Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria E. Anzaldúa

in This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, p.

Many who have words and tongue have no ear, they cannot listen and they will not hear. Many have the gift of tongue but nothing to say. They label themselves seers but they will not see.

in The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader (2009), p.

I write to record what others erase when I speak, to rewrite the stories others have miswritten about me, about you. I write because life does not appease my appetites and hunger.

By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive.

Why am I compelled to write? Because the writing saves me from this complacency I fear.

'Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers' (1981)

'(Un)natural Bridges, (Un)safe Spaces' from This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation (2002), p.

Most of us dwell in nepantla so much of the time it’s become a sort of “home.” Though this state links us to other ideas, people, and worlds, we feel threatened by these new connections and the change they engender. Nepantla es tierra desconocida, and living in this liminal zone means being in a constant state of displacement-an uncomfortable, even alarming feeling. Transformations occur in this in-between space, an unstable, unpredictable, precarious, always-in-transition space lacking clear boundaries. Bridges span liminal (threshold) spaces between worlds, spaces I call nepantla, a Nahuatl word meaning tierra entre medio. They are passageways, conduits, and connectors that connote transitioning, crossing borders, and changing perspectives.

Bridges are thresholds to other realities, archetypal, primal symbols of shifting consciousness.

1.5 Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality (2015).

1.4 This Bridge Called My Back, Fourth Edition: Writings by Radical Women of Color 4th Edition (2015).

1.3 Interview in Backtalk: women writers speak out by Donna Marie Perry (1993).

1.2 Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987).

1.1 'Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers' (1981).

Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria E. Anzaldúa