Literature of the Borderlands

The US-Mexico border has been the subject of multiple studies from a number of disciplines since its inception in 1948. Mostly those studies had a centralist and external perspective either from Mexico or the United States. But the region began to acquire a vision of its own when local writers and academics began studying, writing, and publishing from and about the border by the end of the twentieth century. In previous works, I have mentioned how the notion of the border became one of

the favorite tropes of cultural studies. In most of them I speak about the importance of studying the concept/metaphor but also of seeing its geopolitical implications. I also elaborate on the importance of including both sides of the border. I emphasize this inclusion due to the fact that in the mid-1990s, when I started studying Mexico’s northern border literature, it was very difficult to find analyses regarding this topic. Invariably, in US libraries and databases, border literature was a synonym of Chicano/a literature, and in very few instances was it related to exile literature, mostly Latin American exile in the United States. In this chapter, I will include those reflections that have been published in Mexico and in the United States. These considerations are elaborated upon in Border Women: Writings from La Frontera (Castillo and Tabuenca Córdoba 2002). Undoubtedly, the theoretical discussion on the metaphorical border owes its most

enduring debt to Gloria Anzaldúa’s much discussed and cited 1987 Borderlands/La Frontera. It is in part due to her influence that the idea of “the border” turned out to be very prominent in a number of academic disciplines since the mid-1980s, especially in the United States, where this image has served as a popular locus of discussion on monolithic structures. Scholars working in border studies have attempted, in Danny Anderson’s words, “to dismantle the patriarchal and Anglocentric confinements of the term ‘American’ specifically as it relates to American literature” (Anderson n.d.: 1). In this sense, Anzaldúas’s border evokes the intellectual project of a discursively based alternative national culture while gesturing toward a more

heterogeneous transnational space of identity formation. This idea of Anzaldúa is developed later by Walter Mignolo (2000) into one of the most complete and theoretically powerful surveys on recent discussions of the idea of the border in US, Latin American, Caribbean, European, and British Commonwealth thought. For Mignolo, the most crucial insight of his discussion of what he alternatively calls “border gnosis” or “border thinking” is that this structure offers him the opportunity to imagine the possibility of “theorizing from the border (border as a threshold and liminality, as two sides connected by a bridge, as a geographical and epistemological location)” (2000: 309). As I have stated, the concept of the border has been used recurrently in the the-

oretical and critical arena in order to illustrate a privileged site of operations, and Mignolo’s statement would be an important instrument in the negotiations of theory and practice. Yet, for those of us involved in border studies on the Mexican side of the border, it is difficult to conceive the border simply as a metaphor not only because we are seeking conceptual frameworks for the analysis of our own Mexican border literature. It is problematic to consider it as a metaphor when we cross the geopolitical border almost on a daily basis – we may spend two or more hours in line to enter the US, we are treated as terrorists or persons of interest at the checkpoints – and when we have a real wall between our cities. If the theoretically imagined US border serves as an objective correlative for discussions of US dominant culture and its resistant spaces, the Mexican border region in a parallel manner helps address the question of how and where to relocate discussions about “mexicanidad” (mexicanness). From the Mexican side, however, the border line itself retains a stronger materi-

ality than is typical in US-based commentary, a not-unexpected result of the differential ability to simply cross to the other side. Far too often, as we can see on a daily basis, the geopolitical border looms as a puzzling barrier against which Mexican nationals’ dreams are dashed and broken. At the same time, if border literary expression in Mexico is someday reduced to simply being a metaphor, it will be necessary for us to find the direction of such metaphors and the degree of truth they may contain. By saying this I don’t mean to imply that the border is “the possession of one or the other side” (Bruce-Novoa 1994: 13). But it is important to indicate that in order to think of the border “as a line shared by the inhabitants on both sides [in order that it be] open to transit” (1994: 13) it is important either to take both sides into consideration, or to be specific about which side one is going to talk about or study and to recognize the material and metaphorical differences involved in such transnational analyses. Otherwise the “intellectual colonialism” from which the Mexican border has suffered to this day will be perpetuated to the detriment of both its primary referents – people in general or flesh-and-blood artists – and its literature. However, I believe that it will be harder to reduce the border to a metaphor especially at present with the US immigration policies, the Minute Man initiative, the deaths of migrants in the desert and elsewhere, the ban of Chicano/a-Latino/a history and culture in Arizona, and the infamous wall along the US-Mexico border line. Though what we define as “border theory” or “border writing” in the United

States almost always refer to metaphorical concepts, rather than to any particular geographical area, the US-Mexico border is frequently called into reference in the

margins of such arguments as the most salient test case for such theoretical analyses. South of the line, “border writing” alludes more specifically to the region’s literary output. Nevertheless, despite the increasing theoretical attention to the border area, literature from the Mexican border has been seriously understudied, both in Mexico, due in large part to its marginal geographic position within the country, and in the US academic arena, where the rising trend of Chicano/a (and Latino/a)-based border theory has effectively captured the bulk of critical attention. Thus, when one examines studies on border literature/literatura de la frontera, two

