Borderlands/La Frontera Essay

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In her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, scholar Gloria Anzaldua puts forth this statement:

“[f]or a woman of my culture there used to be only three directions she could turn: to the Church as a nun, to the streets as a prostitute, or to the home as a mother. Today, some of us have a fourth choice: entering the world by way of education and career and becoming self-autonomous persons.” (Anzaldua 39)

While Anzaldua's book of poems and essays makes many points about the realities of life for Chicano/a people, one that always stands out to me is that many Chicana women “have been relegated solely to household duties and rearing of children or to prostitution, completely dismissing the possibility of becoming scholars” (“Perspectives”). In this last installment of our film series, Real Women Have Curves, we find the character Ana Garcia, a Mexican-American high school graduate, dealing with pressure from her family to forgo any further education and take over the domestic duties of her mother's household.

Throughout the film, we can see what Jeanette Rodriguez refers to as the Mexican-American woman's “Legacy of Oppression.” Despite her intelligence, her hard work, and the fact that she …show more content…
By the end of the film, she is well on her way to becoming one of those “self-autonomous persons” Anzaldua fought for, because she chooses self-love over oppressive
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