Moderator Commentary: Not Just Surviving but Fully Relishing the Borderlands, Deﬁantly and Triumphantly

The four papers in this panel on the spiritual dimensions of social transformation as they relate to Gloria Anzaldua's work all draw on her refusal to be locked into a dualistic mode of thinking. Anzaldua emphasized, and these presenters confirm, that true revolution and social transformation can only take place when we are willing to imagine paradigms that disrupt the rigidity of either/or constructions. The notion of "borderlands" is, of course, central to such a disruption. Michelle Corbin rejects the divide between spirituality and rationality by turning to Anzaldua's call for a "spiritual activism." Spirituality need not connote a preoccupation with individual inward states; rather, immersing oneself in spiritual self-regeneration demands a commitment to improving the world for all of one's fellow human beings, argues Corbin. Sharon Kim offers us a portrait of the "hybrid spirituality" among second generation Korean Americans; they combine elements of "Confucianism, Korean Christianity, and various expressions of American Evangelicalism," she writes, underscoring the futility of containing this creative identity construction within standard models of assimilation, integration, and acculturation (all of which require from the minority group in question conformity to a dominant narrative of being). Karen Gagne's paper reminds us of the power of poetry, art, and the creative forms of expression. Such knowledge moves us toward revolution and transformation because the language of poetry lets us tap into our innermost desires and aspirations. Anzaldua's penchant for metaphoric language is a clear indication that she understood the power of symbol and poetry as a vehicle for change. Gagne urges us to wrest poetics from its confinement in the humanities and bring it into the realm of social change. Mohammad Tamdgidi asks us to consider the self anew, to see it not in opposition to the collective or the social group but as the site from which all revolution occurs. Without the self's release from its own limited ways of knowing, there can be no social or collective change, Tamdgidi contends. To pose the self/collective dichotomy is unproductive to large scale transformation. All four presenters do full justice to the idea of Anzaldua's borderlands as the space of birth and rebirth. When I first encountered Anzaldua's poem "To live in the Borderlands means you," I felt I was returning to one of my earliest memories, a story I had heard often in my childhood and youth. Anzaldua concludes her poem with the words "To survive the Borderlands,/ you must live sin fronteras/ be a crossroads." I appreciate her urging the reader to dwell in the crossroads, to refuse to be placed within any one camp, to resist being categorized and labeled, but I am puzzled by Anzaldua's use of the word "survive." That word suggests that there is something unpleasant about the borderlands; that it is a place in which one would rather not be if one were not forced to remain in it. To see the borderlands as an unwelcome place is to capitulate to the dominant paradigm that demands that we choose which side we're on, that sees as weakness the need to recognize value in diverse, even conflicting, perspectives. So, I say to Anzaldua, I choose not just to survive the borderlands, but to relish it. I proudly persist in it defiantly and triumphantly. There is power in the borderlands, potency in the middle spaces. Let us not minimize the great energy of the in-between. …