As I read through Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn’s “Half and Half” and Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands: La Frontera both combined elements of place with race and culture. When thinking about parts that make up one’s intersectional identity it’s namely race, ethnicity, and sexuality. With nationality, there’s an association with place and if a person can easily be associated with a place then there’s a privilege to those who are insiders and marginalization to people deemed outsiders. The facets of intersectionality are immeasurable. Thinking about intersectionality reminds me of an article by Lisa Bowleg titled “When Black + Woman + Lesbian ≠ Black Lesbian Woman.” The article is about how intersectionality is not additive, nor does a part of one’s identity outweigh other parts. The conclusion of this article for a subject who participated in this intersectionality quantitative experiment said, “I personally don’t ascribe to that I’m Black first, lesbian second, women third. I’m all of those” (Bowleg 2008). This sentiment of not choosing which parts go first is clear in O’Hearn’s and Anzaldúa’s articles. For both authors, their intersectional identity provides a clear, holistic standpoint.
For O’Hearn, the focus is on her mixed-race identity, which blends into nationality, which blends into gender, and so on. Her experience is so complex because she’s dealing with so much confusion from not only outsiders but also with relatives in her family. Once more, there’s a privilege people have when they can be easily associated with a place as seen in O’Hearn’s story, which was demonstrated with her college experience. The part with Angela Davis (amazing) and the hand-raising is what reminded me of the Lisa Bowleg reference because O’Hearn feels that raising her hand signifies which “half” she must choose when she shouldn’t have to make that choice. By the end of her article, I’m glad she reconciles everything by stating, “If our understanding of race and culture can ripen and evolve, then new and immeasurable measurements about the uniqueness of our identities can be possible.” With Bowleg’s article, admitting to the mistake in her question and recognizing that identity cannot be measured shows that O’Hearn’s conclusion is possible.
{Note: This part was a misreading of last names, but I kept in the portfolio to acknowledge the slight mistake]
As for Anzaldúa’s work, place and nationality is the primary focus. For her, the US-Mexican border acts as her “half and half” and with these borders drawing a binary for safe and unsafe places those definitions are then transferred into cultural assumptions. Reading her article was fascinating since I lived in El Paso, TX. Juarez was the Mexican city directly on the other side of the border. It was constantly reiterated that Juarez was statistically the world's most dangerous city; whereas El Paso was declared safe. This type of distinction to my sixth-grade mind did not fully resonate with me. Sure I could see Mexico from my house, but I didn’t look at it as dangerous, perhaps because I have never actually been to Mexico and that’s clearly part of the privilege I experienced, especially because I lived on Ft. Bliss (while these military base names are named so after a military hero, I can’t help but think “bliss” adds to Anzaldúa’s point on safe places). With further reading, into Anzaldúa’s chapters, she touches more on concepts dealing with historic binds noted in the Keywords articles that touched on the term association origins of race and ethnicity. The early civilizations in the Americas were invaded and reshaped to fit the ideals of the conquerors. The line, “and overnight, became foreigners,” is so striking because place is a crucial element of one’s identity and for that to be taken away in an instant is jarring; therefore, providing context for today’s tensions at the border.
Overall, both of these readings exhibited that humanity seeks a sense of belonging, but due to these categorizations of race, ethnicity, nationality, and even border tensions complicate this sense of belonging to feel like a lack thereof.
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