Borderlands/La Frontera, By Gloria Anzaldúa

Being culturally conscious in the United States opens a door of complications for minority people whose cultures differ from the American standard. While the option to assimilate is tempting due to the widespread unacceptance of non-US cultural traditions, people of other cultures are under constant pressure to maintain their heritage and accept American views. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s book Borderlands/La Frontera, Anzaldúa explains the complications of the mestiza consciousness where a person is pressured on multiple cultural fronts. However, Anzaldúa develops the argument that this consciousness allows for the mestiza to move past a position of “counterstance’ with the white majority and have the option to act instead of react. In Emma Tenayuca’s excerpt in Herencia: The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United State and Maria

Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s novel The Squatter and the Don, both authors support Anzaldúa’s argument on the mestiza consciousness exceeding the counterstance position by exposing the mistreatment of Hispanic people in America, but how the mistreatment should not force the Hispanic people to be in gridlock conflict.

Emma Tenayuca develops her argument by initially insinuating that the Mexican people should establish a counterstance position to confront the mistreatment by the Anglo-Americans. Her rhetoric is very critical of the Anglo-American attitudes towards Hispanics as she states early, “From the very beginning they were robbed of their land” (158). This is the initial condition set by Tenayuca in analyzing the Anglo-American and Mexican-American relationship. She expands the depth of the suffering through exposing the fact “Mexican labor imported into the United States has uniformly received lower wages” (159), “Mexicans…are subject to smaller relief portions” (159), “disenfranchisement has resulted in nearly complete Anglo-American domination politically…where Mexican people are a majority” (160), and many

more atrocities from the Anglos. From an excerpt from Anzaldúa’s book, she states “we see an attack on ourselves and our belief as a threat and we attempt to block with a counterstance” (100). Anzaldúa’s perspective would suggest Tenayuca’s facts of mistreatment would force Hispanic people into a position of counterstance. However, as Tenayuca continues with her argument, she begins to dissolve the counterstance position by relating the Anglo-American economic concerns with those of the Mexican communities’. When Tenayuca states, “Therefore, their economic (and hence, their political) interests are welded,” (161) she is using the mistreatments from her initial position to strengthen the bond between the Anglos and Hispanics by finding common ground between the two groups. This new argument is the confirmation of the mestiza consciousness of Tenayuca as she is going beyond the counterstance and finding a reason to react which Anzaldúa states will be the result of moving past the counterstance. Tenayuca supports Anzaldúa’s argument that a counterstance is not a long-term, stable solution in fixing the relationship between Anglos and Hispanics.
From María Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s novel, Ruiz de Burton supports Anzaldúa’s statement, “A counterstance locks one into a duel of oppressor and oppressed; locked in mortal combat” (100), by explaining the situation of Don Mariano Alamar, a cattle rancher in gridlock with squatters trying to claim stakes on his land. Alamar explains the unethical tactics such as squatters putting cattle in “corrals” and making the cattle owners pay, and also when the “settler shoots the cattle at any time without the least hesitation” (126) when the cattle roam to the squatters’ fields. Each instance is a loss for the cattle rancher, and as referenced earlier, Anzaldúa’s argument would suggest that Alamar would be in a confrontational position. However, Alamar thinks beyond just the surface value of his situation when he states “Mexico did as much as could have been reasonably expected” (127). He does not blame the treaty’s shortcomings nor does he blame Congress and their inability to defend Mexican lands. Alamar knows his culture as well as the culture of United States politics which allows the mestiza consciousness to understand “Congress itself did not anticipate the effect of its laws” (127), but that squatters, who represent the American majority, have a stronger political voice than the native land owners and Congress exists to defend the views of white progression.