Yemay�42  28191.0

Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction: Reading Gloria Anzald�a, Reading Ourselves . . . Complex Intimacies, Intricate Connections  1

Part One. "Early" Writings  

TIHUEQUE  19

To Delia, Who Failed on Principles  20

Reincarnation  21

The Occupant  22

I Want To Be Shocked Shitless  23

The New Speakers  24

Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers  26

The coming of el mundo surdo  36

La Prieta  38

El paisano is a bird of good omen  51

Dream of the Double-Faced Woman  70

Foreword to the Second Edition (of This Bridge Called My Back)  72

Sexuality, Spirituality, and the Body: An Interview with Linda Smuckler  74

Part Two. "Middle" Writings  

Enemy of the State  97

Del Otro Lado  99

Encountering the Medusa  101

Creativity and Switching in Modes of Consciousness  103

En Rapport, In Opposition: Cobrando cuentas a las nuestras  111

The Presence  119

Metaphors in the Tradition of the Shaman  121

Haciendo caras, una entrada  124

Bridge, Drawbridge, Sandbar, or Island: Lesbians-of-Color Hacienda Alianzas  140

Ghost Trap/Trampa de espanto  157

To(o) Queer the WriterLoca, escritora y chicana  163

Border Arte: Nepantla, El Lugar de la Frontera  176

On the Process of Writing Borderlands / La Frontera  187

La vulva is una herida abierta / The vulva is an open wound  198

The New Mestiza Nation: A Multicultural Movement  203

Part Three. Gallery of Images  217

Part Four. "Later" Writings  

Foreword to Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit  229

How to  232

MemoirMy Calling; or, Notes for "How Prieta Came to Write"  235

When I write I hover  238

Transforming American Studies: 2001 Bode-Pearson Prize Acceptance Speech  239

(Un)natural bridges, (Un)safe spaces  243

Healing wounds  249

Reading LP  250

A Short Q&A between LP and Her Author (GEA)  274

Like a spider in her web  276

Bearing Witness: Their Eyes Anticipate the Healing  277

The Postmodern Llorona  280

Speaking across the Divide  282

Llorona Coyolxauhqui  295

Disability & Identity: An E-mail Exchange & a Few Additional Thoughts  298

Let us be the healing of the wound: The Coyolxauhqui imperativela sombra y el sue�o  303

Appendix 1: Glossary  319

Appendix 2: Timeline: Some Highlights from Gloria Evangelina Anzald�a's Life  325

Bibliography  337

Index  351

“The Reader does a good job of offering a wide range of Anzaldúa’s writings, from her most famous and well-loved essays that appeared in the seminal Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza to never-before-published poems, experimental fiction, interviews, e-mail communications, and unfinished pieces. Anzaldúa was a notorious perfectionist, sometimes revising essays and stories until an editor had to yank them from her hands. Still, this selection would’ve made Anzaldúa proud.”—Liliana Valenzuela, Texas Observer

“This reader . . . demonstrates the breadth and philosophical depth of her work. . . . [It] offers fresh insights into crucial aspects of Anzaldúa's life and career, including her upbringing, education, teaching experiences, writing practice and aesthetics, lifelong health struggles, and interest in visual art, as well as her theories of disability, multiculturalism, pedagogy, and spiritual activism.”—Frauen Solidarität

“Keating’s introduction provides a clear context for these writings and further establishes Anzaldúa’s centrality as a key feminist writer and theorist. Covering a 30-year span, Keating’s thoughtful selections accomplish three stated goals: to make the book ‘useful to a wide variety of readers, from those who are entirely unfamiliar with Anzaldúa and her writings to scholars who have studied her work for years,’ to ‘showcase Anzaldúa’s diversity in topics, genres, and approaches,’ and to remain true to Anzaldúa’s complex aesthetics and vision. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.”—E. Rodriguez y Gibson, Choice

“Compiled and edited by AnaLouise Keating, Anzaldúa’s long-time co-editor on decolonizing book projects such as this bridge we call home, The Anzaldúa Reader provides an in-depth view of the wide scope of Anzaldúa’s
interests and the developing nature of key concepts throughout her writing career. And it is this developing life project of Anzaldúa, the queer mestiza writer-poet-healer-activist, that provides the narrative structure for the Reader.”—George Hartley, Southwestern American Literature

“This stunning anthology offers the best of Anzaldua, a versatile author, self-described as a queer mestiza Chicana feminist poet-philosopher. Her prolific poetry, theory, ‘autohistoria,’ short stories, and drawings are compiled in this thought-provoking volume.”—WATERwheel

“The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader is the first and most comprehensive collection of Anzaldúa’s works. Keating has woven them carefully and artfully together into a tapestry sparkling with Anzaldúa’s insights, such as her theories of new tribalism, left-handed world, la mestiza consciousness, and spiritual activism.”—Xiumei Pu, Feminist Formations

