In this essay I argue that the literary techniques in Borderlands.docx

In this essay I argue that the literary techniques in
Borderlands/La Frontera-The New Mestiza as well as the form
of the book are means by which Anzaldúa (also) renders her
identity politics-the Mestiza consciousness. In other words,
Mestiza consciousness does not come into being solely through
the content of the book and the meaning of Anzaldúa's written
words. It is chiseled also by a unique employment of multiple
literary techniques that themselves embody a meaning and/or a
value by which a layer of the writer's identity is implied. The
essay provides an analysis of the strategic use of code-
switching, first- and third-person transitions and related
alternations in points of view from which Anzaldúa portrays a
single event. Bilingualism of the book is also paid attention to
and it is argued that each of Anzaldúa's languages refers to
different value systems and to different lived experience.
Further, this article shows at length the roots of Anzaldúa's
persuasion that writing can possess therapeutic and healing
qualities both for the writer and the reader and that in general
artistic creation bears transformative potentials.
[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
In this essay I argue that the literary techniques in

[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
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Headnote
Abstract: In this essay I argue that the literary techniques in

The style of Borderlands is a hybrid style: poetry, description,
essay-we cross genres, cross borders. It's a new poetics. It's a
new aesthetics... 1 (Gloria Anzaldúa)
Borderlands/La Frontera-The New Mestiza is a book acclaimed
not only for the author's portrayal of the path that has led to the
invention of her new self-the New Mestiza. The approaches to
the composition of the book and the combinatory techniques
which have been used to describe the hybrid identity are hybrid
in no lesser a degree and deserve equal considerations.
The work shows both the creative as well as the annihilating
forces a person living in the borderlands-i.e. in between
categories-must struggle against. Anzaldúa describes the tension
that exists "wherever two or more cultures edge each other" 2
and invents her personal literary style where two or more kinds
of literary techniques are united in a single sentence. Anzaldúa
finds herself continually at a quest for an adequate means of
self-expression; a style which would convey the internal hurt
caused by historical, political, social, and also linguistic
oppression and at the same time would embody the language
which would perfectly fit her multiple identity-Mestiza
consciousness.
Anzaldúa is both the inheritor of the indigenous tradition and

the bearer of the Western academic thought which she has
obtained pursuing her university education. The authoress thus
inosculates these two contradictory approaches to language, and
the literary style of Borderlands/La Frontera projects the
writer's attempt at their mutual fusion and interconnectivity.
As Anzaldúa seeks a form of reconciliation of the two bordering
cultures and her double linguistic background to both of which
she belongs, she discovers a luculent instrument: the solution
dwells in writing Borderlands/La Frontera bilingually.
Throughout the book the writer, gradually, composes a mosaic
that in the end reveals a delicate new perspective for grasping
the world's reality, and of course, a new approach to writing as
such. Not only does Anzaldúa challenge set definitions and
categories of gender, ethnic and sexual identity, she also
shatters the academic criteria a piece of writing should obey. In
an extraordinary way the authoress combines the old with the
modern-her native tongue and ever-so flexible English. She also
alternates between first and third person narration, which
indicates her step-by-step growing awareness of collective and
individual identity.
The experience Anzaldúa portrays can thus be understood as
both a representative of Anzaldúa's autobiography as an
individual and at the same time as a representative of the
universal story of the Chicano people. The authoress confers on
her writing: "...the literature that [I] write is not just about [my]
experience; it's a cultural representation... in Borderlands I am
representing the mestiza, the Chicana culture. I'm self -
representing it." 3 Thus one finds that the listings of historical
events in the book, involving the writer's coming to terms with
her family's life, are epitomes of universal human experience.
By such means Anzaldúa hopes that every individual can relate
to her explication of the hybrid Mestiza identity and embrace
the cultural differences.
Further, as a writer, she defines herself as a poet-shaman. She
wants to heal herself and her culture from diverse modes of
suffering that affect Native American communities. Anzaldúa

writes a confession of someone who strives to preserve her
cultural heritage and at the same time tries to grasp the
contradictions that are intrinsic to the roots (and the self) which
have sprung up from the border culture, the "thin edge of
barbwire." 4
One who reads Anzaldúa's Borderlands is expected to look for
the message of the book beyond the printed words. The reader
must rely on intuitive understanding; an unconscious link to the
work will be born once the reader frees himself/herself from the
conventional deciphering of the text. As the author's mixture of
English and Spanish is spontaneous so is expected to be the
reader-unbound and willing to accept all shifts in style and form
as well as the emotions that the book arouses in him/her.
BORDERLANDS' HYBRID STYLE: MIXING GENRES
To meet her goal in the readers, Anzaldúa utilizes numerous
literary techniques and grants her book a special, flamboyant
composition. The writing floats above the two main languages
as well as above the styles used. Prose mingles with poetry,
English with Spanish, essays with autohistorías, history with
myths. This is what Anzaldúa says about Borderlands/La
Frontera in the fifth chapter of the book:
This...product [of writing] seems an assemblage, a montage, a
beaded work with several leitmotifs and with a central core,
now appearing, now disappearing in a crazy dance. The whole
thing has had a mind of its own, escaping me and insisting on
putting together the pieces of its own puzzle with minimal
direction from my will. It is a rebellious, willful entity?for me
it is alive, infused with spirit. I talk to it; it talks to me. 5
The question then becomes evident: can Anzaldúa succeed in
delivering a comprehensive message when the book's
'scaffolding' 6 is not anchored in any pre-scribed category and
the book aims to challenge given academic rules for writing? I
believe so.
Having liberated herself from the academically dictated style of
prose- and poetry-writing, she achieves a goal of unrestricted
expression which both conveys and embodies the author's

message and is the utter representation of freedom. Below I
explain the methods of literary techniques employment that
make meeting Anzaldúa's objectives possible.
The composition of Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera openly
acknowledges the Aztec mosaic-like pattern of writing. The
Aztec codices were painted with red and black ink, the colors
alternating one with another. The intertwined design of these
two colors symbolized wisdom and writing. The ancient Aztec
civilization maintained that communication with the Divine
Deities could be attained through the power of "metaphor and
symbol, by means of poetry and truth." The two colors'
continual emergence, disappearance and re-emergence anew
again indicated a "thick-here, thick-there" pattern that
suggested weaving motions. 7
The interwoven variations in styles and genres are typical for
the writing technique Anzaldúa has taken up in Borderlands and
it is analogous to the weaving pattern of
emergence/disappearance approached above. Anzaldúa thus
explicitly manifests her affinity to the written heritage of her
distant Aztec ancestry. Despite this historical connotation, her
text and the style in which it is composed differ radically in its
purpose from the old-time indigenous codices. Besides abrupt
transitions from lecture-like essays on history and/or
anthropology as well as aesthetics and sociology, sections
written in prose are interlaced with poetry which crops up
suddenly, as if unexpectedly. Yet, Anzaldúa argues, poetry's
capacity for delivering meanings equals that of 'high theory'-
what she calls established academic practices.
Anzaldúa's masterpiece does truly transcend existing theoretical
rules of text composition as well as challenges the literary
canon of the Anglo-American academy. Borderlands ' aim is to
enunciate the writer's struggle for her (and Chicano people's)
cultural legacy and, at the same time, demonstrate her endeavor
to "change composition, the way people write...because life is a
permanent resistance against the status quo, the political
climate, and against the academic standards of the different

