Gloria Anzaldua Gloria Anzaldua

is a.lso the co-editor of

Borderlands
This Bridge Called My Back

fafrontera
The New Mestiza

aunt lute books

SAN FRANCISCO
 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 3
The Homeland, Aztian I HI ot,.,o Mexico The Homeland, Azdan I HI Ofro MexicO'

Mira el mar atacar This is my home

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