Gloria Anzaldua’s work has had a major impact in Chicanx, race, and gender studies. Here is your chance to reflect on the impact or effect her work has had on you. We will use this discussion board to create a gallery of our thoughts.

Assignment Instructions

Gloria Anzaldua’s work has had a major impact in Chicanx, race, and gender studies. Here is your chance to reflect on the impact or effect her work has had on you. We will use this discussion board to create a gallery of our thoughts.

I am not requiring any responses to this assignment, although you are welcome to provide some as a way to support your colleagues!

STEP 1: COMPLETE THIS WEEK’S ASSIGNED READINGS.

5.2

STEP 2: CREATE YOUR OWN RESPONSE TO OR WRITE REFLECTION ABOUT ANZALDUA

OPTION 1: CREATIVE RESPONSE

Create something that reflects and communicates your response to Anzaldua’s work. This is very open! You can create a video, an image, a drawing, a poem, a book review, a recipe, a song, and anything else you can come up with. It is up to you!

You must be able to share your creation through this discussion board–pictures are, of course acceptable! Your creation must also work to express your thoughts on or takeaways from our assigned readings of Anzaldua’s work.

If you submit a video or audio recording, please use a YouTube link to share. That way we don’t have to download a file to enjoy your contribution to our gallery.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope you are able to have some fun with this assignment!

OPTION 2: WRITTEN REFLECTION

Please write a reflection of about 175 words or more that addresses the following points:

What was your experience reading Anzaldua’s work?

What do you take away from her work? In other words, what has reading this text contributed to your thinking and learning?

Is there a specific section or aspect of her work that has stood out to you the most?

How does her work relate to your own experiences or beliefs?

Please be open and take this opportunity to share your thoughts on this majorly impactful text. Your perspective matters!

This is an informal reflection, so please write in whatever way you find the most comfortable!

Requirements: depend

Gloria Anzaldua is a.lso the co-editor of This Bridge Called My Back Gloria Anzaldua Borderlands fafrontera The New Mestiza aunt lute books SAN FRANCISCO

Copyright ©1987 by Gloria Anzaldua All rights reserved First Edition 20-19-18-17-16 Aunt Lu~e Book Company p.D. Box 410687 San Francisco, CA 94141 “Holy Relics” first appeared in C()ndition~ Six, 1980. “Cervicide” first appeared in L,ahyris, A Feminist AmJournal, Vol. 4,#11, Winter 1983. “En el nomhre de tOMS las mad res que han perdido JUS hijoJ en laguerra” first appeared in IKON: Creativity and Ch.ange,. Second Series,. #4, 1985,. Cover and Text Design: Pamela Wilson Design Studio Cover An: Pamela Wilson Typesetting: Grace Harwood and Comp:[ype,. Fon Bragg, CA Production: Cindy Cleary Martha Davis Debra DeBondt Rosana Francescato Amelia Gonzalez Printed in the U.S.A. Lorraine Grassano Ambrosia Marvin Papusa Molina Sukey Wilder Kathleen Wilkinson Libl9lry o~ ‘Congress CatalogiJlilg-ill-Publica.tion Data A02:a1dua, Glllli.a. . Borderlands : the new mestiza = La frontera I Gloria Anzaldua -1st eel. -San Francisco : Aunt. Lute, c1987. 2031′, : po,!” : 22 em. Englis.h .and Spanish, Some poems tr:atnslat,ed from Sp,anisbi. ISBN 1·819%0·12·5 !pbk,l’ : $9.’95 1. Mexrucan~American Boroc’r Region-Poetry. 2. Mexfucan-American women -Poetry. 3,. Me::dc:an-American Horde[ Region -Civilizatio:JIIJ. I. Title. U. Title: Frontera. PS3551.N95B6 1987 811′.54-dcl9 87·60780 AACRZ MARC Acknowledgements To you who walked with me upon my path and who held out a hand when I stumbled; to YOll who brushed past me at crossroads never ~o touch me again; to you whom I never chanced to meet but who inhabit borderlands similar to mine; to you for whom the borderlands is unknown territory; to Kit Quan, for .feeding me and listening to me ram and rave; to Melani,e Kaye/Kamrowitz, .for believing in m~ and being ther,e for me; to Joan Pinkvoss, my editor and publisher, midwi~e extraor­dinaire, whose understanding., caring, and batanced mixture of gentle prodding and pressure not only helped me bring this “baby” to term, but helped to create it; these images and words are for you. To the production staff at Spinsters/ Auot Lute who bore the pressure of impossible deadlines well: Martha Davis whose invaluable and excellent copy-editing has made the material more readable and cohesive; Debra DeBondt who worked long and hard to keep the book Dn schedule; Pam Wilson and Graoe Harwood.;. to Frances Doughty, Juanita Ramos, Judith Waterman, Irena Klepfisz, Randy Conner,Jan,et Aalphs, Mirtha N. Quinta­nales, Mandy Covey and EIana Dyk,ewomon for their support and ,encouragement, as well as f,eedback, Dn various pieces; (0 my friends, swdents and cDHeagues in the ADP program in Vermont Col]ege, Women’s Voices Writing Workshop, VCSC, and writers who participated in my writing workshops in NYC,. New Haven, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and Austin,. Texas, in particu­lar: Pearl Olson, Pau.la Ross, Marcy Alancraig, Maya Valv,erde, Ariban,. Tirsa Quinones, Beth Brant, Chrystos, Elva pere.z­Trevino, Victoria Rosales, Christian McEwen, Roz Calvert, Nina Newington, and Linda Smuckler;.