disciplines." 8
Why does the authoress refuse to obey given academic doctrines
and why does she insist on shaping a theory of her own? First,
the entire concept of Mestiza consciousness illustrates the
fluidity of the self that is founded on self-invented values and
laws. The book, therefore, reflects this independence-oriented
Mestiza philosophy and 'behaves' accordingly. In other words,
the writing style embodies a mirror image of the unbridled,
limit-free Mestiza consciousness; Borderlands is a
materialization of Anzaldúa's mental construction of the
personal (and collective) identity.
Second, the authoress disputes Western academy-derived theory
for she finds it restraining and also ignorant of her position of a
marginalized writer. She contests the deletion by the dominant
culture from a socially inferior standing. This position serves as
an impulse that consequently provides soil for an alternative
type of theory construction. Hector A. Torres argues that under
an imperative of this sort "the minority writer produces a theory
that is much more readable but not any less rigorous, precisely
because the 'fit' between fact and theory, description and
explanation, life and text is more immediate in terms of the
political context in which that theory or explanation is written."
9
By contrast, the official or 'high theory' that proceeds from the
educational establishment employs exclusively abstract
language and focuses on objectivity. Any autobiographical
details are expunged from the academic text. Also contemporary
theory is highly specialized and routinely involves sophisticated
terms, specific-meaning systems, and complex, intertextual
references. This results in a division of the reader- and writer-
communities and may cause an abysmal discrepancy between
the insider/outsider knowledge which implies potential
impediment to social and/or economic advancement. 10
Anzaldúa is convinced that professional jargon as well as
abstract theorizing can worsen the writer-reader communication
and lead to mutual alienation. Anzaldúa goes against the fixed

genres and produces writing which is to be personal and
accessible to all readers. She constructs a theoretical framework
of her own which enables her to articulate the lived experience
of a minority writer: she makes an attempt to translate what
would normally be a dense, theoretical writing into practical
terms which have the ability to convey the experiences of self-
identified women, lesbians, and other previously ignored
minorities. 11
Writing, for Anzaldúa, possesses transformative powers. So
does theory. Keating writes that conventional theories and
belief systems often "contain hidden biases privileging
restrictive gender, ethnic, sexual, and class norms" and that it is
vital people find open political theories that "simultaneously
expose these hidden biases and offer alternative perspectives."
12 This view sums up the purport of Anzaldúa's theory.
The following lines in Anzaldúa's own words summarize her
call for new types of theories that re-interpret and revise
existing belief systems. Anzaldúa's aims to correlate
Borderlands/La Frontera with her theory:
Theory produces effects that change people and the way they
perceive the world. Thus we need teorías that will enable us to
interpret what happens in the world, that will explain how and
why we relate to certain people in specific ways, that will
reflect what goes on between inner, outer and peripheral "I"'s
within a person and between the personal "I"'s and the
collective "we" of our ethnic communities. Necessitamos teorías
that will rewrite history using race, class, gender and ethnicity
as categories of analysis, theories that cross borders, that blur
boundaries-new kind of theories with new theorizing
methods.13
The book's hybrid form illustrates Anzaldúa's new theorizing
methods through the weaving pattern applied to the writing
process: autobiography precedes historical narrative which is
followed by poetry-which, in Borderlands, is highly
autobiographical. Further, the shifts in genres are supported by
shifts in registers and switching across her English, Spanish,

and other languages.
To provide evidence for the hybrid style of the book, one may
focus, for example, on the opening chapter of Borderlands/La
Frontera titled "The Homeland, Aztlán: El otro México." It
commences with a Mexican poem, then a brief introduction on
the indigenous people unfolds in a sociological and
geographical essayist style. An extensive poem written in both
English and Spanish follows portraying the ambiguities of life
on the U.S./Mexican border. The genre used for the description
of the situation in the Rio Grande region then alters: an essay
ensues. A depiction of an autobiographical experience with the
migrant people is included next to be subsequently sustained by
historical data. Thus various genres and different languages
form the Aztec weaving pattern of writing which is the
pervasive compositional strategy of the book. Diane Freedman
argues that Anzaldúa's writing from and through borders
"results in an unbounded fecundity, a powerful, poetic hybrid
where the personal, poetic and political are joined...[It is] a
self-expressive literature of mosaics and margins [which] defy
dominant culture's 'voice of order.'"14
EXPERIENCING THE WRITING PROCESS: THE
SHAMANISTIC AND HEALING QUALITIES OF WRITING
For silence to transform into speech, sounds and words, it must
first traverse through our female bodies.15 (Gloria Anzaldúa)
Anzaldúa is persuaded that the female body is a gateway
through which a woman can access her language. The epigraph
above indicates the central position female corporality attains in
women's political assertion of the right to voice their
overlooked subordinate standing within the society and culture.
Anzaldúa's focus is on dismissing the compulsory tradition of
silence that has cornered women in minority cultures through
the cultural, sexual and linguistic oppressions. She believes that
creative processes-especially writing-possess such
transformative powers that not only women's identity but also
their immediate reality may witness a profound change. By
writing, an authoress can gain a thorough perspective of her

inner self, can achieve autonomy and most importantly, can
discover how the dominant culture has devalued her personality.
Throughout all her work, Anzaldúa shows how women's
potential of developing self-affirmative forms of expression,
such as speaking and writing, has been inhibited by the Western
culture's favoring of the masculine. As a result, a woman is
defined by male desire and "the female body has been
objectified, appropriated, marginalized and repressed in and by
phallocentric language systems."16
This significantly influences women's view of themselves; any
reference to their selves as well as their identity and sensuality
is inevitably carried out in accordance with the male-defined
standards. The absence of female-identified language violates
women's ability to word their utter experience in a satisfactory
way, i.e. in a manner that would fully correspond and reflect
females' experience and at the same time would not hinder their
attempt at expressing themselves totally. "It is difficult to speak
from/through our bodies because they have been stolen,
brutalized or numbed," argues Anzaldúa in a preface to Making
Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras.17
The path to discovering an adequate modus of female-oriented
discourse bears no insurmountable obstacles for women. They
must, so urges Anzaldúa, reclaim their stolen bodies and let
their embodied experience resonate through their flesh. "It's not
on paper that you create but in your innards, in the gut and out
of living tissue-organic writing, I call it," says the writer.18 To
Anzaldúa, body and text are one.
AnaLouise Keating implies that women's body-writing can
mediate new forms of knowledge because such creation employs
resources that cannot be controlled, not even by the writer
herself. The bodily component used in the quest for
comprehension of their selves alters women's view of their
bodies. The female body (and a woman too) should no longer be
understood as the other, as the stranger, as "the one closer to
the undivine."19 Women should learn to value and recognize
the carnal within their experience and their writing should