“Keating collects poems, essays, prose and commentaries by Anzaldúa, revealing the public figure the pathbreaking queer Chicana writer as well as a sensual and deeply spiritual iconoclast. Anzaldúa’s voice emerges defiant, mercenary, passionate and unapologetic. . . . . The book is punctuated by Anzaldúa’s simple drawings, exercises in deconstruction and reconstruction of identity. Her writings capturing her relentless fight to avoid being stereotyped and to empower women of color within and without academia are rich and various, exploring everything from gender, memory and oppression to sex in the afterlife.”—Publishers Weekly

“[T]he editor, AnaLouise Keating, does a great job of including a bit of everything in almost every way. There are poems, fictional stories, autobiographical pieces, drawings, transcripts of talks and email exchanges, and so forth. . . . It gives a great introduction to people who have never before read Anzaldúa’s work, but even die-hard fans will like the book because it includes a good amount of unpublished material.”—Frau Sally Benz, Feminist Review blog

“The Reader does a good job of offering a wide range of Anzaldúa’s writings, from her most famous and well-loved essays that appeared in the seminal Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza to never-before-published poems, experimental fiction, interviews, e-mail communications, and unfinished pieces. Anzaldúa was a notorious perfectionist, sometimes revising essays and stories until an editor had to yank them from her hands. Still, this selection would’ve made Anzaldúa proud.”—Liliana Valenzuela, Texas Observer

“This reader . . . demonstrates the breadth and philosophical depth of her work. . . . [It] offers fresh insights into crucial aspects of Anzaldúa's life and career, including her upbringing, education, teaching experiences, writing practice and aesthetics, lifelong health struggles, and interest in visual art, as well as her theories of disability, multiculturalism, pedagogy, and spiritual activism.”—Frauen Solidarität

“Keating’s introduction provides a clear context for these writings and further establishes Anzaldúa’s centrality as a key feminist writer and theorist. Covering a 30-year span, Keating’s thoughtful selections accomplish three stated goals: to make the book ‘useful to a wide variety of readers, from those who are entirely unfamiliar with Anzaldúa and her writings to scholars who have studied her work for years,’ to ‘showcase Anzaldúa’s diversity in topics, genres, and approaches,’ and to remain true to Anzaldúa’s complex aesthetics and vision. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.”—E. Rodriguez y Gibson, Choice

“Compiled and edited by AnaLouise Keating, Anzaldúa’s long-time co-editor on decolonizing book projects such as this bridge we call home, The Anzaldúa Reader provides an in-depth view of the wide scope of Anzaldúa’s
interests and the developing nature of key concepts throughout her writing career. And it is this developing life project of Anzaldúa, the queer mestiza writer-poet-healer-activist, that provides the narrative structure for the Reader.”—George Hartley, Southwestern American Literature

“This stunning anthology offers the best of Anzaldua, a versatile author, self-described as a queer mestiza Chicana feminist poet-philosopher. Her prolific poetry, theory, ‘autohistoria,’ short stories, and drawings are compiled in this thought-provoking volume.”—WATERwheel

“The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader is the first and most comprehensive collection of Anzaldúa’s works. Keating has woven them carefully and artfully together into a tapestry sparkling with Anzaldúa’s insights, such as her theories of new tribalism, left-handed world, la mestiza consciousness, and spiritual activism.”—Xiumei Pu, Feminist Formations

“Keating collects poems, essays, prose and commentaries by Anzaldúa, revealing the public figure the pathbreaking queer Chicana writer as well as a sensual and deeply spiritual iconoclast. Anzaldúa’s voice emerges defiant, mercenary, passionate and unapologetic. . . . . The book is punctuated by Anzaldúa’s simple drawings, exercises in deconstruction and reconstruction of identity. Her writings capturing her relentless fight to avoid being stereotyped and to empower women of color within and without academia are rich and various, exploring everything from gender, memory and oppression to sex in the afterlife.”—Publishers Weekly

“[T]he editor, AnaLouise Keating, does a great job of including a bit of everything in almost every way. There are poems, fictional stories, autobiographical pieces, drawings, transcripts of talks and email exchanges, and so forth. . . . It gives a great introduction to people who have never before read Anzaldúa’s work, but even die-hard fans will like the book because it includes a good amount of unpublished material.”—Frau Sally Benz, Feminist Review blog

“Gloria Anzaldúa was a courageous participant in late-twentieth-century decolonial movements. Throughout this reader she insists that academic knowledge must take into account the spirit-body-emotions-mind matrix. Such an accounting would transform academic knowledge, she believed, and make way for emancipatory modes of knowing and for brave, new subjects of history. The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader samples the bold lifework of a woman whose aims were to relieve suffering and to envision a decolonizing social affinity capable of uniting humanity in love.”—Chela Sandoval, author of Methodology of the Oppressed

“AnaLouise Keating’s compilation of Gloria Anzaldúa’s ‘early,’ ‘middle,’ and ‘later’ writings provides a service to scholars; additionally, it is a joy to read Gloria’s voice seeped in ‘shaman aesthetics’ that impel and move us to radical action. Undoubtedly, Anzaldúa’s impact on various levels—including academic fields such as border studies, women’s studies, and American studies—is long-lasting and profound.”— Norma E. Cantú, University of Texas at San Antonio, founder of the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa

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