The last stanza of Gloria Anzaldua’s poem To live in the borderlands means you… reads “To survive the Borderlands/ you must live sin fronteras/ be a crossroads.” If you inhabit seemingly contradictory or mutually exclusive identities, it can be hard to embrace all of them. However, the places where those identities intersect, at least in my experience, are often the most authentic parts of a person. This is what she means by “crossroads.” To live without borders between identities is to survive and truly thrive. This stanza means that to live well with multiple identities is to erase the lines separating them, and to be a holistic, whole person.
The transitions between English and Spanish feel very natural to someone with an understanding of Spanish. The words she chose to include in Spanish seem to be words that are commonly understood, even by those who are not fluent in Spanish. This is significant because it maximizes the number of people who will relate to the poem by maximizing the number of people who understand all of the words.
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