reflect this new dimension.
It is generally believed that females tend to perceive their
experience through emotions, as well as through intuition and
instincts. These irrational components of grasping the reality
have been disparaged by the hegemony of Cartesian knowledge
that elevates the conceptual approach to the world over the
corporeal; in other words, it denies the feminine knowledge its
validity. Therefore, as Keating speaks of the possibility of
inventing a new, nonphallic, kind of knowledge, "the
development of female-identified voices, bodies and texts
breaks apart this [Cartesian] gendered binary structure,
providing [thus] a significant challenge to existing knowledge
systems." 20
Anzaldúa believes that culture can be changed from within
because body-writing grants self-identified women new tactics
for political intervention and social change. Anzaldúa's female
writer, a mujer magica, acquires through her body new modes of
perception and then transmits these into her actions.
Abstract thought and the guidance of academic erudition are, in
Anzaldúa's Mestiza view, no significant factors in literary
creation; on the very contrary, she encourages oppressed women
of color to dispose of the norms indoctrinated by Western
culture's educational system and produce writing free of any
pre-constructed tenets. "Throw away abstraction and the
academic learning, the rules, the map and compass. Feel your
way without blinders. To touch more people, the personal
realities and the social must be evoked-not through rhetoric but
through blood and pus and sweat."21
In putting such a stringent emphasis on the inclusion of
materiality in the creating process, Anzaldúa forbears, however,
a major constituent of writing; she neglects the quality of the
literary piece. Excluding the academic restrictions from the
process of creation does not necessarily imply an alleviation of
the artistic value of a work. Yet, the aesthetics of the writing
and its quality do not seem to be Anzaldúa's main objective.
Nonetheless, in the interview22 with Karin Ikas, Anzaldúa does

admit that the reader's response is important to her and
therefore she must strive for aesthetic qualities in her books
and-since she resists all prescribed theoretical limitations-
maneuver between what is still acceptable to the readers and
what goes beyond.
Anzaldúa's overriding of the artistic qualities as comprehended
by the Western culture has two motives that are closely linked:
First, indigenous people never separate aesthetic qualities of a
piece of art from its religious, social and/or functional
purposes. Creation for mastery's sake leads to the
objectification of the work, which is a trait representative of the
Western culture, argues Anzaldúa. She refers to her Indian past
and thus on purpose dismisses the dictate of the Western
aesthetics. She wishes to treat a work of art "not just as an
object but also as a person." To her, the value of a piece of art
lies in the energy it can radiate and the live and active powers it
carries. These powers have the capacity to initiate a change not
only in the observer (or a reader) but also in the artist (writer)
herself. Such art is "dedicated to the validation of humans."23
Writing can perform a change.
Second, Anzaldúa ascribes healing traits to the process of
writing. This feature seems to have been the principal impetus
for her literary as well as theoretical accomplishment. The
authoress associates the writer with the shaman and the purpose
of writing is then made obvious: finding a cure for the residues
of trauma faced by an oppressed woman. The medicine is to be
looked for within the female body which is burdened with the
traumatic experience. The writing process represents the healing
agent through which the medicine is then administered. The
quality of a piece of writing lies first of all in its therapeutic
potential. The aesthetic content, so enforced in the Western arts,
is in Anzaldúa's perspective secondary.
The metaphorical analogy of a writer being a shaman is the
central and most important notion in Anzaldúa's literary works;
it is a topic which Anzaldúa never allows to pass unmentioned
in her essays on literary production. An essay which explicitly

deals with the shaman-writer parallel was published after first
theoretical reactions to Borderlands/La Frontera appeared. In
"Metaphors in the Tradition of the Shaman," Anzaldúa re-
conceptualizes Aztec metaphysical beliefs that used to be
associated with the shaman's role within the indigenous society.
The authoress transfers the ancient shamanistic tradition into
the present situation and incorporates the idea into her
theoretical thought.
The shaman-the Aztec nahual-was to preserve and create the
cultural or the communal identity and function as a mediator
between the cultural heritage of the past and present. Nowadays,
Anzaldúa employs the shamanistic features in her Mestiza-
consciousness-defined aesthetics. Further she argues, in
Keating's words, that "tribal cultures' shamanistic traditions
represent the development of sophisticated, well-integrated
aesthetic, religious, and political systems," and thus seeks to
shatter the Western culture's approach to these practices as
pagan, superstition-based cults.24
How does Gloria Anzaldúa then use the shamanistic metaphor in
her works? In the beginning of Anzaldúa's writing, there must
be an upsetting and/or painful emotion emitted from within her
body; from this impulse, unconsciously, an image is derived.
Since an image is "more direct and more immediate than
words," it bridges the gap between the evoked feeling and
knowledge. Afterwards, the sensation is verbalized: "picture
language precedes thinking in words; the metaphorical mind
precedes analytical consciousness."25
It has been argued that for Anzaldúa the body is a fundamental
agent present in the process of writing and that writing, being a
shamanistic endeavor, is expected to release healing powers.
Therefore it follows that the impulses that force Anzaldúa to
write involve intense physical and psychic pain-essential
ingredients in the writing experience.
In order to gain the ability to see the way in which the healing
nahual has been built into Borderlands/La Frontera, one must
decipher the three components of the overall 'medical'

treatment:
First, Anzaldúa strives to understand the origins of an 'illness'
and the pattern in which it "unbalances a person or a
community" and spreads as "a form of disease, or
disinformation/misinformation perpetrated on women and
people of color." Second, Anzaldúa searches for the cure that
"leads to a change in the belief system." Third, she
acknowledges the healer: integrating the tradition of the shaman
into her writing allows Anzaldúa to take the advantage of the
performative effects of language. Thus not only can she
reinvent her personal identity but she can also reinvent her
immediate reality and that of her readers as well.26
An even more self-explanatory parallel to the therapeutic
service the book Borderlands/La Frontera embodies can be
offered: the 'illness' to be treated is represented by "una herida
abierta, the 1,950 mile-long open wound dividing a pueblo." In
other words, the U.S./Mexican border is the disease. Relief or
cure can be achieved through writing the body and the soul, i.e.
through inventing the New Mestiza. The doctor is the authoress
herself; "writing heals me [and] brings me great joy." 27
Although writing delivers an improvement in the physical
and/or psychic state, Anzaldúa compares the writing process to
undergoing an immense danger; a mental barrier that must be
overcome. The creative process, to Anzaldúa, represents a
source of anxiety for she never knows what depths of her self
she might uncover. "To write is to confront one's demons, look
them in the face and live to write about them...yet, in that very
act lies our survival because a woman who writes has power."28
CODE-SWITCHING
Earlier in this essay I have demonstrated that Anzaldúa's style is
one of a medley of genres: the text of Borderlands is
interspersed with prose and verse, autobiographical testimonials
shift to academic essays on history, legends and myth-making
go hand in hand. The genre of the book continually resists
stasis. Such an intentional design thus transgresses the standard
conventions of literary production for Anzaldúa strives to

