Borderlands/La Frontera

When I first started to read Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa I was taken aback by the sudden and random switches between English and Spanish.  I am in basic introductory Spanish class here at Temple, but I cannot speak it very well at all, so I found this very annoying.  It was frustrating to try to read the story when right in the middle of a sentence she would switch to Spanish and I was no longer able to understand it.  This was not what I was expecting at all, and I had to completely change my viewpoint.  When I did stop, take a breath and consider why Anzaldúa would have chosen to do this though, I realized that the sudden language shifts were supposed to be annoying.  She is making it uncomfortable for Anglo people like me to read, and that discomfort is representative of the life of the Chicanos living in America.  White citizens chastise them for speaking their native tongue, much as I had been doing by being frustrated at her including Spanish in her writing.  Furthermore, this mix of language is what is natural for Anzaldúa!  She was raised by the border of Mexico in Texas, and as such grew up speaking both English (as in school) and Spanish.  These two languages blend themselves together into a new sort of language that she calls the “new language” of the Mestiza.  It is probably what is in her head, so therefore it makes sense that she uses it to write out her thoughts.  This blended language also parallels life on the border, and how her race is a mix of several different cultures.

So although I do still find it slightly aggravating when I am right in the middle of a good story and am suddenly unable to hear the end because the language shift, I can appreciate the reason behind it and point she is making through it.  Overall, I think it is very affective, and as long as readers can get past the initial annoyance to think about why it is done, it is successful and justified.

I also found it very interesting how the book ties in with our current society.  With the re-election of President Obama, we are hearing a lot about potential immigration reforms and the issue of illegal immigration in general.  Anzaldúa’s side of things gives that argument an interesting spin.  Americans often like to assert that we should keep illegal immigrants off our land and stop the Mexicans from hopping the border and stealing our jobs.  Anzaldúa, on the other hand, emphasizes the fact that the American South West is the location of Atzlán, the historic homeland of the Aztecs.  The Aztecs, in turn, spawned the Mexican race and as such, the South West is their cultural homeland.  It wasn’t until much later that we came in and took the lands from them by force, and now we are preventing them from returning home.  To make matters worse, the Aztecs were a migratory people, but they have a real sense of connection between where they are and the homeland.  I think it is important to consider this point of view where the topic of immigration is concerned.  Remember, how would you feel if our beloved country was taken by force and you were unable to return home….

Freud and Psychoanalysis

Psychology has always intrigued me, so I was excited when I learned that the next book we were reading is Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud. I knew a little bit about his theories from my brief psych class in high school, but I pretty much only knew that he was big on the idea of the unconscious.  After reading just the assigned sections of this book, however, it is obvious that this man had many, many more controversial ideas that remain sort of scandalous to this day. 

One of my biggest concerns with Freud’s ideas and theories is that they are so subjective and he presents them in such a way that there is virtually no way to disagree with him.  His subject matter is mainly focused on our unconscious desires, or the thoughts and feelings that we are unaware of because they are in some way harmful or unwanted and therefore, repressed.  Although I do think he might be onto something there in some ways, it is rather annoying that it is impossible to contradict him.  Say, for example, you go to Freud for psychoanalysis because you have been having strange, recurring dreams.  Freud will sit you down and discuss every aspect of this dream and make you say anything and everything that comes to mind, no matter how appalling or undesirable the thought is.  Then he will proceed to make conjectures about what these dreams mean, focusing, most frequently, on some sort of incestuous or otherwise improper sexual desire that he claims you possess in your unconscious.  He might say, for instance, that you are having these dreams because you are feeling lust for your son.  No matter what you say to the contrary, or how vehemently you protest, he can always claim that you have no idea about it because it is in your unconscious and therefore you have no access to it.  Either way, you are going to leave admitting to that aberrational hidden meaning whether it is true or not! This is far from my only problem with Freud’s logic, but as I said, it is one of my biggest.

