Fluidity of Oceans
[| Gloria Anzaldúa] Deals with symbolic images of the ocean swaying back and forth, repeated times, that can not be broken, no one can control this formation. The fluidness of race, status, class, and gender. Sexual preference relates to the fluidness of people. Laws steaming from religion and social beliefs created this deepening gap between right and wrong. Women are fluid like the ocean. They have been put in situations in history, where they become the belittled being, they are know especially in different cultures as weak and unintelligent. Durkheim believed that women were supposed to do arts and recreational activities in life, while men did studies and read books. The belief women were supposed to do certain things created a social construction of the ideal/stereotypical women. It even forced women to believe that they could not defend themselves. For instance when women walk down the street, some preferrer to be with others at night, in spite of being harassed, attacked, or feel unsafe. This connects my next issue, if women are the victims, why did society make them into the victim. Women's civil rights became a dominant issue in us politics in the 1900s. The context can be taken out of proportion and men civil rights can be subdued. Men are looked upon as animals if a women is hurt, if a man physically harms a women it can cause jail time, for certain domestic cases. In less serious matters if a woman does domestic violence upon a man, it will looked at differently than a man doing it to a woman. Woman in the end have become the butt of the joke, they have been given more morals, yet treated inferior. We can blame the modern bourgeoise to be the cause of this issue. Women can be fluid in this age, and are spreading through the US in all fields. At public universities, like UC Berkeley, more women attend then men. This clause has led the male to be the inferior, or has it? Men yet their population have remained the dominant person in charge.
[| Race]is also like an ocean that is fluid, [Borderlands/La Frontera: the New Mestiza (1987)] the language barrier will combine the reader who can speak both english and spanish to understand the book better. The marxist ideals of changing the system completely and taking it back, incorporates a futile revolution that has not yet begun or may never happen. The fear it instills creates a scare in some states in American Politics, especially in [| Arizona], were for the past several years, the community along with the senate and other political leaders have decided to take a stand in the undocumentation issues, rather undocumented people south of the border. Going back from being white and being mexican becomes a prominent issue in borderlands. The use of language and accent decides how people want to live thier life, amongst society or with society. In America, no one will ever be apart of the elite power rich. The Capitalist ideals make us think you and me can be apart of this elite society, but in reality, if I every change my grammar or if someone who can speak spanish gets rid of their accent and is deemed more white, they will not change the system, the only thing that changes is the person, not society as a whole. Anzaldúa describes the Mexican race as inferior to the Eurocentric ideas. Her image on page (129) "...if you're Mexican you are born old" describes a background image from the idea of race and the hatred of being affiliated with a ethnic background, due to the overlapping european expansion across America.
[| Status] Where you stand in your soceity undocumented people-look to ocean as a expected, free, no border, they envy the ocean, but on land , no freedom to move, undocumented, gay (41), connection with ocean, fluid movement, being gay not being confined to one thing, symbolic, different from land movement, People come from all walks of life. They represent the high and low status based on things like income, and cultural capital. Anzaldúa depicts the class of people from a mexican perspecitve. More examples of people below the souther border happen in here book. She represent the sway in the ocean going back in forth through cultural capital, representing a Eurocentric educated person but also a huge revolutionary, representing change that she wants for her people.
[Class] The class from social concepts based on family background, income, and education. (78) Describes a sense of lower class, if the person has an un-American accent. The author also uses a gendered example of "we" in male dominated world. Nosotros gives an example of the gender life world we live in. Anzaldúa in "How to Tame A Wild Tongue" uses the depiction of gender male domination to contrast the oppression women deal with. Class steams from a history of social background. Gathering around who has a better life, based off the perspective of the top class. In a capitalist world, like our own, we follow the rules created by the upper class. This construct defines who were are, and the community allows this to happen, the only people who want change are the bottom, lowest class, The middle class, believe they can be the top class, but in reality they will never be able to be what they visualize.
[Gender] The auhtor depicts herself moving back and forth between gender roles. Anzaldúa describes a life throughout the book of being from both worlds. Two spirits, two souls, meaning to have the ability to choose gender. Gender equals a social learning from society. People did not come up with gender alone, it comes with education from society, just like race and class. Bi-sexual beings, homosexuals, gay people, transgender, or anyone who goes against the norm society follows is like th ocean. They can move between the invisible line society has followed since religion plays a huge role in this decision. Gaining a sense of what Anzaldúa describes on (52) she states the roles women can be, a mother, the women no one wants, and the women who seeks for her lost children. These roles are a image of how society believes the gender roles can sustain. She goes against this stating otherwise that women choose any thing their heart desires.
Refrences: Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute, 1987