vanquish the limitations set by literary theory in her quest for
ideal means of expression and conveyance of the Mestiza
philosophy.
Lois Zamora is highly supportive of Anzaldúa's style-blending
that contributes to the perfection of Borderlands' message:
[Anzaldúa] con/fuses the complementary impulses to record and
to imagine, creating brilliant mixtures of myth, history, and the
remembered past...[where] autobiography and fiction naturally
overlap and invade each other's usual territory... It is a matter
of finding a voice or style that does not violate one's several
components of identity. 29
Multiple identity, multiple genres. There is, however, another
element in Anzaldúa's Borderlands that can be invested with the
adjective 'multiple' and that is the optics of the writer. In other
words, Anzaldúa has taken advantage of her placement between
borders: she has been searching for both her selfhood and
culture within the dominant Anglo society as well as within the
marginalized Chicano community. Having operated along these
moveable boundaries, Anzaldúa is infused with an alternative
insight-or the Coatlicue state as she calls it. It is a 'rupture in
everyday sensing.'30 The authoress therefore possesses a
capacity of innovative viewing and interpreting her immediate
reality.
How does she transmit the multiplicity of her perspective via
the text? What tools does she employ? Code-switching, besides
variations in genre, is another technique the authoress deploys
in order to convey the philosophy of the Mestiza and to heal
from her oppressed and underprivileged past.
In Borderlands there are two models according to which the
technique of switching codes can be analyzed. First, it involves
switching between English and Spanish (and other of Anzaldúa's
reclaimed languages). Second, it pertains to abrupt shifts
between first and third person narration.
For an oppressed Mestiza dwelling in the region of a dividing
line, the ability to speak in many tongues becomes the primary
survival mechanism. Linda Nelson furthers this idea:

"Switching codes, switching languages, is necessary when the
dominant culture insists on one language, one color, two
genders, one sexuality."31
Anzaldúa makes transitions from taught standard English to
acquired working-class English to native Chicano Spanish or to
Tex-Mex. She frequently does so even in the middle of a
sentence or a poem, thus claiming all languages as equal. Yet,
each of the languages is used for different occasions; each
refers to a different culture and portrays different events. Each
language also implies a different value system. From the mutual
combination of the languages deployed in Borderlands a
'borderland language' emerges. In the preface to the second
edition Anzaldúa claims:
The switching of codes in this book from English to Castilian
Spanish to the North Mexican dialect to Tex-Mex to a
sprinkling of Nahuatl to a mixture of all of these, reflects my
language, a new language-the language of the Borderlands.
There at the juncture of cultures, languages cross-pollinate and
are revitalized; they die and are born.32
In Borderlands Chicano Spanish is mostly used in the depiction
of emotional distress or when a special emphasis is put on
historical facts that entail the cultural oppression of all
indigenous people and/or Chicanos/Chicanas. Cultural
terminology is solely referred to in Chicano Spanish e.g.
maquiladoras-factories owned by American conglomerates
where especially Mexican immigrants are employed and paid
minimal wages; pocho-an anglicized Spanish-speaking Mexican
whose accent is characteristic of North Americans and who
distorts his Spanish under the influence of English; mojados-
"wetbacks," Mexican immigrants who reached the U.S. by
having waded through the Rio Grande from del otro lao-the
other side, a term Chicanos use when referring to that part of
their homeland which is governed by Mexico.33
To illustrate the differentiated treatment English and Chicano
Spanish are given and the hidden meanings these languages can
contain, an example can be traced in the second chapter

"Movimientos de rebeldía y las culturas que traicionan"
(Movements of Rebellion and Cultures That Betray). The
chapter opens with a lengthy passage that questions the
dominant position of men over women within the Chicano
community; a cultural trait that Anzaldúa radically dismisses.
The writer chronicles her increasing awareness of the cultural
hindrances that are posed in front of her (and other Chicanas) as
she is coming of age: through the initial obedience and silent
acceptance a rebellion surfaces. "I have grown. I no longer
spend my life dumping cultural customs and values that have
betrayed me. I have also gathered time proven customs...that
respect women." 34
The section is written in un-translated Chicano Spanish and as
Saldívar-Hull suggests, "serves as a proclamation of
independence for the mestizas bound within a male-dominated
culture."35 Intentionally, the passage addresses the Chicano
men and male-identified women-those who help to keep alive
the oppressive traditions that circulate continually in the
community-in Spanish. Anzaldúa's use of the native tongue
implies a speech towards the tribe's elders-the bearers of
wisdom and knowledge who have the power of reshaping the
rules of the community and who might thus better comprehend
the speaker's (writer's) concerns. The declaration, however,
ends in English-the dominant culture's language which at the
same time is the language of Anzaldúa's feminist assertion and
the language in which the Mestiza philosophy is formulated.
Anzaldúa's bilingual strategy may denote her plan to confront
the Chicano representatives in the language intrinsic to her
cultural tradition, although they certainly may be fluent English
speakers.36
The title of Borderlands/La Frontera-The New Mestiza itself,
being partly English and partly Spanish, suggests a notion of a
dividing line; both the book and its language contain a
collection of opposites, counterparts and ambiguities. To find
the true meaning of Anzaldúa's words and ideas one has to read
between the lines knowing that every line, at least optically,

represents another border. Does Anzaldúa succeeds in
explicating her identity-politics to her readership even though
her 'borderlands tongue' involves mainly Germanic and
Romance languages, both of which sprang up from different
traditions?
A reader who does not speak Spanish may possibly find
himself/herself at the very same loss that Anzaldúa, as a
representative of a misunderstood and marginalized people,
faces on regular basis. By having mingled the two languages,
Anzaldúa literally forces her readers to undergo an experiment:
First, they witness the shared Chicano experience of perpetual
miscomprehension of their cultural heritage which the dominant
culture fails to recognize as appealing or at least as justified in
its search for roots.
Second, Spanish non-speakers also endure the potential
frustration suffered by the Chicano people that must have
followed instantaneously after the U.S. annexation of the Aztlán
territory: the Mexican mestizos did not then speak English.
Nevertheless, such readers' inability to understand all of
Anzaldúa's words does not necessarily impair the writer's
attempt at conveying her experience in an effective, although
unique, manner. The authoress has simply avoided linguistic
means in the portrayal of her lived experience and has rather
created a genuine sensation of a not-being-understood feeling
directly in her readers. In other words, Anzaldúa teaches her
readers by exerted and individuallylived, therefore active,
perception that is being imposed on the audience while reading
Borderlands; she does not use conventional demonstrative
and/or narrative methods which do not encourage the readers to
participate actively in experiencing the writing in such an
extensive degree as the strategy employed.
Gloria Anzaldúa thus re-creates her readership as she forces her
audience, along with herself, to question the dominant culture's
practices and as she enlivens her personal experience in her
readers. Anzaldúa's numerous passages on writing contained in
the book express her belief, that writing, as well as reading, are

