Unearthing Nonbinary Survival Under Binary Systems Through Gloria Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/la Frontera and Suzan-Lori Parks’ Getting Mother’s Body
Location
Golden Eagles
Department
English
Abstract
Depending on how we are labeled in a binary system, we are placed with social markers that might feel like they force us to divide ourselves arbitrarily, splitting parts of ourselves from the other. Yet, writers, artists and activists have developed ways of understanding how we might navigate such divisions in a world that believes in the absolute. Sometimes, choosing social markers or sides of a binary can cause tension, while at other times this may create opportunities. In my critical paper, I bring Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera into conversation with Suzan-Lori Parks’s Getting Mother's Body (2003) to examine how both works question cultural norms and traditional roles within various binary systems of American thought. In particular, I examine how each work engages in the concept of crossing as a barrier, that becomes a conduit for survival when that barrier is crossed. Anzaldúa's work is grounded in border life while also crossing intellectual, cultural and artistic borders to develop what she calls a new mestiza consciousness, one that sees liberation in inhabiting both sides of what is traditionally divided beneath the binary. In this presentation, I use Anzaldúa’s work to analyze and unearth how Parks’ novel examines the crossing of binary systems through the character of Dill Smiles. My analysis of Parks’ novel also engages in a critique of Borderlands/La Frontera, as I contend that, as shown through the character of Smiles, we might sometimes feel like we need to pass in order to survive. In the novel, Smiles engages in passing through the binary structures as a butch, queer, transgender, and biracial person in Texas during the 1960s. Their experience traveling in between spaces of gender, sexuality, class, and race shows the social-historical borders that they had to cross, and what they did to survive. I analyze and explore how Smiles illustrates Anzaldúa's concept of the “half and half,” which is a subjectivity that historically was ascribed to some as derogatory and objectifying, but that can also be seen as a necessary way of being and surviving. My presentation responds to and considers surviving and thriving in the binary system and the conduits and barriers of social markers. I will need 15 minutes to share my work and access to a computer, projector, and sound.
Faculty Sponsor
Emily Garcia, Northeastern Illinois University
Unearthing Nonbinary Survival Under Binary Systems Through Gloria Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/la Frontera and Suzan-Lori Parks’ Getting Mother’s Body
Golden Eagles
Depending on how we are labeled in a binary system, we are placed with social markers that might feel like they force us to divide ourselves arbitrarily, splitting parts of ourselves from the other. Yet, writers, artists and activists have developed ways of understanding how we might navigate such divisions in a world that believes in the absolute. Sometimes, choosing social markers or sides of a binary can cause tension, while at other times this may create opportunities. In my critical paper, I bring Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera into conversation with Suzan-Lori Parks’s Getting Mother's Body (2003) to examine how both works question cultural norms and traditional roles within various binary systems of American thought. In particular, I examine how each work engages in the concept of crossing as a barrier, that becomes a conduit for survival when that barrier is crossed. Anzaldúa's work is grounded in border life while also crossing intellectual, cultural and artistic borders to develop what she calls a new mestiza consciousness, one that sees liberation in inhabiting both sides of what is traditionally divided beneath the binary. In this presentation, I use Anzaldúa’s work to analyze and unearth how Parks’ novel examines the crossing of binary systems through the character of Dill Smiles. My analysis of Parks’ novel also engages in a critique of Borderlands/La Frontera, as I contend that, as shown through the character of Smiles, we might sometimes feel like we need to pass in order to survive. In the novel, Smiles engages in passing through the binary structures as a butch, queer, transgender, and biracial person in Texas during the 1960s. Their experience traveling in between spaces of gender, sexuality, class, and race shows the social-historical borders that they had to cross, and what they did to survive. I analyze and explore how Smiles illustrates Anzaldúa's concept of the “half and half,” which is a subjectivity that historically was ascribed to some as derogatory and objectifying, but that can also be seen as a necessary way of being and surviving. My presentation responds to and considers surviving and thriving in the binary system and the conduits and barriers of social markers. I will need 15 minutes to share my work and access to a computer, projector, and sound.