“She reinterprets history and, using new symbols, she shapes new myths. She adopts new perspectives toward the darkskinned, women and queers. She strengthens her tolerance (and intolerance) for ambiguity. She is willing to share, to make herself vulnerable to foreign ways of seeing and thinking. She surrenders all notions of safety, of the familiar. Deconstruct, construct.... Se hace moldeadora de su alma. Según la concepción que tiene de sí misma, así será.” - Gloria Anzaldúa, 1987
The latest vogue in cultural studies is the post-modern deconstruction of fixed identities and the recognition of the varying subject positions from which people speak; new genres like Queer Theory claim to problematize rigid identity boundaries like gender, sexuality, class, race, while post-modern feminism recognizes the shortcomings of the class- and race-blindness of Second-Wave Feminism. The emergence of the word “queer” as a political identity-marker referring to the “multiple, hybrid, provisional, or composite” nature of identity is an important example of this recent shift. Yet, all too often, even the most wonderfully transgressive, category-exploding pieces of queer writing come entirely from a white perspective. These writers may occasionally recognize the importance of the experiences of people of color in a definition of queer identity—in that they don’t fit within the predominantly white definitions of “gay” or “lesbian” any more than white queers do—but this is usually where the exploration stops. I propose, though, that these concepts that have emerged in (white) queer discourse of transgressing rigid boundaries provide a unique opportunity for this white community to begin real dialogue with people of color around these issues.
On the other hand, there are some voices speaking powerfully of the essential interconnections between these constructed boundaries of race, class, culture, gender, and sexuality, who have been speaking thus for years. The nature of American racial dialogue being what it presently is, however, these voices are predominantly women of color, and do not get incorporated into (white) queer discourse. Anzaldúa’s 1987 book, Borderlands/La Frontera, presents a truly integrative possibility. She is motivated, certainly, by her own position within/between Mexican, Indian, and white cultures and the necessity of finding a way to negotiate that position and its contradictions, but she moves more broadly and proposes a model for not only her own identity, but for breaking down the binary thinking that makes her position tenuous in the first place. This model, of course, implicates euro-American culture as much as the communities of color on whose shoulders the “responsibility” for racial injustice tends to be placed.
As she puts it, the solution to the racial and gender conflicts that plague our society “lies in healing the split that originates in the very foundation of our lives, our culture, our languages, our thoughts.” She challenges the dualistic thinking that creates the borders, las fronteras, that both bind and sever the people who live around them. For her, “the spiritual power of expressing queerness resides in its potential to liquify traditional boundaries of sexuality and gender—as well as other boundaries—thereby freeing the psyche or spirit of oppressive roles.” Her personal solution for healing this split focuses on reclaiming the parts of her heritage that have been denied her (particularly the Indian parts) and truly affirming who she is and the essence of Chicanidad. An important aspect of this process for her has been the re-claiming of her language, Chicano Spanish, which “is considered by the purist and by most Latinos deficient, a mutilation of Spanish.” As with any language, it is a reflection of the social context in which its people live:
For a people who are neither Spanish nor live in a country in which Spanish is the first language; for a people who live in a country in which English is the reigning tongue but who are not Anglo; for a people who cannot entirely identify with either standard (formal, Castillian) Spanish not standard English, what recourse is left to them but to create their own language? A language which they can connect their identity to, one capable of communicating the realities and values true to themselves—a language with terms that are neither español ni inglés, but both.
She takes this border existence, this experience of belonging in certain ways to two cultures, but being affirmed by neither, and creates a new identity which can be affirmed in its very border-ness.
This kind of “bordered” thinking is challenged by many, many people around the world, particularly queer women of color (like Anzaldúa) who find themselves trapped in the pigeon-holing of modern discourses of identity that force people to choose either “queer” or “feminist” or “of color.” When issues of race are brought up in a gay/lesbian liberation context, it is seen as “complicating the issue” or “distracting from the goal,” in the same way as gender issues in a context of racial solidarity, or as feminist issues in a queer context. Korean theologian Jung Young Lee presents an interesting reconceptualization of marginality, coming from his own perspective of trying to reconcile an Asian identity with an American one: he proposes a new discourse of “in-beyond” marginality, combining both the “neither Asian nor American” perspective of in-between marginality with the “both Asian and American” outlook of in-both marginality. His concept of “in-beyond” thinking provides a framework for combining the positive, self-affirming aspects of belonging to multiple backgrounds (Anzaldúa’s re-claiming of the history of her various ancestors, for example) and the more radical, separatist perspective of critical distance from the mainstream(s)—Anzaldúa’s rejection of the patriarchal, colonialist aspects of her history, as well as the critical non-heterosexuality that is so essential to queer theoretical thought.