influential creative processes that significantly influence the
artist's and the readership's psyches and bodies. The border
between the creator and the targeted recipient of the message is
then dissolved-both sides share a mutual commonality: they are
affected by the work and possibly changed. As Monika Kaup
writes of Anzaldúa's narrative strategy: "It is to combine and
entangle subject and object positions in cultural narration, a
style that does away with closed-off, bordered positions of
neutral knowers and of cultural actors."37 In Anzaldúa's view
artistic creation is not a mere materialization of ideas; it is
above all a mental and physical experience which carries
therapeutic qualities.
Having explicated the first type of code-switching, i.e., the
alternation of English and Spanish, let us proceed to the second
technique: shifts in first and third person narration.
Changes in the perspective from which she speaks in the work
enable Anzaldúa to record the simultaneous shaping of both her
personal as well as collective identity: of a self-defined
Anzaldúa as a mestiza 'living' her self-invented Mestiza
consciousness, i.e. multiple, all-embracing, evershifting
identity; and of Anzaldúa defined by Western terms as a queer,
lesbian, woman-of-color writer/poet/critic, a member of the
underprivileged Chicano ethnic group and a graduate of an
American university who acknowledges her multiple cultural
roots.
By shifting first and third person narration the writer places
herself in the role of a speaker voicing concerns of multitudes-
sexual, racial, cultural minorities. The authoress says about her
masterpiece:
I don't feel that I, Gloria, produced Borderlands all by myself. I
just happen to be the mouthpiece, the channel. While I do feel
that the images and words...the way that I speak...the structure
and style are mine, I found the raw material out there in the
world, in other people's experiences, and in books.38
How does Anzaldúa employ this codeswitching technique in the
book? Let me provide an example. In the first chapter the

opening poem on geography and history of the troubled Rio
Grande border includes a stanza describing Anzaldúa's painful
balancing on the dividing line. The authoress writes:
This is my home
this thin edge of
barbwire.
Having introduced the general, textbook-like history of the
region, Anzaldúa directs her attention to the overlooked-to
people whose fates are not catalogued in any official version of
history. The closing paragraphs of the chapter describe the
economic exploitation of a representative female refugee la
mojada, la mujer indocumentada as she seeks to support her
Mexican family by working illegally in the U.S. Being
threatened with deportation, such a woman commonly becomes
a prey of victimization. Risking her health, this economic
refugee "leaves the familiar and safe homeground to venture
into unknown and possibly dangerous terrain."39 Thus
Anzaldúa's poem from the beginning of the chapter changes in
the final lines:
This is her home
this thin edge of
barbwire.
No longer does Anzaldúa narrate her personal story. Replacing
"my" with "her" implies the writer's acceptance of a multiple
voice and also her identification with the doomed experience of
the oppressed woman.
Moreover, this "her" does not refer to the story of the above
described illegal trespasser solely. "She" is a vicarious
embodiment of all oppressed and marginalized women whose
experiences Anzaldúa aims to ventilate and incorporate within a
liberating principle-the Mestiza consciousness.
Footnote
1 Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Border Crossings" in: Trivia, Spring 1989.
New Amherst, 1989. p. 49.
2 Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Preface to the First Edition" in: Anzaldúa ,
Op. Cit . p. 19.

3 Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Border Crossings" in: Trivia, Spring 1989.
New Amherst, 1989. p. 47, (emphasis hers).
4 Anzaldúa, Op. Cit. p. 25.
5 Ibid., p. 89-89.
6 Ibid. , p. 88. References to the structuring of the book often
carry allusions to human physiology (such as: "If I can get the
bone structure right, then putting flesh on it proceeds without
too many hitches."). Here scaffolding refers to "the deep
structure [of the text]."
7 Ibid. , p. 91.
8 Ikas, Karin Rosa. "Gloria Anzaldúa: Writer, Editor, Critic,
and Third-World Lesbian Women-of-Color Feminist" in: Ikas,
Karin, ed. Chicana Ways: Conversations with Ten Chicana
Writers . Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press, 2002. p. 6.
9 Torres, Hector A. "In Context: Gloria Anzaldúa's
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza" in: Braum, Harold
Augen and Olmos, Margarite Fernndez, ed. U.S. Latino
Literature: A Critical Guide for Students and Teachers . New
York: Greenwood Press, 2000. p. 124, (emphasis his).
10 Keating, AnaLouise. Women Reading Women Writing: Self-
Invention in Paula Gunn Allen, Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre
Lorde . Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996. p. 10.
11 Ibid., p. 11.
12 Ibid., p. 11-12.
13 Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Preface" in: G. Anzaldúa, ed. Op. Cit. p.
xxv.
14 Freedman, Diane P. "Writing in the Borderlands: The Poetic
Prose of Gloria Anzaldúa and Susan Griffin" in: Perry, Linda
M., Turner, Lynn and Sterk, Helen, ed. Constructing and
Reconstructing Gender: The Links Among Communication,
Language and Gender. Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1992. p. 211, (emphasis hers, parenthesis mine).
15 Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Preface" in: Anzaldúa, Gloria, ed.
Making Face Making Soul: Haciendo Caras: Creative and
Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color. San Francisco:
Aunt Lute Books, 1990. p.xxii.

16 Keating, Op. Cit. p.118.
17 Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Preface" in: G. Anzaldúa, ed. Op. Cit. p.
xxii.
18 Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd
World Women Writers" n: Anzaldúa, Gloria and Moraga,
Cherrie, ed. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical
Women of Color. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color
Press, 1983. p. 172.
World Women Writers" in: Anzaldúa, Gloria and Moraga,
Cherrie, ed. Op. Cit. p. 173.
22 Ikas, Op. Cit. p. 7.
23 Anzaldúa, Op. Cit. p. 89-90.
25 Anzaldúa, Op.Cit. p. 91.
26 Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Metaphors in the Tradition of the
Shaman" in: Conversant Essays: Contemporary Poets on Poetry.
Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990. p. 99. This essay
was published eight months after Borderlands/La Frontera "hit
the bookstores." For more on the shamanistic tradition in
Anzaldúa see: Steele, Cassie Premo. We Heal from Memory:
Sexton, Lorde, Anzaldúa, and the Poetry of Witness. New York:
Palgrave, 2000, p. 86-90.
27 Anzaldúa, Op. Cit. p. 24-25 and 92.
World Women Writers" in: Anzaldúa, G. and Moraga, C., ed.
Op. Cit. p. 171.
29 Zamora, Lois Parkinson. "Introduction: Moveable
Boundaries-Public Definitions and Private Lives" in: Zamora,
Lois Parkinson, ed. Contemporary American Women Writers:
Gender, Class, Ethnicity. New York: Longman, 1998. p. 6,
(parenthesis mine).
31 Nelson, Linda. "After Reading: Borderlands/La Frontera" in:

Trivia. New Amherst: Spring 1989, p. 95. For more on code-
switching see also: Steele, Cassie Premo. We Heal from
Memory: Sexton, Lorde, Anzaldúa, and the Poetry of Witness.
New York: Palgrave, 2000, p. 52.
33 Anzaldúa, Op. Cit. p. 32, 33, 78. Chicanos tend to drop the
'd' vowel in some Spanish words, for instance in 'lado' as
spelled above.
34 Anzaldúa, Op.Cit. p. 37, (translation by Sonia Saldvar-Hull).
35 Saldvar-Hull, Sonia. "Introduction to the Second Edition" in:
Anzaldúa, Op.Cit. p. 3-4. Saldvar-Hull provides a translation of
the passage discussed.
36 Ibid., p. 3-4.
37 Kaup, Monika."Crossing Borders: An Aesthetic Practice in
Writings by Gloria Anzaldúa" in: Siemerling, Winfried and
Schwenk, Katrin, ed. Cultural Difference & the Literary Text;
Pluralism & the Limits of Authenticity in North American
Literatures. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996. p. 106.
38 Torres, Op. Cit. P. 125.
39 Anzaldúa, Op. Cit. p. 35. Poems quoted from p. 25 and p. 35.
References
REFERENCES:
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera-The New Mestiza.
San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, Second Edition, 1999.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Border Crossings" in: Trivia, Spring 1989.
New Amherst, 1989.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Preface" in: Anzaldúa, Gloria, ed. Making
Face Making Soul: Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical
Perspectives by Feminists of Color. San Francisco: Aunt Lute
Books, 1990.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. "En rapport, In Opposition: Cobrando cuentas
a las nuestras" in: Anzaldúa, Gloria, ed. Making Face Making
Soul: Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by
Feminists of Color. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1990.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World
Women Writers" in: Anzaldúa, Gloria and Moraga, Cherrie, ed.

This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of
Color. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. "Metaphors in the Tradition of the Shaman"
in: Conversant Essays: Contemporary Poets on Poetry. Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1990.
Freedman, Diane P. "Writing in the Borderlands: The Poetic
Prose of Gloria Anzaldúa and Susan Griffin" in: Perry, Linda
M., Turner, Lynn and Sterk, Helen, ed. Constructing and
Reconstructing Gender: The Links Among Communication,
Language and Gender. Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1992.
Ikas, Karin Rosa. "Gloria Anzaldúa: Writer, Editor, Critic, and
Third-World Lesbian Women-of-Color Feminist" in: Ikas,
Karin, ed. Chicana Ways: Conversations with Ten Chicana
Writers. Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press, 2002.
Kaup, Monika. "Crossing Borders: An Aesthetic Practice in
Writings by Gloria Anzaldúa" in: Siemerling, Winfried and
Schwenk, Katrin, ed. Cultural Difference & the Literary Text;
Pluralism & the Limits of Authenticity in North American
Literatures. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996.
Keating, AnaLouise. Women Reading Women Writing: Self-
Invention in Paula Gunn Allen, Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre
Lorde. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996.
Nelson, Linda. "After Reading: Borderlands/La Frontera" in:
Trivia, Spring 1989. New Amherst, 1989.
Saldívar-Hull, Sonia. "Introduction to the Second Edition" in:
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera-The New Mestiza.
San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, Second Edition, 1999.
Torres, Hector A. "In Context: Gloria Anzaldúa's
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza" in: Braum, Harold
Augen and Olmos, Margarite Fernández, ed. U.S. Latino
Literature: A Critical Guide for Students and Teachers. New
York: Greenwood Press, 2000.
Zamora, Lois Parkinson. "Introduction: Moveable Boundaries-
Public Definitions and Private Lives" in: Zamora, Lois
Parkinson, ed. Contemporary American Women Writers:

Gender, Class, Ethnicity. New York: Longman, 1998.
AuthorAffiliation
Tereza Kynclová
Charles University, Czech Republic
[email protected]
Tereza Kynclová received her M.A. degree in English and
American Studies and Political Science from Charles
University, Prague, Czech Republic in 2005. At the present she
is a student at Gender Studies Department, Charles University
and a member of an EQUAL research team focused on the
methodology of gender auditing.
Word count: 6858
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Copyright Ahead Publishing House Okeir Press Summer 2006
Indexing (details)

Cite
Subject
Poetry;
Women;
Minority & ethnic groups;
Linguistics;
Ideology;
Essays;
Cultural differences;
Book reviews
Title
Constructing Mestiza Consciousness: Gloria Anzaldúa's Literary
Techniques in Borderlands/La Frontera-The New Mestiza
Author
Kynclová, Tereza
Publication title
Human Architecture
Volume
4
Pages
43-55
Number of pages
13
Publication year
2006
Publication date
Summer 2006
Year
2006
Publisher
Ahead Publishing House Okcir Press
Place of publication
Medford
Country of publication
United States
Publication subject

Sociology
ISSN
15405699
Source type
Scholarly Journals
Language of publication
English
Document type
Feature
Document feature
References
ProQuest document ID
210135479
Document URL
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.rasmussen.edu/docview/210
135479?accountid=40836
Copyright
Copyright Ahead Publishing House Okeir Press Summer 2006
Last updated
2011-06-13
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THE WITCH'S HUSBAND
ListenPauseStopSelect: SettingsDownload mp3?Close
MY grandfather has misplaced his words again. He is trying to

find my name in the kaleidoscope of images that his mind has
become. His face brightens like a child's who has just
remembered his lesson. He points to me and says my mother's
name. I smile back and kiss him on the cheek. It doesn't matter
what names he remembers anymore. Every day he is more
confused, his memory slipping back a little further in time.
Today he has no grandchildren yet. Tomorrow he will be a
young man courting my grandmother again, quoting bits of
poetry to her. In months to come, he will begin calling her
Mama.
I have traveled to Puerto Rico at my mother's request to help
her deal with the old people. My grandfather is physically
healthy but his dementia is severe. My grandmother's heart is
making odd sounds again in her chest. Yet she insists on taking
care of the old man at home herself. She will not give up her
house, though she has been warned that her heart might fail in
her sleep without proper monitoring, that is, in a nursing home
or a relative's care. Her response is typical of her famous
obstinancy: "Bueno," she says, "I will die in my own bed."
I am now at her house, waiting for my opportunity to talk
"sense" into her. As a college teacher in the U.S. I am supposed
to represent the voice of logic; I have been called in to convince
la abuela, the family's proud matriarch, to step down -- to allow
her children to take care of her before she kills herself with
work. I spent years at her house as a child, but have lived in the
States for most of my adult life. I learned to love and respect
this strong woman who with five children of her own had found
a way to help many others. She was a legend in the pueblo for
having more foster children than anyone else. I have spoken
with people my mother's age who told me that they had spent up
to a year at Abuela's house during emergencies and hard times.
It seems extraordinary that a woman would willingly take on
such obligations. And frankly, I am a bit appalled at what I have
begun to think of as "the martyr complex" in Puerto Rican
women, that is: the idea that self-sacrifice is a woman's lot and
her privilege. A good woman is defined by how much suffering