to Chela Sandoval, Rosa-Maria ViUafane-Sosolak, Osa Hidalgo de la Riva, Lisa Carim, Sue Schwiek, Viviana Varela, Cindy Cleary, Papusa Molina and Rusty Barcelo; to Lisa Levin, Shelley Savren,. Lisa Albrecht, Mary Pollock, Lea AreUano, Christine Weiland, Louise Rocha, Leon Fishman, Claude Talley; to my family: my mother, Amalia; my sister, Hilda; my brothers,. Urbano (Nune) and Oscar (Carito);. my sisters-in-law, Janie and Sara; my niece, Missy, and my nephew, Urbie; Tio Pete y Tia Minga;. and especially to the memory of my father,. Urbano, and my grandmothers, Eloisa (Locha) and Ramona; gracias .a todi.tos ustedes. THIS BOOK is dedicated a todos mex.icanos on both sides of the border. G.E.A. Preface The actual physical bordedand that I’m dealing wi th in this book is the Texas-U.S Southwest/Mexican border. The psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual borderlands are not particular to the Southwest. In fact, the Borderlands are physicaHy present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where peopIe of differ em races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy. I am a border woman.. I grew up between I.”WO cultures, the Mexican (with a heavy Indian influence) and the Anglo (as a member of a colonized people in our own territory). I have been straddling that teja,r-Mexican border, .and others, all my life. h’s not.a comfortable territory to liv,e in,. this place of contradictions. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape. However, there have be·en compensations for this mestiza,. and certain joys. Living on borders and in margins., keeping intact one’s shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim ina new element, an “alien” element. There is an exhilara­tiolJi in being a participant in the funherevolution of humankind, in being “worked” on .. 1 have the sense thatoertain “Iaculdes”­,not just in me but in every border resident,. colored or non­colored-l’I;nd dormant areas of consciousness are beingacti­v.ated, awakened. Strange, huh? And y,es, the “alien” element has become familiar-never comfortable, not with society’s clamor to uphold the old,. to rejoin the flock, to go with the herd. No, nm comfortable but home. This book, then, speaks of my existence. My preoccupations with the inner life of the Self, and with the struggle of that Self amidst adversity and violation; with the confluence of primordial images; with the unique positionings consciousness takes at these confluent streams; and with my almost instinctive urge to communicate, to speak, to write about life on the borders, life in the shadows. Books saved my sanity,. knowledge opened the locked places in me and taught me first how to survive and then how to soar. LA madre naturaleza succored me, allowed me to grow roots that anchored me to the earth .. My love of images-mesquit,e flower-

ing,. the wind,. Eheca.tl, whispering its secret knowledge, the fleeting images of the so.ul in famasy-and words, my passion for the daily struggle to render them concrete in the world and on paper, to Jr.end~ctj1emflesh,. keeps me alive .. The switching of “codes” in this book from English to Castillian Spanish to the North Mexican dialect to Tex-Mex to a sprinkling of Nahuatl to a mixture of aU of these, reflects my language, a new language-the language of the Borderlands. There, at the juncture of cultures, languages cross-poHinate and are revitalized; they die and are bom. Pr,esemly this inram language.,. this bastard language,. Chicano Spanish, is not approved by any society. But we Chicanos no longer feel that we need to. beg entrance, that we need always to make the first overture-lQ translate to Anglos, Mexicans and Latinos, apology bhlrting out of our mouths with every step. To.day we ask to be met halfway. This book is our invitation to. you-from the new mestizas. Borderlands La Frontera

