Day 04 — Your favorite book

Almost caught up...my favorite book.

I love books. They are one of my many escapes from every day life. Growing up, I used to just power-through whole books in one day. I was the kid who was so excited for Book Orders (do schools still do these?) I constantly had books with me, even if we were just going to town (an 8 mile drive). My mom always tells people that the reason I love to read is because when she was pregnant with me, she used to tear off the corner of newspapers and eat it (gross, huh), so I've been reading since I was in the womb. So of course having to pick just one book, is almost impossible. But I think that it would have to go to Borderlands: The New Mestiza/La Frontera.

It was the first time that I had read a book and I could almost completely relate to. (Gloria Anzuldua is a a self-proclaimed Chicana, lesbian, writer, activist.) She does an amazing job of discussing the complexities of what it means to be a Chicana in the present US and the concept of living in a borderland. "Border" not being a simple divide between here and there, us and them, but as a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us.

It's a book that I like to revisit yearly since picking it up almost 5 years ago. And it's also one that I have used many times in my academic work and will probably continue to reference.

This book also contains two of my favorite poems - Don't Give Up Chicanita and To Live In the Borderlands.

To live in the borderlands means you

are neither hispana india negra espanola
ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed
caught in the crossfire between camps
while carrying all five races on your back
not knowing which side to turn to, run from;
.....continued here