Although some of the things Freud claims are a little questionable, I do like his idea about the Oedipus Complex.  Freud believed that as human beings, we are attracted to people who are similar to our mothers or fathers.  This originated from the Ancient Greek story of King Oedipus, who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.  He hypothesized that our first love object is either the mother or father (depending on gender and orientation) and that a feeling of jealousy toward the other parent arises as a result.  These feelings are carried on into adulthood, where they are passed on as an attraction to potential mates who have a lot in common with that first love object.  As I was reading about this phenomenon in my book, I couldn’t help thinking about my own relationship with my boyfriend.  We have been dating for close to two years, and I started to notice a couple months into our relationship how similar he is to my father.  My dad was a stay-at-home father and pretty much raised me, so we have had a very strong relationship my whole life.  It was interesting to notice then, that the guy I chose has a lot of the same tendencies and interests as my dad.  They both have the same sense of humor, and once they get talking about something it will be a couple hours before anyone else is able to get a word in.  Both have this sort of animalistic love of nature and take pride in their manhood, loving to hunt and go to our cabin in the mountains.  With this in mind, I think Freud was correct in his conjectures about the Oedipus Complex, although I think that it probably does not apply to everyone, depending on the strength of the relationship with the parent.

Freud is an interesting man.  He was known to be a big fan of cocaine and some of that drug usage may have inspired some of his ideas, but in my opinion he is still well worth studying.

The Destruction of the Indies

The Destruction of the Indies by Bartolome de las Casas is an account of how the countries of the Carribean were discovered by the Spanish conquistadors. At this time, the area was called the Indies, because when Christopher Columbus first landed there, he thought he had sailed the whole way around the world and was in Asia.


Columbus's path across the Atlantic

I found this book to be a little hard to read, not because it was written in a language that is difficult to understand or because there is breaks in the text as with The Epic of Gilgamesh, but because what the Spanish "Christians" did to the indigenous people encountered here was absolutely appalling. Their proclaimed mission was to spread their Catholic faith to the lost and godless Indie tribes, but instead they tortured and mass murdered great numbers of these people and put the rest into slavery. Las Casas was present in this area watching these terrible deeds being done and in order to try and put an end to it, he made it his mission to put into words what he and others had witnessed to send to the king of Spain.

Although disgusting and absolutely true, this particular account of the events that transpired in the Carribean all those years ago must be taken with a grain of salt. There are some shady circumstances  surrounding some of this work, like the fact of how exaggeration is used fairly often. Bartolome spends a few paragraphs describing how meek and frail and peaceful the indigenous people were, which we know today was describing the Aztecs. Although they did in no way deserve the ill treatment given to them, they weren't exactly an entirely helpless group of people either. We know from the account given by Cortes in the back matter of the same book that these people were advanced for their time and smart. They weren't so much delicate as just not used to the foreign diseases the Europeans were bringing over here, causing their immune systems to be unable to fight them. The exaggeration of how frail and peace-loving the Indies were is one example of the gross overexaggeration done by Las Casas in his attempt to stir pity and change for these people.

The Aztecs of the Indies

Another slightly suspicious occurance in this text is that the writer, Las Casas, was apparently a previous owner of encomienda, or slaves. In his young life, he was driven by "material wealth" and eventually became successful enough to be rewarded with a few Indians for his own personal servitude. It is interesting that after this background, Las Casas made a complete 180 degree turn and suddenly began to oppose the oppression and mistreatment of the Indians. According to the introduction, the reason for which he had this seemingly spontaneous change of heart is unknown, but it is mentioned that it quickly became his passion, and he threw himself wholeheartedly into the cause. The whole thing seems a little weird to me, and I feel like there must be some reason that he drastically changed his mind on the whole issue to the point of risking his own life.

Although I am in no way implying that what Las Casas did in promoting the fair treatment of the natives of the Indies was a bad thing, it is still a little cloudy as to what exactly went on over there. I believe it is very important for us as Americans to read things like this where the true story of our country's origins is revealed so we can appreciate where we came from. Despite its slight exaggeration and questionable motives, the basic message of the account is clear: a lot of people had to needlessly suffer in the founding of our homeland.