Anzaldua, Gloria E. (1942-)

Originating from humble surroundings in the Southwest, Gloria E. Anzaldua propelled herself into contemporary intellectual scholarship by intertwining her lesbian-feminist ideals into a cultural examination [Page 11]of the Chicano community. Anzaldua incorporates the socially oppressive obstacles that she encountered while developing her feminist-Chicana-lesbian identity into her cultural studies, which has developed as her interpretative signature. As a result, she efficiently characterizes the multilayered identification complexities of being a woman of color in contemporary western society. Her most comprehensive work, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (picked as one of the best 38 books of 1984 by Literary Journal) interconnects her gender and cultural theories with an introspective historical backdrop of the American Southwest. Anzaldua includes her feminist-Chicanalesbian identity and ideals into her writing in order to ...