A Cultural Response to Life in the Borderlands
Gloria Anzaldua’s “Borderlands” (1987) is a controversial and contradictory text of the encounters, which quotes exemplify as a metaphor of crossroads. This crossroad is regeneration and positive site that destroys frontiers, but it is also a treacherous and painful place as she refers to as a “thin edge of barbwire” (Anzaldua 35). This borderland is her home, the gendered place from which she politicizes her ideas, the new mestiza. This literary work is a post-modern text that uses autobiography, poetry, and history, to explore theoretically the discourses of culture, politics, and gender issues. This research will expand the notion that the intersection between two nations, will allow for new sounds and mappings of culture, reflects the movement, and experience of the people.
The borderlands under this analysis entail the dimension of culture, therefore, stretch beyond Gloria’s Anzaldua’s literary description of “1,950 mile-long open wound dividing a pueblo, a culture ….” (Anzaldua 20). The term borderland is not necessarily geographical, but it represents the back and forth movement of materials, people, and symbolic goods like culture. This is of interest to this research as the study investigates the transformation and creation of culture through this movement. The research explores the cultural imprint of this movement on art, music, poetry, latinalization of American culture, and the creation of urban gangs as sub-cultures.
The research topic is an investigative challenge since “Culture” is a multilayered and multi-faceted dynamic. Culture implies art, foods, music, and literature, while to the anthropologist culture is the sum of beliefs, morals, customs, knowledge, laws, art, and habits. Culture has different facets like governments, language, buildings, sub-cultures, or groups, which are products of culture. To Gloria Anzaldua, these products of culture are the mestiza, or “from a racial, ideological, cultural and biological crosspollization an alien consciousness is presently in the making- a new mestiza consciousness… it is a consciousness of the borderlands” (Anzaldua 77). For this analysis, the borderlands mestiza introduces the concept of Chicano culture that is dynamic and moves though the various geographical, social, and cultural spaces. This culture is from the traditions and histories that construct the speech and motifs which evoke art and poetic expressions of Chicano culture and which influence the border American society (Lionnet and Shih 321). It is for this reason the study finds the research on the cultural response of life in the borderlands to be an investigative challenge. However, the topic is not new, as different authors have explored the influence of Latino migration into America on traditional art, culture, religion, music, and language.
This research finds that art is part of the Latino culture, and an essential element of traditional Latino art is the “Retablos.” Retablos have their origin in the catholic faith as European colonizers in the 1500s introduced Retablos decorations to altars in churches. Retablos is little sacred images that portray prayers and miracles. According to Pineda (2004), Retablos have in use as offerings for border crossings for many years, in this form they are “Milagratos” (364). Retablos turned into Milagratos, when Latino immigrants making illegal crossings into America left little prayers as offerings at the borders. The prayers represent an answered prayer for a immigrant seeking passage into an unknown and unfamiliar territory full of hardships and realities. These little Retablos offer hope and refuge for migrants asking holy ones to make intercession prayers for them. Pineda (2004) shows that Latino migration brought the practice of Retablos in America as seen in the artwork uncovered at Tucson-Magdalena corridor, from southern Arizona to Northern Sonora, Mexico (367). The churches along this migratory route have milliards of Retablos and milagratos pinned to vestments of saints like Saint Xavier (Pineda 367). This form of expression by the Latino Community is the foundation of mural art along migration routes and America art world.
Murals are not a tradition among European Americans but are into the American post-modern culture by Latinos migrating from the south. Latino’s use of murals has its foundations from the pre-Columbian era that also influenced the Retablos (Pineda 370). The migration route from Mexico to the northern cities and urban centers of America depict different and colorful mural artwork. Murals are especially a favorite with the young population and are a form of expression among Latino gangs. Such cities that have strong Latino art influences are Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Bakersfield, Phoenix, Fresno, and those along the southwest and west coast. Murals in today’s modern Latino neighborhoods are modern Retablos, and are useful in telling their stories as a community or individual. Murals are a powerful story of religious, cultural, identity, value, and history of the present and past (Pineda 371). Murals in the current American culture represent the diverse dimensions of everyday life as it did function as religious significant for the Hispanic migrants and residents. The Latino and American cultures use murals to reflect the concrete reality of life, political realities of their communities, need for quality education, and impoverishment among the youth, gang violence, drug abuse, and police brutality (Pineda 373). For the youth, the troubles of their minority communities represent the troubles of their ancestors and parents across the borderlands. Murals represent the borderland between their impoverished communities and their homes, which are not their real homes. On the other hand, the American culture has come to embrace murals as street art legitimate in every sense as post-modern art. To the American culture, street art represents real life situations, the hardships, and joys on American streets, and hope for a better future for these communities. Therefore, the Mexican or Hispanic migrants have had an impact on American art culture especially among the youth.
