Interviews/Entrevistas

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by Gloria Anzaldua,

Edited by Ana Louise Keating

Routledge

Due/Published June 2000, 320 pages, paper

ISBN 0415925045

Gloria E. Anzaldua, is best known for her books Borderlands/La Frontera and This Bridge Called My Back. As one of the first openly lesbian Chicana writers, Anzaldua has played a major role inredefining queer, female, and Chicano/a identities, and in developing inclusionary movements for social justice. In this memoir-like collection, Anzaldua recounts her life, explains many aspects of her thought, and explores the intersections between her writings and postcolonial theory. The interviews contain clear explanations of Anzaldua's use of the terms "the Borderlands" and "mestizaje" and her subsequent revisions of these ideas; her use of the term "New Tribalism" as a disruptive category that redefines previous ethnocentric forms of nationalism; and what Anzaldua calls "conocimientos"-- alternate ways of knowing that synthesize reflection with action to create knowledges ystems that challenge the status quo. These interviews, arranged and introduced by AnaLouise Keating, serve as an introduction to Anzaldua's body of work.

Review

Interviews/Entrevistas/Gloria E. Anzaldua## Edited by Ana Louise Keating## Routledge## 306## 18.95## Paper (Original)## ## ## Anzaldua’s works, including Borderlands/La Frontera: The Mestiza and others have made her one of the most innovative and challenging thinkers on issues of sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, feminism, spirituality, and post-colonialism. An integral part of her work stems from the many interviews she has granted over the past two decades. In the interviews collected in this volume Anzaldua reflects and expands on her ideas concerning the construction and fluidity of cultural and sexual identities and the ways in which this opens up new perspectives on social and political realities. The interviews also contain clear conceptualizations of some of the central ideas in her work: Borderlands, mestizaje, and New Tribalism. Another interesting aspect of Anzaldua’s thought that emerges in these pages is the importance of spirituality. As Keating writes in her introduction, unlike many contemporary discussions of spirituality that focus on personal growth, Anzaldua understands it in terms of her desire for political and social transformation. The personal, however, is crucial to Anzaldua’s thought and she frankly reveals apects of her upbringing as a brown-skinned girl in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, her sexuality, and even her fantasies. Anzaldua, like few writers, is able to weave the personal with the critical and theoretical to produce a body of work that is uncommoly bold, insightful, and even poetic.

Review Seminary Co-op

Anzaldua’s works, including Borderlands/La Frontera: The Mestiza and others have made her one of the most innovative and challenging thinkers on issues of sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, feminism, spirituality, and post-colonialism. An integral part of her work stems from the many interviews she has granted over the past two decades. In the interviews collected in this volume Anzaldua reflects and expands on her ideas concerning the construction and fluidity of cultural and sexual identities and the ways in which this opens up new perspectives on social and political realities. The interviews also contain clear conceptualizations of some of the central ideas in her work: Borderlands, mestizaje, and New Tribalism. Another interesting aspect of Anzaldua’s thought that emerges in these pages is the importance of spirituality. As Keating writes in her introduction, unlike many contemporary discussions of spirituality that focus on personal growth, Anzaldua understands it in terms of her desire for political and social transformation. The personal, however, is crucial to Anzaldua’s thought and she frankly reveals apects of her upbringing as a brown-skinned girl in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, her sexuality, and even her fantasies. Anzaldua, like few writers, is able to weave the personal with the critical and theoretical to produce a body of work that is uncommoly bold, insightful, and even poetic.