Gloria Anzaldúa
by Brittany Rodriguez
by Brittany Rodriguez
after reviewing this lesson viewers will be able to:
1) Describe the type of influence Gloria Anzaldua had in education
2) Identify which collegiate disciplines may revolve around her influence
Gloria Anzaldúa was born September 26, 1942, in south Texas Rio Grande Valley. At the age of 11 she started working in the fields to support her family, and at the age of 14, due to her fathers passing, had to continue work in the fields in order to support her family financially all while continuing her educational journey (Jones, Jones, Olson, Teale, and Curtright, 2005).
Eventually she graduated from Pan American University with a B.A. in English, Art, and Secondary Education (Jones, Jones, Olson, Teale, and Curtright, 2005). After graduating, she attended graduate school at the University of Texas and earned her M.A. in English and Education. She was awarded a post-humous Ph.D in Literature by the University of California- Santa Cruz (Wysk, 2017).
She began her career teaching bilingual pre-schoolers then went on to instruct a special education program for mentally and emotionally handicapped students. Several years later, she landed a position teaching at a post secondary level, specifically instructing "feminism, chicano studies and creative writing at a number of universities including University of Texas at Austin, Vermont College of Norwich University, and San Francisco State University" (Jones, Jones, Olson, Teale, and Curtright, 2005).
Early on in her life Anzaldúa came to the realization that she lived in many worlds at once, both Mexican and American, as well as native and foreign (Wysk, 2017). Given her diverse background, Gloria expressed herself through her writings such as Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Wysk, 2017).
Why was she so important?
As expressed previously, Gloria Anzaldua worked her way up through the world even with all odds stacked against her. While acknowledging her own difficult upbringing, Anzaldua eventually goes on to write several books revolutionizing multiple aspects in not only education, but society as well.
00:58 - 2:00 expresses the feeling of validity and inclusivity students at UTPA endure while reading Borderlands.
Though it's not her first published piece of work, Gloria Anzaldua began her revolution in 1987 by recalling, questioning, and documenting what she saw happening within her community and communities close by. In the video, many students relinquish the fact that everything covered in the book is still reflected in their society and is more of an unfortunate norm rather than unethical treatment towards women with the labor force being highlighted dramatically. Other main key points include cultural rebellion, gender roles, and feeling native, yet foreign all together at once (Huang 2015).
Published in 1981, The Bridge was created with the intention of being used in a womens studies course. The creation of this book began to revolutionize education in ways no one has before as this is the first piece of writing explicitly made by feminists for feminists. The Bridge is a collaborative piece of work manufactured from stories, poems, and and other forms of writing from feminist near to Gloria Anzaldua. It's noted that this books publication kept being brushed off in hopes of another person publishing their own version of similar events, seemly because the feminist movement was in it's prime and a controversial topic. Despite the sensitivity around the topic, the book had one more issue: although popular, it was a one sided story, primarily addressed to white feminists, rather than an engaging conversation discussing developments within all aspects of the feminists society including feminists of color (Anzaldua, Keating, 2000).
Feeding off of The Bridge, Gloria Anzaldua come to the revelation that while it was well known, she couldn't use that book for a new course she was bound to teach, henceforth the publication of Haciendo Caras. This new literary work included pieces of writings from primarily women of color and was fabricated in such ways that allowed for the stories to coincide with one another as if they were in conversation. With a 10 year gap between the two books, controversy has seemingly died down a bit thus alotting Haciendo Caras the ability to finally reach its' targeted audience: feminists belonging to minority groups (Anzaldua, Keating, 2000).
Anzaldua as an educator
Outside of her writings, Gloria Anzaldua pioneered the way to influence integration and ethnic solidarity rather than unity as well as stepping out of the norm to teach several exceptional collegiate courses
. While teaching on a collegiate level, she instructed a class revolving around Chicano culture which was intended to be taken by those of Latin/Hispanic decent. Anzaldua never turned a blind eye to the other ethnic groups partaking in the course as she was for integration within collegiate disciplines (Anzaldua, Keating, 2000).
Pertaining to solidarity, Anzaldua questions why certain hispanic/latin groups are celebrated in unison, when as a whole hispanics and those of latin decent would rather stand in solidarity. Unity creates a visual that the one group has one voice, whereas solidarity is viewed as all components acknowledge the commonalities and differences of each other and should be celebrated as such because of these differences. Hispanic and latin cultures are all so very diverse, there's no true way to celebrate them in unity (Anzaldua, Keating, 2000).
Knowledge check!
A) Anzaldua reached her targeted audience after publishing This Bridge and began substituting for local secondary schools
B) Gloria revolutionized education by stepping out of the norm to teach womens studies, chicano culture, and tie in feminism to her courses
C) Gloria's childhood and upcoming in life resonated with her peers so they all drafted personal stories to fabricate books
D) Having being both native and foreign compelled Gloria Anzaldua to do well in school thus earning herself multiple college degrees
A) Carlie, a 22 year old, first generation college student who is a hispanic, trans female pursuing a BA in womens studies
B) John, a 21 year old cisgendered, caucasian male, majoring in biochemical engineering who plays football for ODU
C) Laila, a 24 year old, cisgendered, african american female, studying to recieve a Ph. D in kinesiology and rehabilitation
D) Xavier, a 25 year old, nonbinary person, living their best live after recieving their degree in fine arts and now works at the VMFA in Richmond, Virginia
Wysk. (2017, September 26). Writer and scholar Gloria Anzaldúa (1942 - 2004) celebrated by Google Doodle. Women You Should Know. https://womenyoushouldknow.net/gloria-anzaldua-google-doodle/
Jones, E., Jones, E., Olson, J., Teale, R., Curtright, L. (2005). Gloria Anzaldúa - University digital conservancy home. University of Minnesota, Voices From The Gaps; Gloria Anzaldua. (2009). https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/167856/Anzaldua,%20Gloria.pdf?sequence=1
University of Texas - Pan American. UTAP0. (2013, September 16). Gloria Anzaldua: Reflections from the Borderlands [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/rI6AGsbHMFc
Huang, H. (2015). Indigeneity, diaspora, and ethical turn in Anzalduas Borderlands/La Frontera. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 17(5). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A464045401/LitRC?u=viva_odu&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=fc7e5c2e
Anzaldua. (2000). Making choices: writing, spirituality, sexuality, and the political. In A. Keating (Eds.), Interviews/Entrevistas (pp. 151-154). Routledge.
Anzaldua. (2000). Making choices: writing, spirituality, sexuality, and the political. In A. Keating (Eds.), Interviews/Entrevistas (pp. 54-68). Routledge.
Anzaldua. (2000). Making choices: writing, spirituality, sexuality, and the political. In A. Keating (Eds.), Interviews/Entrevistas (pp. 155-157). Routledge.
Q1: B
Q2: A