tortillas, and speaking Tex-Mex with a Brooklyn accent”; these instances demonstrate the mixing of cultures.

Another point of emphasis for Anzaldua is going against the western culture or the stereotypically “white” society. Anzaldua states in stanza seven, “ the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart pound you pinch you roll you out smelling like white bread but dead.” This is a direct metaphor indicating that the white teeth represent “white” society, and the pinching and rolling of a person’s batter is the “white” society transforming him/her of a different decent into one of them demonstrated by the person of a different heritage resulting in having the smell of “white” bread. Anzaldua also states, however, that if an individual is white or has white in his/her heritage than “ denying the Anglo inside you is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black”, which exhibits the importance of staying true to oneself.

Another focal point that Gloria Anzaldua places emphasis on is being a mulatto. She opens up the poem by calling the reader a mulatto indicating that living in the Borderlands means that a person is “neither