Week 8- Border Arte- Nepantla, el Lugar de la Frontera

Gloria Anzaldua opens up with their experience going to the Denver Museum of Natural History for the opening day of Aztec: The World of Moctezuma. They express their disappointment in the white tour guides that are the ones leading conversations and ‘teaching’ others on the Aztecs. It is another form of appropriation and colonizing. Gloria discusses our duty as Chican@s and the burden we have to carry on the history, identity that were stripped away from our ancestors, and not allow popular culture or white people to tell our stories. At the same time, we also have a duty to not appropriate the culture. This leads her to talk about being "en nepantla”. This Nahuatl term means to be in an “in between state”. There can be many different ways a person can find themselves “in between”. For example, the Chican@ identity was established with this idea of being in between these two cultures and not identifying with solely one. We have ties to both sides of the ‘border’. We also have either double or more languages and sometimes find ourselves in between the two, which Gloria often does in her writing with her uses of Spanish words or phrases.  She uses Chican@ artist that are border artist, and their struggles to not fall into popular culture, but at the same time needing to make money. It resonated with me because of my work life. I’m attaining a degree in order to work or continue to work in this institution because it will be a necessity for me, in order to pay my bills. But at the same time, finding it difficult to remain true to myself and my identity. If I remain true to myself then I am creating space for others to be a part of the institution, especially now since many organizations are attempting to ‘diversify’. But, how can the two co-exist or can they not as long as our bosses are not representative of our culture or race.