and mothering she can do in one lifetime. Abuela is the all-time
champion in my eyes. Her life has been entirely devoted to
others. Not content to bring up two sons and three daughters as
the Depression raged on, followed by the war that took one of
her sons, she had also taken on other people's burdens. This had
been the usual pattern with one exception that I knew of: the
year that Abuela spent in New York, apparently undergoing
some kind of treatment for her heart while she was still a young
woman. My mother was five or six years old, and there were
three other children who had been born by that time, too. They
were given into the care of Abuela's sister, Delia. The two
women traded places for the year. Abuela went to live in her
sister's apartment in New York City while the younger woman
took over Abuela's duties at the house in Puerto Rico.
Grandfather was a shadowy figure in the background during that
period. My mother doesn't say much about what went on during
that year, only that her mother was sick and away for months.
Grandfather seemed absent too since he worked all of the time.
Though they missed Abuela, they were well taken care of.
I am sitting on a rocking chair on the porch of her house. She is
facing me from a hammock she made when her first baby was
born. My mother was rocked on that hammock. I was rocked on
that hammock, and when I brought my daughter as a baby to
Abuela's house, she was held in Abuela's sun-browned arms, my
porcelain pink baby, and rocked to a peaceful sleep, too. Abuela
sits there and smiles as the breeze of a tropical November
brings the scent of her roses and her herbs to us. She is proud of
her garden. In front of the house she grows flowers and lush
trailing plants; in the back, where the mango tree gives shade,
she has an herb garden. From this patch of weedy-looking plants
came all the remedies of my childhood, for anything from a sore
throat to menstrual cramps. Abuela had a recipe for every pain
that a child could dream up, and she brought it to your bed in
her own hands smelling of the earth. For a moment I am content
to sit in her comforting presence. She is rotund now-a small-
boned brown-skinned earth mother -- with a big heart and a

temper to match. My grandfather comes to stand at the screen
door. He has forgotten how the latch works. He pulls at the
knob and moans softly, rattling it. With some effort Abuela gets
down from the hammock. She opens the door, gently guiding the
old man to a chair at the end of the porch. There he begins anew
his constant search for the words he needs. He tries various
combinations, but they don't work as language. Abuela pats his
hand and motions for me to follow her into the house. We sit
down at opposite ends of her sofa.
She apologizes to me as if for a misbehaving child.
"He'll quiet down," she says. "He does not like to be ignored."
I take a deep breath in preparation for my big lecture to
Grandmother. This is the time to tell her that she has to give up
trying to run this house and take care of others at her age. One
of her daughters is prepared to take her in. Grandfather is to be
sent to a nursing home. Before I can say anything Abuela says:
"Mi amor, would you like to hear a story?"
I smile, surprised at her offer. These are the same words that
stopped me in my tracks as a child, even in the middle of a
tantrum. Abuela could always entrance me with one of her tales.
I nodded. Yes, my sermon could wait a little longer, I thought.
"Let me tell you an old, old story I heard when I was a little
girl.
"There was once a man who became worried and suspicious
when he noticed that his wife disappeared from their bed every
night for long periods of time. Wanting to find out what she was
doing before confronting her, the man decided to stay awake at
night and keep guard. For hours he watched her every movement
through half-closed eyelids with his ears perked up like those of
a burro.
"Then just about midnight, when the night was as dark as the
bottom of a cauldron, he felt his wife slipping out of bed. He
saw her go to the wardrobe and take out a jar and a little
paintbrush. She stood naked by the window and when the
church bells struck twelve, she began to paint her entire body
with the paintbrush, dipping it into the jar. As the bells tolled

the hour, she whispered these words: I don't believe in the
Church, or in God, or in the Virgin Mary. As soon as this was
spoken, she rose from the ground and flew into the night like a
bird.
"Astounded, the man decided not to say anything to his wife the
next day, but to try to find out where she went. The following
night, the man pretended to sleep and waited until she had again
performed her little ceremony and flown away, then he repeated
her actions exactly. He soon found himself flying after her.
Approaching a palace, he saw many other women circling the
roof, taking turns going down the chimney. After the last had
descended, he slid down the dark hole that led to the castle's
bodega, where food and wine were stored. He hid himself
behind some casks of wine and watched the women greet each
other.
"The witches, for that's what they were, were the wives of his
neighbors and friends, but he at first had trouble recognizing
them, for like his wife, they were all naked. With much
merriment, they took the meats and cheeses that hung from the
bodega's rafters and laid a table for a feast. They drank the fine
wines right from the bottles, like men in a cantina, and danced
wildly to eerie music from invisible instruments. They spoke to
each other in a language that he did not understand, words that
sounded like a cat whose tail has been stepped on. Still, horrible
as their speech was, the food they prepared smelled delicious.
Cautiously placing himself in the shadows near one of the
witches he extended his hand for a plate. He was given a
steaming dish of stewed tongue. Hungrily, he took a bite: it was
tasteless. The other witches had apparently noticed the same
thing because they sent one of the younger ones to find some
salt. But when the young witch came back into the room with a
salt shaker in her hand, the man forgot himself and exclaimed:
'Thank God the salt is here.'
"On hearing God's name, all the witches took flight
immediately, leaving the man completely alone in the darkened
cellar. He tried the spell for flight that had brought him there,

but it did not work. It was no longer midnight, and it was
obviously the wrong incantation for going up a chimney. He
tried all night to get out of the place which had been left in
shambles by the witches, but it was locked up as tight as heaven
is to a sinner. Finally, he fell asleep from exhaustion, and slept
until dawn when he heard footsteps approaching. When he saw
the heavy door being pushed open, he hid himself behind a cask
of wine.
"A man in rich clothes walked in, followed by several servants.
They were all armed with heavy sticks as if out to kill someone.
When the man lit his torch and saw the chaos in the cellar,
broken bottles strewn on the floor, meats and cheeses half eaten
and tossed everywhere, he cried out in such a rage that the man
hiding behind the wine cask closed his eyes and committed his
soul to God. The owner of the castle ordered his servants to
search the whole bodega, every inch of it, until they discovered
how vandals had entered his home. It was a matter of minutes
before they discovered the witch's husband, curled up like a
stray dog, and -- worse -- painted the color of a vampire bat,
without a stitch of clothing.
"They dragged him to the center of the room and beat him with
their sticks until the poor man thought that his bones had been
pulverized and he would have to be poured into his grave. When
the castle's owner said that he thought the poor wretch had
learned his lesson, the servants tossed him naked onto the road.
The man was so sore that he slept right there on the public
camino, oblivious to the stares and insults of all who passed
him. When he awakened in the middle of the night and found
himself naked, dirty, bloody, and miles from his home, he swore
to himself right then and there that he would never, for anything
in the world, follow his wife on her nightly journeys again."
"Colorin, colorado," Abuela claps her hands three times,
chanting the childhood rhyme for ending a story, "Este cuento
se ha acabado." She smiles at me, shifting her position on the
sofa to be able to watch Grandfather muttering to himself on the
porch. I remember those eyes on me when I was a small child.

