ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to the life and achievements of Gloria Anzaldúa represented within the framework of an anthropological biography, i.e., one that focuses on the main factors that shaped a particular person, taking into account the historical, cultural, and social backgrounds. The author discusses turning points in Anzaldúa’s biography that had a meaningful impact on her creation, such as the topography of South Texas and the life of migrant workers, her community’s spirituality, her education and power of stories she was raised with, and her lesbianism. Queer people are borderland representatives who not only disturb the existing order of binary oppositions but, most importantly, question its legitimacy. In patriarchal communities, especially the fundamentally religious ones, lesbians hardly exist in the public sphere. Why are they the most dangerous challenge for patriarchy? Why are they silenced, or even erased from the social discourse? How do they cope with this exclusion? In this chapter, I try to find answers to these questions on the example of Anzaldúa’s writings. The final part introduces her works and deliberates on Anzaldúa’s attitude to giving interviews as a method of in-process writing, as well as analyzes her children’s literature.
