Transcript Borderlands Power Point 2 FAll 2015x

Lecture Continued
 In this chapter Anzaldua highlights her personal relation to the idea of home: “I had to
leave home so I could find myself, find my own intrinsic nature buried under the
personality that had been imposed on me.”
 Whereas in the first chapter she highlights the importance of belonging and seems to
attempt to narrate a PLACE of belonging, a home, Aztlan, in this chapter she shifts gears
a bit. She is still working with the concept of belonging, but the home which is supposed
to be the ultimate place of belonging is not “homely” for her. She does not feel she
belongs there. Why? Because ultimately, the home for the Chicano/a woman is
oppressive. Furthermore, Anzaldua explains, it is far less embracing of the Chicana
lesbian.
 Essentialism: There are characteristics that are natural to me, that define my essence
 Existentialism: I am my experiences. There is nothing “essential” about my being. I
become (who I am) as I experience life.
 Anzaldua seems to be stuck between the two but ultimately leans more towards an
existential feminism.
 “intrinsic nature” ; “for some it is genetically inherent;” her account of the line of
ancestry
 Mixed influences; “made the choice to be queer;” “deviation of nature;” does not fit in at
home in her womanly roles.
 In Chapter 3, Anzaldua continues to focus on women and women’s issues, so to speak. Her chapter
features a long discussion of strong female deities or figures that are relevant to the Chicano and
Chicana population including Coatlicue/Tonantsi, Guadalupe, La Llorona, and La Malinche.
 She begins with the story of the serpent. She is bitten by a serpent and she becomes it.
 The snake is her animal counterpart. She introduces us to the Snake Woman Coatlicue (Serpent-
skirt). Coatlicue is a powerful Mesoamerican deity. She is also Earth – “the Earth is a coiled
Serpent”
 Anzaldua and all Chicanas carry with them this ancient presence of Earth and Earth mother. For
her acknowledging this presence is acknowledging the “animal” body and the “animal” soul.
Strength, power of creation and destruction, bodily expression – NOT EVIL – like the serpent in
the Adam and Eve story.
 More about Coatlicue: The Aztec earth goddess of live and death, mother of the gods, and mother
of the stars of the southern sky. Coatlicue became pregnant when she stuffed a ball of feathers -that had fallen from the sky -- in her bosom. Her outraged children sought to slay her, but the god
Huitzilopochtli emerged fully armed from his mother's womb and slew many of his brothers and
sisters. Coatlicue represented the type of the devouring mother in whom were combined both the
womb and the grave. Coatlicue was a serpent goddess, depicted wearing a skirt of snakes.
A colossal basalt statue of Coatlicue
('Serpent Skirt), the Aztec mother
goddess. The goddess is represented
with a severed head replaced by two
snake heads, wearing a necklace of
severed hands and human hearts with
a skull pendant, and a dress of
entwined snakes. She also has claws
on her feet and hands which she used
to rip off the flesh from corpses
before eating them. The statue is 3.5
m tall and dates from the late Post
Classical Period of Mesoamerica,
1250-1521 CE. (National Museum of
Anthropology, Mexico City)
• The story is documented by Spaniards
• Guadalupe appears to an Nahuatl/Aztec indian
named Juan Diego in 1531 on a hill between the
indian village and the Spanish missionary
settlement (Tepeyac Hill) in what is now Mexico
City (Basilica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe)
• This is during a time when Mexico was
ruled/colonized by Spain
• The Spanish religion is Catholicism
• The Aztecs have their own pantheistic religion
that is slowly dissolving
• The story of Guadalupe was a proselytizing tool
of the Spaniards but one that through
appropriation becomes a unifying and uplifting
narrative for the Mexican people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWz0Yeio0ks
 Anzaldua and other scholars read the Virgen de Guadalupe as a
configuration of the mestiza and the mestiza text; that is, the Virgen
cannot be understood if not as mixed and transcultural. She and her
story embodiment of mestizaje.
 Guadalupe is a manifestation of the Virgin Mary but she is also
Mesoamerican.
 In fact, Guadalupe appears to Juan Diego at Tepeyac Hill where a
worship tem whiple for Tonantsi had previously existed.
 Guadalupe is potentially a mispronunciation of Coatlalopeuh who is
related to the early Mesoamerican fertility and Earth goddess Coatlicue.
 Guadalupe is like Aztec Tonantsi: Brundage tells us that Tonantsi “wore as her exclusive
garment the so-called star skirt.” The Virgen de Guadalupe has starred cloak. (Aztec
male society has “desexed” goddess page 49)
 The turquoise of her dress is Aztec’s color for royalty. It was the main dress color for the
great god Omecihuatl. Although the Indians had many "intermediary gods," according
to Dr. Leon Portilla and other scholars of Aztec and Mesoamerican religion and
philosophy, Omecihuatl was the female side of the supreme creator deity. Her and her
counterpart Ometecuhtli were the source of unity for everything that exists. (Tonantsi,
Earth Mother, is possibly another manifestation of Omecihuatl; Tonantsi also Coatlicue).
 Sun, Moon, Stars: Astrological bodies were very important to ancient religions;
Mesoamerican religion is no exception. Huitzilopochtli was the important Sun god (war)
and central to Aztec religion. He was born of Coatlicue. One sister was the moon; other
siblings were stars. Are these aspects of the depiction of the virgin helping to uplift her
or are they being suppressed/defeated by her? Huitzilopochtli also associated with the
color turquoise as was Quetzalcoatl.
• Black waist belt: Black symbolizes pregnancy in Aztec culture.
Wearing the “cinta” (black band of maternity) around her waist
also indicates an indian custom. “Estoy en cinta.”
• She is not fair skinned. She looks like a native indian.
• Anzaldua: “Today, la Virgin of Guadalupe is the single most potent
religious, political and cultural image of the Chicano/mexicano.
She, like my race, is a synthesis of the old world and the new, of
the religion and culture of the two races in our psyche, the
conquerors and the conquered. She is the symbol of the mestizo
true to his or her Indian values. La cultura chicana identifies with
the mother (Indian) rather than with the father (Spanish). Our
faith is rooted in indigenous attributes, images, symbols, magic
and myth. … To Mexicans on both sides of the border,
Guadalupe is the symbol of our rebellion against the rich, upper
and middleclass; against their subjugation of the poor and the
indio. (52)