Contients A TRAVESANDO FRONTERAS I CROSSING BORDERS 1. The Homeland,. Azdan I El atro Mexico, page 1 El destie1’1’o I The Lost Land El Cfflzar del mojado I IHega] Crossing 2. MovimientoJ de rebeldia y laJ cult.u’J’:M q.ue traicionan, p.age 15 The Strength of My RebeHion Cultural Tyranny Half and Half Fear of Going Horne: Homophobia Intimate Terrorism: Life in the Borderlands The Wounding of the india-Mestiza 3. Entering Into the Serpent, page 25 Ella tiene JU tona Coatlalopeuh, She Who Has Dominion Over Serpents For Waging War Is My Cosmic Duty Sueno con JerpienteJ The Presences Lafacultad 4. La herencia de Coatlicue I The Coatlicue State, page 41 EnfrentamientoJ can el alma El secreta terrible y la rajadur.a Nopal de castilla The Coatlicue State The Coatlicue State Is A Prelude co Crossing That Wh ich Abides 5. How to Tame a Wild Tongue, p.age 53 Overcoming the Tradition of SHence Oye como ladra: e/ lenguaje de la frontera Chicano Spanish Linguistic Terrorism “Vistas,” corridos, y comMas: My Native Tongue Si Ie preguntas a mi mama, “ique eres?” 6. Tlmi,. Tlapatli: the Path of the Red and Black Ink, page 65 Invoking Art Ni cuicani: I, the Singer The S’hamanic State

W firing is a Sensuous Act Something To Do With the Dark 7.. La concienc;a de III, mestiza: Towards aNew Notes Consciousness, page 77 Una lucha de ironteras / A StruggIe of Borders A Tolerance for Ambiguity La encrucijada I The Crossroads Elcamino de III, mestiza I The Mestiza Way Que nO’ se nos alvide los hombres Somos una gente By Your True Faces We Will Know YOIl El dill, de III, Chicana El retarno UN A GITADO VIENTO I EHECATL, THE WIND I. Mas ante.s en los r:anchos White-wing Season, page 1.02 Gervicide, p.age 1.04 horse, p.age 106 Immaculate, Inviolate: Como Ella, page 108 N apalitos, page 112 n. La perdida JUS plumas €II viento,. page 116 Cultures, page 12.0 sobr:e piedras can lagar:tijos, page 121 el san.avabitche, page 124 mar de repollas, page 13.0 A Sea of Cabbages, page 132 We CaU Them Greasers, p.age 134 Matr;z sin tumba a “€II bartO’ de la basura ajen.a”; page 136 HI. Crossers y otras atravesados Poets have strange eati ng habits,. pag,e 14.0 Yo no fui, lue Tete, page 142 The Cannibal’s Cancion, page 143 En mi cor:az6n se incuba, page 144 Corner of 50th St. and Fifth Av., page 145 Companera, cuando amabamos, p.age 146 Interface, page 148 IV. Cihuatlyotl, Woman Alone Holy Rdics,. page 154 En €II nombre de todas las m.adres, page 160 Letting Go, page 164 I Had To Go Down, page 167 Cagada abinna, quiero saber, page 170 that dark shi ning thing, page 171 Cihua.tlyott, Woman Alone, page 173 V. Animas La curandera,. page 176 mujer cacto, p.age 18.0 Cuyamaca, page 182 My Black Ange.tas, page 184 Creature of Darkness, p.age 186 Antigua,. mi diosa, page 188 VI. EI Retorno Arriba mi gente,. page 192 T 0 li~~ in the Bon:ledands means you, page 194 Canc~an .de III, diosa de la noch.e, page 196 Nose raje, chican.ita, page 2.00 Don’t Give In,. Chicanita, page 2.02