This use of art by cultures to represent their present state is also in Gloria Anzaldua’s poetry of the borderlands, which is a region between being at home and not at home (Lionnet and Shih 323). To Anzaldua, poetry must evoke the stand between the intersection of the different historical and discursive trajectories to imply living within the borders. This is in Anzaldua’s quote, “To survive the borderlands/you must live sin fronteras/be a crossroads” (Lionnet and Shih 323). This living within the borders is necessary since there is evidence that border crossings is a current American expression used in literature, to characterize the transnational reality of Hispanic immigrants living in the U.S. (Olmedo 22). Border crossing in both poetry and literary texts implies the physical and metaphor of social, cultural, and psychological realities of this community. Analysis of the literature evidence clearly indicates that border crossings have an impact on both Mexican and American culture. In Olmedo (2009) shows how schools near the border of U.S. and Mexico have to adapt their system to embrace border crossings (23). This means that schools on both sides enroll students from across the borders that seek to remain in both cultures. These border crossings live in two cultures, with the commitment to make border crossings a representation of their totality self. Border crossings are in use not only for self-identity, but it is also an expression of other cultural dynamics like race, languages, class, gender or sexual orientation as seen with Anzaldua’s (1987) metaphor of borderlands (Omeldo 23).
The border crossing dual-culture is also in contemporary Latino American music, as in the songs of Lila Downs. This research finds that the two cultural worlds influence Latino Americans (Reyes 33). The singer and songwriter Lila Downs’ exotic music has sounds from Oaxaca in Mexico. The singer sings traditional indigenous songs, with Mexican rancheros, and romantic boleros both in native and Spanish dialects, as in her albums “La Sandunga” in 1997 and “Border (La Linea)” in 2001 (Reyes 33). Lila is an example of a post-modern Latin American musician under the influence of her Hispanic cultural background. Lila’s cultural influence arises from her upbringing in Mexico, which unfortunately, is a borderland nation. Mexico is a borderland since it is always at odds with the Native American past and Western American culture. This Lila, explains as, “I felt ashamed of being Indian, partly because here in Mexico we have this identity crisis, negation of our roots, misunderstanding and plain ignorance about our roots” (Reyes 33). The singer uses her music, therefore, as a means to celebrate and characterize the Indian roots in Mexico.
The Latino culture has a significant influence over the American culture. This is in the Southwestern states of the U.S., which makes the migratory corridor for this culture. The Latinolization of American culture is in the ethnographic and ethnohistroy dimensions of Spanish, Mexican, and American interactions. According to Fabregat, Kanellos, and Weaver (1994), the nature and character of the interaction between these cultures has a significant impact on the development of the southwestern culture. The product of this influence is mostly in the reproduction and mediation of indigenous, Mexican, mestizo, and Latino influences (Fabregat, Kanellos, and Weaver 59). The rich influence of the Latino influence is in a diverse inventory of material in many American households like the use of molcajetes, comales, mutates of Latino origin, Retablos, and Santos of Hispanic origin. The use of these forms of art in American households especially in the southwestern states is one of the impacts of latinolization.
