"We don't believe in boundaries. Borders. Nothing like that. We are here thousands of years before the first whites. We are here before maps and quit claims. We know where we belong on this earth. We have always moved freely. North-South. East-West. We pay no attention to what isn't real. Imaginary lines. Imaginary minutes and hours. Written law. We recognize none of that." (Leslie Marmon Silko, Almanac of the Dead, p. 216).Racial formations and identity construction the representation of 'otherness' the demarcation of 'us' and 'them', self and other the journey / migration / quest time / memory / history / storytelling border crossing
La frontera or the borderlands is a "liminal landscape of changing meanings on which distinct human cultures first encounter one another's 'otherness' and appropriate, accomodate, or domesticate it through language." (Annette Kolodny, "Letting Go our Grand Obsessions," p. 9).
"Contact zone refer[s] to the space of colonial encounters, the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict .[...] By using the term 'contact', I aim to foreground the interactive, improvisational dimensions of colonial encounters [which] [...] emphasizes how subjects are constituted in and by their relations to each other" (Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes, pp. 6-7).
"borders are set up to define the places
that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing
line, a narrow strip along a 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" (Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera,
p. 5).
Further Reading
Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1987). Photocopy provided.
Kolodny, Annette. "Letting Go our Grand Obsessions: Notes Toward a New Literary History of the American Frontiers," American Literature 64.1 (March 1992): 1-18.
Limerick, Patrica Nelson. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: Norton, 1987), Chapters 6 and 7, pp.179-258.
Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992).
Silko, Leslie Marmon, Almanac of the Dead (New York: Penguin, 1992).
Links
BORDER STUDIES: Texas - Mexico Border Useful site that includes history, images, maps, etc.
The Borderlands Encyclopedia
Extensive list of online resources relating to all aspects of life on the border.
United States-Mexico Borderlands/Frontera
Very useful and concise introduction to regions, people and history of the border.
The Border
Anzaldua