Anzaldúa, Gloria (1942–2004)

The renowned Chicana cultural theorist, poet, and writer Gloria Evanjelina Anzaldúa was born on 24 September 1942, in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, a seventh-generation tejana. She received her B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Texas, Austin. Her groundbreaking multigenre Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) was selected as one of the 100 best books of the twentieth century by the Hungry Mind Review and Utne Reader; it contains her celebrated quote, "The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds" (p. 3). Editor of the multicultural anthologies This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (with Cherríe Moraga, 1981) and Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (1990), Anzaldúa redefined lesbian/queer identities and developed an inclusion-ary feminist movement.

Anzaldua died on May 15, 2004. Among her honors are awards from the Before Columbus Foundation (1986) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1991). In 2007 the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa was established at the University of Texas, San Antonio; the Anzaldúa archive is housed at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas, Austin.

See alsoHomosexuality and Bisexuality in Literature; Literature: Spanish America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works by Anzaldúa

Interviews/Entrevistas, ed. AnaLouise Keating. New York: Routledge, 2000.

As editor, with AnaLouise Keating. This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation. New York: Routledge, 2002.

"Let Us Be the Healing of the Wound: The Coyolxauhqui Imperative—La Sombra y El Sueño." In One Wound for Another/Una herida por otra: Testimonios de Latin@s in the U.S. through Cyberspace (11 de septiembre de 2001–11 de marzo de 2002), edited by Claire Joysmith and Clara Lomas. Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones Sobre América del Norte, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, together with the Colorado College and Whittier College, 2005.

Children's Books by Anzaldúa

Friends from the Other Side/Amigos del Otro Lado. Illustrated by Consuelo Méndez. San Francisco: Children's Book Press, 1993.

Prietita and the Ghost Woman/Prietita y La Llorona. Illustrated by Cristina Gonzalez. San Francisco: Children's Book Press, 1995.

Secondary Works

Alarcón, Norma. "Anzaldúa's Frontera: Inscribing Gynetics." In Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader, edited by Gabriela F. Arredondo et al. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

Joysmith, Claire. "Ya se me quitó la vergüenza y la cobardía: Una plática con Gloria Anzaldúa." Debate Feminista 4 no. 8 (September 1993).

Keating, AnaLouise, ed. Entre Mundos/Among Worlds: New Perspectives on Gloria E. Anzaldúa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

                                       Claire Joysmith