Atravesando fronteras Crossing Borders

1 The Homeland, .Azdan El atro Mexico El afro M,exico que’ aea hemos com.truido el e.sp.acio es 10 que ha sido territorio n,a,eional. Es.te el esju.erzo de todos n.ue;.tror hermanos y la#noamericanos que han sabido progressar. -Los Tigr,es del Norte1 “The A z;.tecasdel norte … compose the largest single tribe or nation of Anishinabeg (Indians) found in the United States today ….. Some caU themselves Chicanos and see themsdves as people whose true homeland is Azdan[the U.s.. SOI.lthwest].”2 Wind t~gging at my sleeve feet sinking into the sand [ stand at the edge where eanh touches ocean where the two overlap a gentle coming together at other times and places a violent dash. Across the border in Mexico stark silhouett,e of houses gutted by waves, diffs crumbling into the sea,. silver waves marbled with spume gashi.nga hole under the border fence.

2 The Homeland, Aztian I HI ot,.,o Mexico Mira el mar atacar la cerca en Border Field Park con sus buchO’nes de agua, an East,er Sunday resurrection of the brown blood in my veins. OigG elllGridG del mar, el respirG del aire, my heart surges to the beat of the sea. In the gray ha.ze of the sun the gu[1s’ shrill cry of hunger, the tangy smeU of the sea seeping into me .. I walk through the hole in the fence to the other side .. V nder my fingers I feel the gritty wire .rusted by, 139 years of the salty breath of the sea. Beneath the iron sky Mexican children kick their soccer ball across, run aft,er it, entering the U.S. I press my hand to the steel curtain­chainlink fence crowned with roHed barbed wire­rippling from the sea where Tijuana touches San Diego unrolling over mountains and plains and deserts, this “TortiHa Curtain” turning into el riG Gr,ande Hawing down to the fladands of the Magic Valley of South Texas its mouth emptying into the GuH. 1,950 mile-long open wound dividing a pueblO’, a culture, running down the length of my body,. staking fence rods in my flesh, splits me splits me me raja me raja 3 The Homeland, Azdan I HI Ofro MexicO’ This is my home this thin ,edge of barbwire .. But the skin of the earth is seamless. The sea cannot be fenced, ,el mar does not stop at borders. To show the white man what she thought of his arroganc,e, Y;emaya blew that wire fence down. This land was Mexican once” was Indian always and is. And will be again. YO’ soy un puente tendido del mundG gabacho at del mojado, to paI’adG me estir,a pa’ ‘trlH y 10′ pr:esente pa’ ‘delan.te .. Que fa Virgen de Guadalupe me cuide A’y ay ay, I’oy mexicana de este lado .. The V.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And be.fore a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country-a border cu]tur,e. Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing Hne, a narrow strip alonga. steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a con­stant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhahitants. Los atravesadGs .Iive here: the squint-eyed, the per­v’erse, the queer, the troublesome, tbe mongrel, the mulato, the half-breed, the half dead; in short,. those who ,cross over, pass over, argo through the confines of the “normal” Gringos in the U.S. Southwest consider the inhabitants o.f the borderlands transgressors, aliens-whether they possess documents or not,. whether they’re Chicanos, Indians or Blacks. Do not enter, tres­passers win be raped, maimed, strangled, gassed” shot. Ih.1:,Q~nly~ “)egitimate” inhabitants are those in power, the whites and those

