La Encrucijada: Latina Consciousness, Academia, and Imposed Identity

Abstract

Latinx identity is complicated and shaped by a history of colonization and neo-colonialism. Living in the U.S., this history is sometimes lost to non-Latinx people. Expectations of what it means to be “Latinx” are created and imposed on to Latinx people living in the U.S. As someone who grew up on La Frontera, I have my own idea of what my identity as a Latina, specifically a Mexican American, is. Having moved away from the border to the Midwest, into an academic context, other peoples’ interpretations of my identity as a Latina are constantly shifting and being reshaped. This shifting and reshaping simultaneously casts me as Latina, but not Latina enough to be “legitimate.” Using Gloria Anzaldua’s “Borderlands/La Frontera,” I examine what it means to be a Latina, but not a Latina, at home, and far away in hostile spaces. Using the concept of “La Encrucijada/The Crossroads,” I examine how interpretations of my identity shape my place in academic spaces (Anzaldua 1987: 80).