This is the point at which queer theory as it exists presently has the most opportunity for dialogue with theorists like Anzaldúa and others who feel themselves trapped in some manifestation of dualistic thinking. The broad post-modernity of queer theory chafes against rigid identity categories of sex, gender, sexual orientation, providing a theoretical home for those queers who refuse to erase a part of themselves in order to fit into a box like “gay” or “lesbian,” “man” or “woman.” When caught between the straight community and the assimilationist lgbt community (which generally includes bisexuals and transgendered folks only nominally), a queer person can hear much truth in Anzaldúa’s words: “The borders and walls that are supposed to keep the undesirable ideas out are entrenched habits and patterns of behavior; these habits and patterns are the enemy within. Rigidity means death. Only by remaining flexible is she able to stretch the psyche horizontally and vertically.” It is a wonder, then, that except for a nascent subculture of ‘zines and community theater productions (and other equally non-institutional things), queer theory has remained predominantly a white-focused endeavor. This is not to say that people of color have not spoken about queerness, but rather that their voices tend to be categorized according to their racial background and rarely placed in dialogue with white queers about queerness. It is a shame, because there is a growing subculture of white queers who seek to demolish boundaries, and they are rarely forced to recognize that there are equally important racial boundaries to be attacked as well.
In trying to find more theoretical counter-examples (Surely some of the great race-conscious white folks I’ve talked to have written books!), I picked up the collection Queer Frontiers (ed. Joseph Boone et al.) because I saw Cherríe Moraga’s name in the table of contents. The bulk of the collection, however, has nothing to say about the complexities of the intersections of race with sexuality, nor race at all, in fact. Moraga’s chapter is an interview she did with Rosemary Weatherston, in which most of what she says about the interaction of the lesbian/gay movements with her Chicana identity is that she doesn’t consider herself in dialogue with white folks in these movements. As she says about feminism, “People assume that by using the term feminist, one is in direct dialogue with white feminism.... It’s not a dialogue in that sense. On one level, that’s naïve, because of course, I’m a writer and anything one puts down is in conversation or dialogue; white people are reading my work and vice versa.” Moraga raises an interesting point, which I think this book itself illustrates quite nicely: the fact that an essay by a woman of color is anthologized next to an essay by a white woman doesn’t necessarily entail real dialogue.
Queer Frontiers does get some points for including an essay on queer Asian immigrant identity (“Visa Denied” by David Román) in the Afterwards/Afterwords section at the end of the book. Román’s essay describes several recent theater pieces which explore (some of) the intricacies of immigrant identity and normativity, providing some forward-looking questions about the integration of “queerness” and diaspora. My only concern is this—why is this sort of inquiry posed only in the “where do we go from here?” section of a 1999 book, when questions like these have been raised by theorists such as Anzaldúa since the 1980s? Why are we still talking about the importance of dialogue rather than having dialogue?
When Weatherston asks Moraga what she considers to be the pressing questions (for a queer movement), she answers, “for me it’s always been ‘The more specific you are the better.’...I wanted to look at Chicano nationalism in a way that would be inclusive. My critique of Chicano nationalism has always been the homophobia and sexism of ‘El Movimiento.’” Moraga speaks in her own experience, and admits frankly that she is not trying to speak to white people, yet this particular experience speaks very clearly to some white women who struggled first with the homophobia of the feminist movement, and later the lesbian-exclusive nature of the new feminism. This is only one example of the way that the specifics of one person’s experience can speak to another person who knows those feelings from a completely separate context.
To me, this is where the queer movement has the most potential for a revolutionary race-inclusive dialogue. I am so drawn to Gloria Anzaldúa’s work because she articulates beautifully the tensions and conflict and pain of being caught between two worlds, which I know well myself from the experience of my position between the gay community and the straight community (and, increasingly, between a politically radical more-or-less-straight community and the gay-marriage-focused lgbt community). Yes, women of color have been speaking about these things for years and it is appalling that they have been essentially ignored by white readers (and theorists) for so long; but, it is time to do something about that. The (white) queer movement speaks of breaking down the borders that constrict us—what a perfect opportunity to let white queers know that when they ignore, gloss over, or disengage from the experiences of people of color, they are only continuing to reify these boundaries, and that this is utmost hypocrisy.