4 The Homeland, AzeJan I Et ot1’O MexicO’ who .• dign themselves with whites. Tension grips the inhabitants of the borderlands like a virus. Ambivalence and unrest reside there and death is no stranger .. In the fields, la migra. My aunt saying, “NO’ ,cGrran, don’t run. They’ll think you’re del GtrG laG.” In the confu­sion, Pedro ran, terrified of being caught. He couldn’t speak English, muldn’t tell them he was fihhgeneration Ameri­can. Sin papeles-he did not carry his birth certificate w work in the fields. La migr:a wok him a way while we watched .. Se 10 Ilevaron. He tried to smile when he looked back at us, to raise his fist. But I saw the shame pushing his head down, I saw the terribIe weight of shame hunch his shoulders .. They deported him to Guadabjara by plane. The fUifthest he’d ,ever been te Mexico was Reynosa., a small berder town oppesite Hidalge, Texas, net far from McAllen. Pedro wa.lked aU the way to the VaHey. Se 10′ llevaron sin un centavO’ al pobre .. Se vino ,andandG desde GuadalaJara. During the original peepHng of the Americas, the first inhabitants migrated across the Bering Straits and walked south across the mntinent. The eldest evidence .of humankind in the U.S.-the Chicanos’ andent Indianancesters-was found in Texas and has been dated to 35000 B.C.3 In the Southwest United States archeelogists have found 20,000-year-eld campsites of the Indians who migrated through, or permanendy .occupied, the Southwest, Aztliin-Iand of the herons, land of whiteness, the Edenic place .of origin of the Azteca. In WOO B.C., descendants .of the original Cechise people migrated into what is now Mexico and Central America and became thedir,ect ancestors of many of the Mexican people. (The Cechise cultur,e of the Southwest is the parent culture of the Aztecs. The Uta-Aztecan languages stemmed frem the fanguage of the Cochise people.)4 The Aztecs (the Nahuad word for people of AztIan) left the Southwest in 1168 A.D. Now let us go. Tihueque, tihueque, VamGnOS, vamGnos .. Un piJjaro ,canto. 5 The Homeland, Azthln I Ei ot1’O MlJ:xico Con sus G,cho .tribus salieron de la “‘cu,eva del origen .. ” los aztecas siguierGn at diGS HuitzilopGchtli. HuitzilopG,chtli, the God of War, guided them to the place (that later became Mexice City) where an eagle with a writhing serpent in its beak perched on a cactl.ls. The eagle symbolizes the spirit (as the sun, the father); the serpent symbolizes the seul (as the earth, the mother). Tog,ether, they symbolize the struggle between the spiritual! celestial! male and the underwerld! earth! feminine. The symbolic sacrifice of the serpent to the “higher” masculine powers indicates that the patriarchal .order had already vanquished the feminine and matriarchal OJrd,er in pre­Columbian America. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Spaniards and Hernan Cortes invaded Mexico and, with the he.lp of tribes that the Aztecs had subjugat,ed, conquered it. Before the Cenquest, there were twenty-five million Indian peeple in Mexico and the Yu:catan. Immediately after the Conquest, the Indian population had been reduoed te under seven millien. By 1650., .only one-and­a-haH-million pure-Moeded Indians remained. The mestizO’s who were genedcaHy equi pped to surv ive small pox, measles, and typhus (Old World diseases to which the natives had no immun­ity), founded a new hybrid race and inherited Central and South America.5 En 1521 n·acfG .una nueva raza, el mestizo, el mexicanG (people .of mixed Indian and Spanish blood)., a race that had never existed befere .. Chicanos, Mexican-Americans, are the offspring of those first matings. Our Spanish, Indian, and mestizo ancestors explered and settled parts of the U.S. Southwest as early as the sixteenth century. For every gold-hungry conq.uist.adorand soul-hungry missienary who came north from Mexico, ten to twenty Indians and mestizos went along as porters or in other capadties.6 For the Indians, this constituted a return te the place .of origin, Az.tlan, thus making Chicanes originally and secendarily indi­genous to the Seuthwest. Indians and mes.tizos from central Mexico intermarried with North Amerkan Indians. The contin­ual intermarriage between Mexican and American Indians and Spaniards formed an even greater mestizaje.

