Borderlands

In Anzaldua’s Borderlands she explores the meaning borders hold and the genderist and linguistic limitations they bring with them. She says "Culture is made by those in power- men. Males make the rules and laws; women transmit them." (Anzaldua 16) She explains how the church, virginity and sexuality, and gendered domestic roles aimed to subjugate women. Any semblance of divergence came with the fear of being rejected, of being left without a home. This fear of homelessness and rejection, to Anzaldua, has been the reason for such conformity to practices of oppression. "The ability to respond is what is meant by responsibility, yet our cultures take away our ability to act- shackle us in the name of protection. Blocked, immobilized, we can't move forward, can’t move backwards." (Anzaldua 21) She explains that the non-white woman’s ability to act is stolen, which renders her silent. In order to take back her power, Anzaldua says "So, don’t give me your tenets and your laws... What I want is an accounting with all three cultures- white, Mexican, Indian," and makes it clear that she should not have to give up the multitude of cultures she is a part of, instead the laws and norms of her cultures that invalidate and subjugate her existence should be reformed. She can be a white, Mexican and Indian woman without being treated as less than. And if not, then she is willing to create her own space.

In creating this space, Anzaldua says "In trying to become objective, Western culture made objects of things and people when it distanced itself from them, thereby losing touch with them. This dichotomy is the root of all violence." This distance is what Anzaldua seeks to recover, the distance between human, distance between cultures, and most importantly the distance between the different aspects that account for the non-white woman. With that we can begin to recognize how intertwined and connected we are to aspects our culture has previously been compartmentalizing. Similar to when we studied Audre Lorde and how the black woman had to choose between either white feminism or black liberation patriarchy, as black notions of intersectionality were rejected. 

For Anzaldua then, decolonizing our ways of knowing is a rediscovery of all the things that make us who we are along with the reinstation of the non-white women, in all her fullness, in society.