Gloria Anzaldua Mestiza Feminist Argument

Gloria Anzaldua wrote a piece called La Conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness. I looked at this title and thought to myself, * oh great...I cant speak spanish. This reading is going to suck. *That is exactly why Anzaldua wrote this. We live in America where, she notes, we call this country a “melting pot”, but it is not.

Anzaldua writes about being of mixed race (spanish, black, or indian) in a white american culture. She said that people of mixed race struggle with cultural and spiritual values, and are in a perpetual state of transition. “Cradled in one culture, sandwiched between two cultures, straddling all three cultures and their value systems.” While she struggles with accepting all her cultures, she also has to worry about how american culture will view her, and what is considered expectable for her to practice and value.

“(As a lesbian I have no race, my own people disclaim me; but I am all races because there is the queer of me in all races.) I am cultures because, as a feminist, I challenge the collective cultural/ religious male derived beliefs of Into-Hispanics and Angeles; yet I am cultured because I am participating in the creation of yet another culture, a new story...” Although this quote makes it sound like yes, we are in a melting pot, that is not what she means. Anzaldua is saying that on top of struggling with cultural diversities, people struggle with gay culture, and how each individual culture will view gay culture. She states that all of this together, does not come together easily, and that no matter what, people of different backgrounds, cultures, values, and beliefs have to struggle in Americas oppressive traditions.

Not only does she acknowledge the challenges that people of different nationalities and sexual orientation have to face, she also brings up the fact that women are still oppressed by men. That in her example of her father, Mexican men, or men of different races, face their own oppression by white men, and succumb to guilt brought on from now being apart of a white american culture and in turn “he suffers from racial amnesia which ignores our common blood, and from guilt because the Spanish part of him took their land and oppressed them...It overlays a deep sense of racial shame.”

...“Though we 'understand' the root cause of male hatred and fear, and the subsequent wounding of woe, we do not excuse, we do not condone and we will not longer put up with it. From the men of our race, we demand the admission/acknowledgement/disclosure/testimony that they wound us, violate us, are afraid of us and our power.” Amzulua's paper leads up to her want for women of mixed background to stand up together for cultural and feminist rights. She argues that in order for women to break free of oppression that “we need a new masculinity and the new man needs a movement".

I have included a link that supports Gloria Anzalua's arguement that women of mixed race need to come together, and are going to play a large role in the third wave of feminism. BrownFeministBlog In her blog, this woman states "Where are all the mixed race feminists?" and talks about her struggle as a black woman trying to show her culture, and also following cultural norms of Americas society.