Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua

At first this book confused me as far as if it was like a longer essay, narrative, or a book a poetry.  The second confusion came from the language barriers.  It made me wonder how I was going to translate all of the Spanish to make sense of the English.  It gave me a sense of my confusion of language was very similar to her struggle with it as well.  This woman has struggled with identity, gender, sexuality, and becoming a person of her own.  Throughout the piece you learn what she does to identify herself.

"Cradled in one culture, sandwiched between two cultures, straddling all three cultures and their value systems, la mestiza.  under goes struggle of flesh, struggle of borders, an inner war.  Like all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates."  This was a quote I found very powerful for more reasons than one.  Its like being raised one way but developing likes of a new culture.  But in her case three totally different cultures would become very difficult to manage especially after crossing borders.  How do yo adjust into your own person if everyone around wants to mood you to their personal or cultural perspective?

We, in class, also spoke of acting verses reacting.  Acting is being proactive and reacting is falling behind and having sort of a negative catching up for events that have happened.  This quote I thought could be useful for acting, and being proactive in life.  "She is willing to share, to make herself vulnerable to foreign ways of seeing and thinking.  She surrenders all notions of safety, of the familiar.  Deconstruct, construct.  She becomes a Nahual, able to transform herself into a tree, a coyote, into a person.  She learns to transforms small "I" into the total self."  I think this is powerful in saying get up, explore yourself, break down life into the difficult and easy parts and completely understand yourself and when you get there, do tell, and share with others.