SOURCE: Embry, Marcus. “Cholo Angels in Guadalajara: The Politics and Poetics of Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera.” Women & Performance 8, no. 2 (1996): 87-108.

In the following essay, Embry explores issues of Chicana cultural and sexual identity in Borderlands/La Frontera.

Borderlands in the Academy

When introducing an upper-level undergraduate course in Chicana/o or Latina/o Studies, there is a high probability that Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera will be among the texts to which many students have already been exposed. Despite the book's popularity and use in a variety of courses, Borderlands/La Frontera has a relatively brief critical biography, and among the critical examinations, there are only a handful of close textual analyses. Lately, other facets and terms of Latinidad, once contained in Latin American, Latina/o, and Chicana/o Studies, have been appropriated far afield, in some ways continuing or paralleling the dissemination of Borderlands/La...