Too often, the idea of “respecting the diverse experiences of people from other backgrounds” is taken as the new excuse not to engage with them. Certainly, a middle-class white person like myself will never be able to truly understand the experiences of growing up Chicana and/or poor and/or bilingual, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t aspects of these experiences that resonate with my own. I know what it is like for me to struggle against the strictures that bind me into sexual or gender identifications that are not my own, that try to split me into gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered when I am all of these things. So, what I can do is to look to the experiences of those who go before me: How did Anzaldúa negotiate her own position on the borders of the world? Are those strategies that will work for me?
As Anzaldúa describes the self-knowledge and self-affirmation that is at the center of acheiving her Mestiza Consciousness, it sounds very much like the descriptions of the power of the erotic put forth by Carter Heyward and Audre Lorde . For both, the erotic represents that true “kernel” of self, of feeling, of Divinity within oneself. In touch with this essence, a woman (specifies Lorde) can draw on her true power, particularly (for Heyward) in “right relationship” with one another and with God. Heyward emphasizes the “relational matrix” in which we live, and the importance of pursuing justice in those relationships, identifying this as the “goal and purpose of our life together on the earth.” This seems like a natural extension of Anzaldúa’s call for the día de la Chicana, on which all aspects of the person are affirmed—though I would point out, Heyward does not problematize the fact that her particular relational matrix consists mainly of white women.
Though she doesn’t mention it, Heyward’s notion of right relationship can be seen to come also from Native spirituality (which should also be questioned as another example of appropriation of Indian traditions). As Andrea Smith puts it, the important elements of Native religions are “spiritual centeredness and ethical behavior—what Native people call ‘walking in balance.’” It is curious that some of the most progressive frameworks for getting past divisiveness and injustice are based in Native spirituality, often put forth by members of the euro-American community responsible for their genocide—and generally without acknowledging either of those things.
As Anzaldúa proposes, the first step toward living a Mestiza Consciousness is to “take inventory. Despojando, desgranando, quitando paja. Just what did she inherit from her ancestors? This weight on her back—which is the baggage from the Indian mother, which the baggage from the Spanish father, which the baggage from the Anglo?” The first step for a white person (like Heyward or myself) who is committed to overcoming those boundaries described so clearly in myriad queer writings and writings by women of color, if we accept this schema of right relationship, of walking in balance, is to examine our history, the violence and lies and oppression, and “luego bota lo que no vale” : throw out what is worthless. We must acknowledge the history we are heir to, and explicitly break with it, so that we can recognize the importance of (and properly attribute) the model of healthy, spiritual/erotic/just relationships with one another first put forth by the indigenous peoples of this continent.
So, then—what is our model from here on out? How do we learn to relate to each other in these new ways? I love the concept of Indecent Theology put forth by Marcella Althaus-Reid:
Queer theory celebrates diversity, the crossing of borders and imprecise frontiers. It liberates the assumed reference of theology and therefore liberates Godself from assumptions and ideological justifications.... [But] it is not artificially united identities, homogenous understandings or common-sense definitions that Indecent Theology seeks, but diversity, possibility and the sense of irreducibility which comes from the experiences of people at the margins and the margins of theology itself.
I am not looking to break down all notions of racial difference in favor of some impossible/undesirable “colorblindness”—the range of experiences of diverse people is what makes humanity beautiful, and eliminating or ignoring marginalized experiences is exactly what we’re trying to get away from. I am merely saying to my fellow white queers: I see people of color saying things that resonate with me very much because of my own experiences, and it is essential that we start making connections so we can hear the experiences we don’t necessarily recognize. How can we talk about breaking down essentializing identities when we refuse to engage in real dialogue with people from (certain) different backgrounds? How queer can “Queer” possibly be if it is only white?
Bibliography
Althaus-Reid, M. (2004). From feminist theology to indecent theology : readings on poverty, sexual identity and God. London, SCM Press.
Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands / La Frontera : The New Mestiza. San Francisco, Spinsters/Aunt Lute.
Beemyn, B. and M. Eliason (1996). Queer studies : a lesbian, gay, bisexual, & transgender anthology. New York, New York University Press.
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Goss, R. (2002). Queering Christ : Beyond Jesus Acted Up. Cleveland, Ohio, Pilgrim Press.
Heyward, C. (1989). Touching our strength : the erotic as power and the love of God. San Francisco, Harper & Row.
Lee, J. Y. (1995). Marginality : the key to multicultural theology. Minneapolis, Fortress Press.
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider : essays and speeches. Trumansburg, NY, Crossing Press.
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Weaver, J. (1998). Native American religious identity : unforgotten gods. Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis Books.
