Resistance in Writing: Gloria Anzuldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera (original) (raw)

2006, Céfiro: Enlace hispano cultural y literario

But always I go against a resistance. Something in me does not want to do this writing. (93) Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera It has become, it seems, a foregone conclusion that the political essence of Chicano literature is to be found in its distinct capacity to evoke or instantiate resistant effects. Whether discerned from its portrayals of Chicano life or symbolized by the very texts themselves, Chicano literature draws political attention precisely because it more or less implies, or asserts outright, resistance of some kind. To be sure, the resistant effects of Chicano literature are nothing less than the traces of an historical necessity for cultural, economic, ethnic, linguistic, political, sexual, and social survival. Such resistant effects are symptomatic of a history of oppression, of a subjection to repressive power relations, in which Chicanos have participated as the agents of incessant struggle. In Chicano Narrative, noted critic Ramón Saldívar