Borderlands La Frontera

Anzaldúa describes the borderlands as a psychic space. How does she define this throughout the book?

Throughout the book, Anzaldúa references Guadalupe and Coatlicue as stand-ins for the mestiza. How do these goddesses represent the mestiza and her Chicana culture?

Anzaldúa provides specific historical information about the peopling of the Americas, the rise of US agribusiness, and the Catholic church’s influence on Indigenous spiritual traditions. Why does she include this historical information? In what ways does Borderlands / La Frontera write a history of the mestiza?

Not only does Anzaldúa include a full series of poems in Borderlands/La Frontera, but she also intersperses her prose with poetry. Why does she include poetry in these ways? How does poetry serve to represent a new expressive form for the new mestiza?

Borderlands/La Frontera switches between Spanish and English seamlessly. Why doesn’t Anzaldúa provide translations? How does her text privilege certain readers over others, and what power dynamic does this create?

Throughout Borderlands/La Frontera, Anzaldúa positions Chicana culture against white culture and her own work against Western aesthetic traditions. How does Anzaldúa define white/Western culture and aesthetics? How does Borderlands/La Frontera assert an aesthetic of the new mestiza? What forms, symbols, and themes define this aesthetic?

The nahual, a person who can become an animal, is a key symbol throughout the book. How does the nahual come to represent a mode of being for the new mestiza? How is the nahual linked to new mestiza consciousness?

How might Borderlands / La Frontera be described as a memoir? How does Anzaldúa structure the integration of her personal experiences in the text?