Week 8: Gloria Anzaldúa: Border Arte Nepantla, el Lugar de la Frontera

In this short piece, Anzaldúa reflects on her visit to the Aztec: The world of Moctezuma exhibition at the Denver Art Museum. In this exhibition Anzaldúa is entranced by the highlighting of indigenous Aztec tradition such as Tenochtitlán, and how all of these installations are reframed and revitalized within modern-day Chicanx communities. Yet Anzaldúa shuts down this idealization when she begins to question where she as a queer Chicana is represented within these indigenous installations. She comes to realize that Chicanos resonating with these museums’ exhibitions is yet another form of colonization taught through the Eurocentric gaze, specifically wishing to create a bridge across the united states and Mexican border. Yet this alliance that Eurocentric museums wish to create is problematic as it creates a neat separation between the cultures. Border artists combat these Eurocentric divisions by creating a culture mix or mestizada which accurately articulates the resistance from the Eurocentric colonizer narrative. What are some of the unique and revolutionary aspects Anzaldúa defines these Border artists expressing? 

Anzaldúa recalls on work Camas Para Sueños by Carmen Lomas Garza who reclaims sacred and indigenous roots by connecting them to everyday life, exemplifying Indigenismo is not in the past. Additionally, Anzaldúa defines the term nepantla, which is an in-between state for most Mexican American immigrants, an embodiment of the transitional period from present to a new identity, or for most Chicana artists feeling validates and acknowledge by museums and academia. 

Being disoriented in space if normal there is no need for confining borders to ensue sanity, but to be en nepantla is discomforting disorientation which is linked to feeling confused about identity. En nepantla is essential to border artists as the border’s separation ensues this loss of identity and the rediscoveries of self-identity is a persistent metaphor for Chicanx artists.