Their movements seemed to be triggered by a child's actions,
like those holograms of the Holy Mother that were popular with
Catholics a few years ago -- you couldn't get away from their
mesmerizing gaze.
"Will you tell me about your year in New York, Abuela?" I
surprise myself with the question. But suddenly I need to know
about Abuela's lost year. It has to be another good story.
She looks intently at me before she answers. Her eyes are my
eyes, same dark brown color, almond shape, and the lids that
droop a little: called by some, "bedroom eyes"; to others they
are a sign of a cunning nature. "Why are you looking at me that
way?" is a question I am often asked.
"I wanted to leave home," she says calmly, as though she had
been expecting the question from me all along.
"You mean abandon your family?" I am really taken aback by
her words.
"Yes, hija. That is exactly what I mean. Abandon them. Never
to return."
"Why?"
"I was tired. I was young and pretty, full of energy and dreams."
She smiles as Grandfather breaks into song standing by himself
on the porch. A woman passing by with a baby in her arms
waves at him. Grandfather sings louder, something about a man
going to his exile because the woman he loves has rejected him.
He finishes the song on a long note and continues to stand in the
middle of the tiled porch as if listening for applause. He bows.
Abuela shakes her head, smiling a little, as if amused by his
antics, then she finishes her sentence, "Restless, bored. Four
children and a husband all demanding more and more from me."
"So you left the children with your sister and went to New
York?" I say, trying to keep the mixed emotions I was feeling
out of my voice. I look at the serene old woman in front of me
and cannot believe that she once left four children and a loving
husband to go live alone in a faraway country.
"I had left him once before, but he found me. I came back home,
but on the condition that he never follow me anywhere again. I

told him the next time I would not return." She is silent,
apparently falling deep into thought.
"You were never really sick," I say, though I am afraid that she
will not resume her story. But I want to know more about this
woman whose life I thought was an open book.
"I was sick. Sick at heart. And he knew it," she says, keeping
her eyes on Grandfather who is standing as still as a marble
statue on the porch. He seems to be listening intently for
something.
"The year in New York was his idea. He saw how unhappy I
was. He knew I needed to taste freedom. He paid my sister
Delia to come take care of the children. He also sublet her
apartment for me, though he had to take a second job to do it.
He gave me money and told me to go."
"What did you do that year in New York?" I am both stunned
and fascinated by Abuela's revelation.
"I worked as a seamstress in a fancy dress shop. And, . . . y
pues, hija," she smiles at me as if I should know some things
without being told, "I lived."
"Why did you come back?" I ask.
"Because I love him," she says, "and I missed my children."
He is scratching at the door. Like a small child he has traced the
sound of Abuela's voice back to her. She lets him in, guiding
him gently by the hand. Then she eases him down on his
favorite rocking chair. He begins to nod; soon he will be sound
asleep, comforted by her proximity, secure in his familiar
surroundings. I wonder how long it will take him to revert to
infantilism. The doctors say he is physically healthy and may
live for many years, but his memory, verbal skills, and ability to
control his biological functions will deteriorate rapidly. He may
end his days bedridden, perhaps comatose. My eyes fill with
tears as I look at the lined face of this beautiful and gentle old
man. I am in awe of the generosity of spirit that allowed him to
give a year of freedom to the woman he loved, not knowing
whether she would ever return to him. Abuela has seen my tears
and moves over on the sofa to sit near me. She slips an arm

around my waist and pulls me close. She kisses my wet cheek.
Then she whispers softly into my ear, "and in time, the husband
either began forgetting that he had seen her turn into a witch, or
believed that he had just dreamed it." She takes my face into her
hands. "I am going to take care of your grandfather until one of
us dies. I promised him when I came back that I would never
leave home again unless he asked me to: he never did. He never
asked any questions."
I hear my mother's car pull up into the driveway. She will wait
there for me. I will have to admit that I failed in my mission. I
will argue Abuela's case without revealing her secret. As far as
everyone is concerned she went away to recover from problems
with her heart. That part is true in both versions of the story.
At the door she gives me the traditional blessing, adding with a
wink, "Colorin, Colorado." My grandfather, hearing her voice,
smiles in his sleep.
~~~~~~~~
By JUDITH ORTIZ COFER
Copyright of this work is the property of Kenyon Review and its
content may not be copied without the copyright holder's
express written permission except for the print or download
capabilities of the retrieval software used for access. This
content is intended solely for the use of the individual user.
Accession Number: 9308115217
GERALDO
NO LAST NAME
by Sandra Cisneros
She met him at a daiit • I'r. Ilij. inn. .nul uniimi .S,iiil h, n-
nrked in a

restaurant, butshc can' n m, //#/•> /• nhn-h ••m ihn!''- •;','.
(Jri'cnpants and
Saturday shirt. Geral-I" l'li-il n-'mit hi h-'il hi r.
And how was sheito hiMtv almd buthv lusl nht U> MA-, him
alive. An
accident, don't you know. Hit and run. Marin, sheçioes to all
those dances.
Uptown. Logan. Embassy. Palmer. Aragov. Fmitniia. The
Manor. She likes
to dance. She knows how to do cumbias and salsas and
rancheras even.
And he was just someone she danced with. Somebody she met
that night.
That's right. *. •:•'; , - . - " . • > •. ," , ;
That's the story. That's what she said again and again. Once to
the
hospital people and twice to the police. No address. No nanie.
Nothing in his
pockets. Ain't it a shame. Only Marín can't explain why it
mattered the
hours and hours, for somebody she didn't even know. Tlie
hospital
emergency room. Nobody but an intern working all alone. And
maybe if the
surgeon would've come, maybe if he hadn't lost so much blood,
if the
surgeon had only come, they would,know,wko to notify and

where.
But what difference does it make? He wasn't anything to her. He
wasn't
her boyfriend or anything like that: Just another brazer who
didn't speak
English. Just another wetback. You know the kitid. The ones
who always^
look ashamed. And what was she doing out at 3 a.m. anyway?
Mann whx)
was sent home with, her coat and some aspirin. How does she
explain?
She met him at a dance. Geraldo in hü shiny shirt ayid gxeen
pants.
Geraldo going to a dance. .> ,' """"*--,.
Wlrnt does it matter?j;^
Thf'/j never saw the kitchen rites. They never knew about the
two-room
Jlats and sleeping rooms he rented, the weekly money orders
.sent home, the
eurreneji exchange. How could they?
His name was Geraldo. And his home is ifi another country. The
onvs he
leß behind arc far awny. will wonder, shrug, remember.
Gernldn—hc went
north ... we never heard from him again.
!'• /}•;,,I.;l I, I'll ¡¡.•rn.i.-i^iiin frni" T h e H o u s e r i i i M : i
r i g ( i , ' ~ i i i f f i , bij "-iiiu'lni ' ''.•-'','< / » . < .
6 4 AMERICAS

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