Conciencia de la mestiza

In her article Gloria Anzaldúa presents the “conciencia de la mestiza” as a need to fill a void that helps the new generation to find its own identity. In this way not only return to the cultural roots of their parents but incorporate them into this new paradigm or horizontal axis. Anzaldúa also interpellates the writers of color by identifying with them through their struggles, being victims of the same oppressors and inviting them to write in order to recover finding their own space and reconcile this other within us.

The two readings of Gloria Anzaldúa for this week helped me to better understand the repercussions of the conquest process and how the divisions of race, domination and power established since the colonial era continue to delimit our interactions with ourselves and with others. The mestiza consciousness is part of the postcolonial process, where we still try to create an identity of our own in the midst of two cultures. In regards to my own research, these readings helped me to rethink the civilizing vision of the nuns regarding the new territory and its inhabitants. Both the nuns, from their role as missionaries, as well as the Indians and blacks, who were classified as savages and barbarians, participated in a process of transculturation which, through the presence of contact zones, a term used by Mary Louise Pratt, this new colonial subject emerges.
We presently have labels such as chicana, mestiza, latina and hispano that try to place us in a category to be identified by ourselves and others. However, we continue to try to rescue part of our historical past in order to represent these roles within the axis of society that continues to dominate and divide us.

Borderland/La Frontera, “La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness” (99-113)