This picture reminds me of a quote by Juan Bruce-Novoa that goes as follows,
“A chicano lives in the space between the hyphen in Mexican-American.”
Chicanos are constantly thrown between different groups shouting to choose either us or them, and yet are still not accepted into either. People with differing identities are told to pick one aspect of themselves that is the most important to them and that is who they have to be, everything else is othered. Anzaldua’s drawing depicts a figure with multiple legs, each rested it’s own identification. Each section is clearly separated with no mixing of identities. This separatist rhetoric is what creates this ‘us vs. them’ mentality that is very hard to escape in the english and spanish languages. On the right side of Anzaldua’s drawing is the phrase, “nos/otras” or “we/other”. Many believe that there can only be solidarity in one section of their lives, thus separating and compartmentalizing themselves. Class. Ethnicity. Religion. Sexual orientation. Gender. But people exist in the world intersectionally and separating one’s identities in reality doesn’t work. For example, I walk through the world as a queer working-class Chicana and cannot exist any other way. Anzaldua depicts the mestiza body, existing in multiple spaces at the same time.
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