Gloria Anzaldua’s book (book of prose and poetry) resembles Rimbaud along with Aime Cesar and their connections with their own countries and ethnicity. Both struggled to find their identity within their own cultures and both rebelled against the image the outsider, as well as people of their own background, forced upon them. It is autobiographical as well as historical and fictional as Anzaldua describes her process of growing into the person she is now along with the prejudice she’s had to face along the way from not only people outside of her own race but those within it as well.
Having to read so much in such a short amount of time I’m afraid I haven’t given it the processing it deserves but the inflow of information is certainly rich in detail and full of feminist protest. Just as the last two authors we read on Monday, she also wants to call attention to the lack of space Chicana (Spanish, Mexican, etc.) have had in the literary world. Another theme is, as I’ve mentioned, the power struggle within the patriarchal structure and the symbol of the female in Mexican culture. Structurally, the book, I find, reads like a normal book. It is written in a way that the story keeps progressing in an organized way but with different quirks like the input of quotes, poems, prose written in Spanish and so on. It makes you think what your identity is and to whom or what do you attribute your personal being to.
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