Analysis Of To Live In The Borderlands Means You By Anzaldúa

Although Anzaldúa uses violent imagery when describing the borderlands in To Live in the Borderlands Means You the reader sees a community of traditions and mannerisms. The stark contrast between violence and the message of being borderless is portayed by word choice and gives the poem a sense of nostalgia as well as conveys the clear message of what it truly means to live on the border. This not only facilitates the ability to understand that being a part of the borderlands means more than what outsiders see, but also gives insight on what the speaker feels the borderlands and its inhabitants stands for.
The speaker often talks about what it is like to be mixed race and the struggle to find who one really is. This is an important theme throughout

the poem because the majority of the population in the borderlands are mixed race and conflicted on where they belong. Anzaldúa touches on this in the first few lines of her poem: “eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed/ caught in the crossfire between camps/ while carrying all five races on your back/ not knowing which side to turn to, run from” (2-5). The speaker explains that many people in the borderlands lack a singular category that the fit into and thus fail to belong to any except the one of the borderlands. They describe the struggle as a “crossfire” giving the reader a harsh visual to compare their internal struggle with one that is of the utmost physicality. Through this comparison, Anzaldúa successfully portrays the severity of the internal fight that the people of the borderlands go through. The speaker explains that they feel that they need to “run from” the different races they belong to because of the heritage they do not share with that group of people. They find themselves in a perpetual limbo between the races they belong to, never able to be fully accepted by either side. The lines start out with Spanish, using the primary language of the area to the speaker’s advantage. By using Spanish, the speaker portrays a feeling of nostalgia; the borderlands are home and the only place people that identify as “mestiza, mulata,” feel as if they fit. The use of two languages also explains to the reader that the borderlands is a place that homes people of many cultures and origins. The theme of be