“To Live in the Borderlands” by Gloria Anzaldua discusses issues in the borderlands between America and Mexico in order to bring up conflicts between identities and facets of a person within an individual. The poem is written in two different languages—Spanish and English—which show that duality has clearly influenced the author’s life.
In order to fully understand the poem, one must understand both the English and Spanish words. I know how to understand the transitions between the two languages because I took an undergraduate course in Spanish. Using both languages may be the author’s way of showing the mingling of two cultures.
In the last stanza of the poem, Anzaldua writes, “To survive the Borderlands/you must live sin fronteras/be a crossroads” (Anzaldua, 3). “Sin fronteras” means to live without borders. I understand this last stanza to mean that people in the borderlands must conform and assimilate into both cultures. She describes people of the borderlands to have no sense of belonging because they are torn between two cultures, and have a new culture that has formed in the borderlands.
-CB
References
Anzaldua, G. “To Live in the Borderlands.” Borderlands-La Frontera. Aunt Lute Books, 1987, pp. 194-195. http://www.revistascisan.unam.mx/Voices/pdfs /7422.pdf