Another influence of the migrants on the southwestern states is the adoption of Spanish colonial institutions like the garrison, mission, churches, and presidio (Fabregat, Kanellos, and Weaver 59). These institutions have a substantial impact on American life in these states since they shape the reproduction of Hispanic music, customs, values, belief, arts, and mores. An important element in the Latino culture is the Mexican Americans that make up the largest group among the Hispanics in America. This research finds that the Mexicans play a pivotal role in the influence of American culture by the Latino community since their native language. Teaching and use of Spanish is in all systems of education, business, political, and economic structures. This is because the Mexican’s tend to learn and retain their language longer than other Hispanic communities, thereby influencing the use of Spanish in American neighborhoods, schools, businesses, and homes (Fabregat, Kanellos, and Weaver 60). Moreover, the Latino community has close family ties, which is influencing many American families in close contact or those with mixed Latino marriages to value family. Another major influence on American culture is the adoption of Latino food into the everyday dietary needs of American families. Often, Americans refer to Latino food as Mexican food, which refers to the tex-mex cooking styles that are popular cuisine, which cuts across the border of America and Mexico. This culture influences America to adopt delicacies like chili, salsa, fajitas, tortilla chips, chimichangas, corn chips, nachos, burritos, and quesadillas in the diet (Fabregat, Kanellos, and Weaver 61). Delicacies like enchiladas, tamales, and tacos are traditional Mexican foods, which are prepared and served in every American home.
A major influence of the Latino community is its ability to maintain its traditional material culture and technologies into the present era, such that it is in the social, political, and economic isolation of the southwestern states, which is mediation of the colonial social processes (Fabregat, Kanellos, and Weaver 59). The result of these processes is the adoption of the towns, villages, barrios, and colonias following the Latino culture. The pattern of settlement the people of the southwestern region adopt is under the influence of Latino culture that seeks the ideational and symbolic constructs (Fabregat, Kanellos, and Weaver 59). This symbolic construct is the cause of the rise of youth gangs especially in the southwestern states or borderlands. This socialization process originates from the Latino culture of valuing family, leading to a need for close social ties of groups. The cultural practice of family and community value, gathering of towns, villages, barrios, and colonias breed the sub-culture of gangs among the youth. The gangs live in the borderlands since they try to hold on to the traditional Latino culture but embrace the western influences. The youth reflect their cultural shift or border crossing through these gangs that are continually on an influx. The gangs give the youth their cultural identity and family connection, but also give them a platform for self-expression. Through activities, they engage in the gangs are a representation for the need for migrant youths or descendents of migrants to associate in an American society that is highly individualized.
This is because to Gloria Anzaldua borderlands are the spaces where people live, which define how they define their cultural identities that are not in isolation from each other. In Anzaldua’s borderlands, cultural influences entail the borderland process where people live in a cultural border, under the influence of the practices from either side of the border. In this thought, it is evident that Latino culture in America, does not describe a homogenous border lifestyle that people cannot cross, but rather it is a vast space of intertwined cultural influences. These influences are from the Spanish speaking communities, Native Americans, Anglo, and European Americans. This analysis reveals that culture does respond to borderland living as the influences of migrants is in the borderland’s art, music, literature, language, food, family value, and religion. Given the interconnectedness of these aspects, it is therefore, the conclusion of this research that life in the borderlands embodies the fluid nature of culture.
Works Cited
Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987.
Fabregat, Claudio E., Kanellos Nicolas and Weaver Thomas. Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States: Anthropology. Houston, Texas: University of Houston, 1994. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7hMsnIMQxN8C&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=Handbook+of+Hispanic+Cultures+in+the+United+States:+Anthropology&source=bl&ots=Ng49gqv3G5&sig=1SzbnEPUkFjfbRBsMO7V7g-Exdg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GzmiUIibD8_jrAfVpoGIAg&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA. 13 November 2012.
Lionnet, Francoise, and Shih Shu-mei. Minor Transnationalism. Duke University Press Books, 2005. http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0822334909. 13 November 2012.
Omeldo, Irma M. Blending Borders of Language and Culture: Schooling in La Villita. Journal of Latinos and Education, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 8.1 (2009): 22-37.
Pineda, Ana Maria. Imagenes De Dios En El Camino: Retablos, Ex-Votos, Milagritos, and Murals. Theological Studies 65.2 (2004): 364-379. http://www.ts.mu.edu/readers/content/pdf/65/65.2/65.2.6.pdf. 13 November 2012.
Reyes, Lopez E. Lila Downs. Native Peoples Magazine 17.4 (May/Jun 2004): 33. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/50938046/first-person-lila-downs-paris. 13 November 2012.