6 The Homeland, Aztian I Elo.tro Mexico El destierro/The Lost Land Entonces corre la sangre no sabeel indio que hacer, Ie van a quitar su tierra .. ta tiene que defender,. €II indio se cae m.uerto” y el afuerino de p.ie. Levantat.e, Manquilef. A ra.uco .tiene .una pen a mas negra que su ch,amal, ya no son los e sp,afioles los que les hacen /lorar, hoy .son los propios chilenos los que les quitan su p,an. Levan.tate, Pailahuan. -Violeta Parra, “Arauco tien,e una pena”l In the 1800s, Anglos migrated megally into Texas, which was then part of Mexico, i.n greater and greater numbers and gradually drove the .tejanos (native Texans of Mexican descent) from their lands,. committing aU manner of atrocities against them. Their illegal invasion forced Mexico to fight a war to keep its Texas territory. The Batde of the Alamo, in which the Mexi­can forces vanquished the whites, became, .for the whit,es, the sy mbol for the cowardly and villainous charact’er of the Mexicans. It became (and still is) a symbol that legitimized the white imperialist takeover .. With the capture of Santa Anna later in 1836, T,exas became a republic. Tej:anos lost their land and, overnight, became the foreigners. Ya la mit.ad det terreno les vendi6 el traMor Santa A nn.a, can 10 que se ha hecho muy r.ica la naci6n americana .. c’Que acaso no se conforman con €II oro de las minas? Ustedes m.uy elegantes y aqulnosotros ,en ruin,as .. ·-from the Mexican corrido, “Del peligro de ta In.tervenci6n,J/:3 7 The Homeland, AztrJan I EI 011’0 Mexico ]n 1846, the U.S .. incited Mexico to war. V.S. troops invaded and occupied Mexico, for!t”ing her to give up almost haH of her nation, what is now Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California .. With the victory of the V.S .. forces over the Mexican in the U.S.-Mex.icao War,. los norteamel’icanos pushed the Texas border down 100 miles, from eJ rio N ueces to el rio Grande. South Texas ceased to be part of the Mexican state of Yamauli­pas. Separated from Mexico, the Native Mexkan-Texan no longer look,ed toward Mexico as horne; the Southwest became our homeland once more.. The border fence tJh:at divides the Mexican peop]e was born on February 2, 1848 with the signing of the Tr,eaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo .. It left 100,000 Mexican citi­z’ens on this side, annexed by conquest along with the land. The land established by the tr,eaty as belonging to Mexicans was soon swindled away from its owners. The treaty was never honored and restitution, to this day, has never been made. The justice and benevolence of God will forbid that … Texas should again become a howling wilderness trod only by savages, or ….. benighted by the ignoranc,e and superstition, the anarchy and rapine of Mexican misruIe. The Anglo-American race are destined to be forever the proprietors of this land of promise and fuUHlment. Their laws wiUgovern it, their learning will enlight,en it, their enterprise will improve it. Their flocks range its boundless pastures, for them its fertile lands will yield … luxuriant harvests •.. The wilderness of Texas has been redeemed by Anglo-American blood &. enterprise. -WilHam H. Wharton9 The Gringo, locked into the fiction of white superiority, seized complete political power, stripping Indians and Mexicans of their land while thdr feet were still rooted in it. Con el desti.erro yel exilo fuimos d.esufia.dos,. destron.cados, destri·

