About Gloria Anzaldúa
Photo by K. Kendall
Gloria Anzaldúa (1942-2004), described herself in the essay "To(o) Queer the Writer – Loca, escritoria y chicana" as "Chicana, tejana, working-class, dyke-feminist poet, writer-theorist" (164). Importantly, she labeled herself as these "for reasons different than those of the dominant culture," which uses these terms to circumscribe identity. Anzaldúa took up these terms so that "all the other persons in me don't get erased, omitted, or killed" (164).
Anzaldúa's work arose from the study and experience of alterity and difference, theorized extensively in the work she is best known for: Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987). Prior to this, Anzaldúa had gained attention for editing, with Cherríe Moraga, the anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981).
Anzaldúa was born in 1942 to a fifth-generation Chicano family in South Texas. She attended Pan American University (now University of Texas-Pan American), and earned a master's degree in English and education from the University of Texas, Austin. She also began a doctoral program there, but dropped out when her interest in Chican@ literature was stifled. In 1977, she moved to California, where she worked as a writer, editor, and contingent faculty for several institutions. She died in 2004 of complications from diabetes. At the time, she was completing a dissertation toward a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. It was awarded posthumously in 2005.
Following Anzaldúa's death, many institutions have sought to honor her work, in all its forms, by naming awards and positions in her honor. These include awards the University of California, Santa Cruz, the American Studies Association, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and a poetry prize administered by the Anzaldúa Literary Trust. The Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa (SSGA) was founded in 2007, and regularly holds a conference related to her work. Continued interest in Anzaldúa's writing has led to the ongoing publication of her unpublished work, including a book on spirituality, in 2015, and an anthology, The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader, in 2009, both from Duke University Press.