Gender on the Borderlands: The Frontiers Reader (review)
Perhaps the most critical and influential study about the U.S.-Mexico borderlands came not from the traditional lines of the humanities or the social sciences, but instead from a groundbreaking book of poetry and autobiographical short essays. Gloria Anzaldiia's Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) inspired a new way of thinking about borders (narrow dividing strips) and borderlands (vague and undetermined places), and continues to inspire feminist, ethnic, cultural, critical, and border studies. Like its predecessor, Gender on the Borderlands is a welcome and needed addition to the wide-ranging literature that it encompasses. Stemming from a 2001 borderlands seminar and conference at St. Mary's University and originally published as a 2003 double issue of Frontiers, the text is as relevant now as it was in 2001 and in 2003. The relevancy of the text speaks to an unfortunate reality that in 2007, 20 years after the publication of Borderlands/La Frontera, we are still faced with the momentous task to, as the Introduction states, "expose, inscribe, oppose, and write/ right the gendered politics of domination on the borderlands, old and new" (p. ix).