Melissa Wong
Chapter Summary
Borderlands: La Frontera. The New Mestiza
Chapter 1: In this chapter, the author pretty much describes the history and culture as well as a few Spanish songs and sayings. There are some events that had happened in the past that was told and the author talked about her past. She then talked about when she was crossing the border and the people on how they migrate.
Chapter 2: The author talked about how she was afraid of going home because she was a lesbian and because of her culture, it made her feel very uneasy of herself. There were more historical stories that we told.
Chapter 3: In this chapter, the author ends up getting bitten by a rattlesnake and she had to suck the venom out from her skin but cutting an X over the area where she was bitten. Later the story shifts to where the author is talking about the different gods in their religion and what they do. They later talk about how Mary became more idolized than other religious figures and how that came to be. It also describes that she does and how she unites the people. A story about a creepy woman in white would follow people that did bad things or were afraid when they passed by a deserted church.
Chapter 4: The author is taught that the spirit is inside every living things body and starts telling about more teachings. She mentions how emotions and the ability to sense things are really strong. It was noted how her father died and her mom covered the mirrors because the mirrors are a portal to the spirit world and people can see things.
Chapter 5: Gloria was at the dentist and her tongue kept pushing at everything during the procedure and the dentist was growing really impatient. The scene transitions to where she was getting punished for speaking Spanish during recess time. She was saying how people were trying to get others to just speak English and try to lose their native accents. She goes into detail about how the language varies from location to location.
Chapter 6: When Gloria was a child, she would read at night and would tell her sister stories so she wouldn’t tell her mom that she was up all night. She does this because she prefers imagination rather than sleeping. This is how she began writing and when she writes, she sees her writing as a work of art. There is a form, and colors, and shapes. She sometimes has a very quiet time to herself and watches her imagination take her through different scenes, almost like watching a movie. She says that when she doesn’t write these down, she would get physically sick. And sometimes, when she does write them down, she still gets sick. She says how Western artists take their inspiration from others and that their work isn’t as unique as it should be. She also believes that images are better than words. When she writes, everything is different.
Chapter 7: This chapter talks about the borders and what the people believed in. When people see a threat on their beliefs, they tend to defend themselves. People learn how to juggle multiple cultures since they want to live in the other land. We are compared to corn and how we are wrapped tightly around our culture and we are rooted into the Earth. Next, seems like a woman that is going on a journey because she is checking all of her belongings before she heads out. The story changes to where it is talking about homosexuals and how they have the courage to accept who they are and show it to the world. She then remembers how free she was and how a long time ago when she was young, the teacher would punish her for being Mexican.