8 The Homeland, Aztlan / Et otro Mexico pados-we were jerked out by the roots, tcuncar,ed, disembo­weled, dispossessed, and s,eparated from our identity and our history. Many, under the threat of Anglo terrorism, abandoned homes and ranches and went to Mexico. Some stayed and pro­tested. But as the courts, law enforcemem o.fficials, and govern­ment officia.ls not only ignored their pleas but penalized them for their efforts, tejanos had no other recourse but armed retaliadon. After Mexican-American resisters robbed a train in Brownsville, Texas on October 18, 1915, Anglo vigilante groups began lynching Chicanos. Texas Rangers would take them into the brush and shoot them. One hundr,ed Chicanos were killed in a matter of months, whole families lynched. Seven thousand fled to Mexico, leaving their small ranches and farms .. The Anglos, afraid that the mexi,canos10 would seek independence from the U .8., brought in 20,000 army troops to put an ,end to the sodal protest movement in South Texas .. Race hatred had finany fomemed into an all out war .. l1 My grandmother lost all her cattle, they stole her land. “Drought hit South Texas,” my mother tdh me. “La tiefra se puso biense,ca y losanimales comenzaron a morrirse de se’. Mi papa se mudD de .un heart attack dejando a mama pregnant y ,con O’cho huercos, with eight kids and one on the way. yO’ lui la mayO’r, tenia di,ez afios. The next year the drought col1tinued Y el g,anadO’ got hoof and mouth. Se calleron in droves en las pastasy el brushland, pansas blancas baHooning to the skies .. EI siguiente ano still no rain. Mi pO’bre madre viuda perd;6 two-thirds of her ganadO’. A smartgabacho lawyer took the land away mama hadn’t paid taxes. NO’ hablaba ingles, she didn’t know how to ask for time to raise the money. ” My father’s mother, Marna Locha,. also lost her tefreno. For awhile we got $12.50 a y,ear for the” mineral rights” of six acres of cemetery, aU that was, left of the anc,estral landis .. Mama Locha had asked that we bury her there beside her husband. EI cemeterio e.staba cercado. But there was a fence around the cemetery, chained and padlocked by the ranch owners of the smrounding land. We couldn’t even get in to visit the graves, much less bury her there .. Today, it is still padlocked. The sign r,eads: “Keep out. Trespassers will be shot.” 9 The Homeland, Azrlan I Elot1’O Mexico In the 1930s, aft,er Anglo agribusiness corporations cheated the sman Chicano landowners of their land, the corporations hired gangs of mexicanos to pullout the brush, chaparral and cactus and to irrigate the desert. The land they toiledl over had once belonged to many of them, or had been used communally by them. Later the Anglos brought in huge machines and root plows and had the Mexicans scrape the land dean of natural vegetation. In my childhood I saw the end of dryland farming. I witnessed the land cleared;. saw the huge pipes connected to underwater sources sticking up in the air. As children, we’d go fishing in some of those canals when they were fun and hunt for snakes in them when they were dry. In the 1950s I saw the bnd,. ,cut up into thousands of neat reaangles and squares, constantly being irri­ga ted. In the 340-day growth season, the seeds of any kind of fruit or vegetable had only to be stuck in the ground in order to grow. More big landl corporations came in and bought up the remaining land. To make a living my father became a sharecropper .. Rio Farms Incorporated loaned him seed money and living expenses .. At harvest time,. my father repaid the loan and fork.ed over 40% of the earnings. Sometimes we eamed less than we owed, but always the corporations fared well. Some had major holdings in vegetable trucking,. livestock auctions and conongins. Aho­gether we lived on three successive Rio farms; the second was adjl3cent to the King Ranch and induded a dairy farm; the third was at chicken farm. I remember the white feathers of three thousand Leghorn chickens blanketing the landl for acres around. My sister, mother andl I cleaned, weighed and packaged eggs. (For years afterwards I couldn’t stomach the sight of an egg.) I remember my mother attending some of the meetings sponsored by wen-meaning whites from Rio Farms. They talked about good nutrition, health, and held huge barbeques. The only thing sal­vaged for my family horn those years are modern techniques of food canning and a food-stained book they primed madle up of recipes from Rio Farms’ Mexican women. How proud my mother was to have her recipe for en,chilada.s cO’loradas in a book. EI cruzar del mO’jadolIllegal Crossing “A.bO’r:a si Ja t.engo una tumba para liorar, ” dice CO’nchita, upon being reunic,ed with

10 The Homeland, AztIan I Elo.tro hIexi,co her 1.lI1known mother just before the mother dies -from Ismael Rodriguez’ film, NOJOtros los pobres12 La crisis .. Los gringos had not stopped at the border. By the ,end of the nineteenth century, powerful landowners in Mexico,. in partnership with U.S. colonizing companies, had dispossessed miHions of Indians or their lands. Currently, Mexko and her eighty minion citizens are almost completdy dependent on the V.S. market. The Mexican government and wealthy growers are in partnership with such American conglomerates as American Motors,. IT&T and Du Pont whkh own fanories called maquiladoras. One-fourth of all Mexkans work at maquiladoras; most are young women. Next wail,. maquiladoras ar,e Mexico’s second greatest source of u.s.. dollars. Working eight to twelve hours a day to wire in backup lights of U.S. autos or solder miniscule wires in TV sets is not the Mexican way. While the women ar,e in the maquiladoras, the children are left on their own. Many roam the street, become part of cholo gangs. The infusion of the values of the white culture, coupled with the exploitation by that culture, is changing the Mexican way of life. The devaluation of the peso and Mexico’s dependency on the V.S. have brought on what the Mexicans callia crisis. No hay trabajo. Half of the Mexican people are unemployed .. In the U.S .. a man or woman can make eight times what they can in Mexico. By March, 1987,.1,.088 pesos were worth one

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