very distinct perspectives come into view: the Mexican perspective, which focuses on the literature produced within the region, and the US perspective, which focuses on more abstract theoretical concerns with typical gestures in the direction of Chicano/a (Latino/a) and Latin American literature. Despite numerous elements that would seem to suggest the affinity between US and Mexican border theories and literatures, the asymmetry between the United States and Mexico also indicates the differences between the two cultural projects. The border as perceived from the US is more of a textual-theoretical border than a geographical one, US Chicano/a scholars use the border metaphor to create a multicultural space in the United States in order to erase geographical and cultural boundaries. The real geopolitical border is used to construct an alternative Chicano/a discourse and to denounce centralist hegemony in the United States. At times it seems like the idea of Aztlán has been displaced, and instead of the mythical Aztlán for Chicano/a scholars it has been transformed into the mythical Borderlands, and sometimes – more rarely – in Mexico as well. The projection of the borderlands theory and literature represents for many Chicano/a writers and thinkers the imaginative return to a metaphorically conceived Mexican/ Latin American cultural tradition which serves as a source of empowerment. This tradition is accessed more often through memory and secondary texts that actual visits to the Mexican side of the geopolitical boundary line. This tendency toward a metaphorical, rather than literally based appropriation of border experience underlies one of the crucial differences with those border dwellers who live and cross over between two nations on a daily basis. For such people it is difficult to see the border as a metaphor or as a utopia, although at the same time there is a deep awareness that repetitive movement does not guarantee a more correct perception or a clearcut representational model. In Mexico what is referred to as “literatura de la frontera” or as the literature of the

northern border began in the mid-1980s. The emergence of this literary form, as well as its analysis, derived from a coincidence of specific political factors, reinforcing our perception that in order for this cultural movement to exist there needed to be more than a talent pool; certain minimal resources had become available. Francisco Luna and Rosina Conde, among others, agree the interest in border culture and literature evolved at that time because of the obsession on the part of Mexico City authorities to reinforce the romantic notion of national identity (Luna 1994: 79); to cultivate and nationalize the border states by revealing the essence of what it was to be Mexican (Conde 1992: 52); or more crudely and perhaps more accurately to give jobs to their buddies (M. Villarreal, interview) through the Border Cultural Program (Programa Cultural de las Fronteras). These three responses reflect the centralist vision I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter and clearly indicate the range of

reactions of the program: to shore up a conflicted sense of national identity, to civilize the barbarian from the north, and continued centralized corruption by other means. At any rate, border literature was given a significant boost dating from 1985 with the influx of federal money to support cultural projects. I would like to make clear that when speaking of border literature here I will be speaking about the US-Mexico border, because the process and development of cultural, social, and geopolitical projects are very different in Mexico’s southern border. However, the conceptualization of this project is fraught with contradiction. If the

central government’s concern was primarily seen as one of “nationalization,” it followed that the inhabitants of the northern states were still largely seen in the mid-1980s as an uncultured and potentially disruptive hybrid group, dangerously threatened by absorption into US culture next-door. The centralist dominant discourse then will be geared toward promoting a process of homogenization with a very specific political agenda. At the same time, to remind us that the agenda is “romantic” in nature is also to evoke the centrist presence of thinking in terms of clichés held over from nineteenth-century models of nation formation. To hint that the unspoken agenda was to provide opportunities for typically corrupt political appointments is also to voice the resistance of many border inhabitants to the process of centrist totalization. Because of the latter, during the 1980s and the 1990s a number of authors born in

the border region, or whose work was produced in the area, refused to be considered border writers, specifically as a rejection of the political project underlying the Border Cultural Project. For Minerva and José Javier Villarreal, being catalogued as border writers could have had the effect of preventing them from ever entering the hallowed canon of “Mexican writers.” Rosario Sanmiguel, on the other hand, considered that recognizing herself as a border writer meant accepting as well her marginal position within the national literary scene since her works were not published by a prestigious (centralist) press or widely distributed. From both sides of this discussion, then, the label “border writer” in Mexico became a highly ideological issue. At the same time, all these writers considered literature from the northern border their own particular contribution to national literature. They did not see the task of addressing a border reality as an imposition – after all they had been writing and commenting on this region and had and have been meeting to read and discuss their works before the federal government stepped in with that new program to allow them to achieve some minimal local visibility and distribution to their works. The program ended approximately in 1998 and this federal patronage combined with other social factors contributed to enabling literature to gain wider concurrency more quickly in northern Mexico than it had in the past. Other factors that rapidly opened new avenues for the development of literature in the northern border states included: a burgeoning middle class, the demand for educational and cultural services, the association of writers who decided to produce and publish their work in their places of origin, the presence of a market of readers, and the increased diversity of local publications. Ignacio Betancourt, Patricio Bayardo, and Chicano critic Francisco Lomelí were

among the first ones to begin to sketch out analyses of border literature. Whereas Bayardo focuses mostly on Mexican border literature, Betancourt and Lomelí

comment on authors from both sides of the border. Lomelí develops his concept of the border as a dynamic site of socioeconomic, cultural, and political exchange and resistance, and as a unifying element between Mexicans and Chicanos/as. He also talks about Mexican border literature and two Chicano authors. He mentions some of the difficulties of defining “border literature” because of the particularities of this geopolitical space and the cultural differences among the inhabitants of both sides of the border. One significant point in Lomelí’s article is that he proposes to rethink the category of “literature” to dismantle monolithic structures from canonical “official” national corpus of texts. Essayists Sergio Gómez Montero, Humberto Félix Berumen, Gabriel Trujillo, and

Francisco Luna served as the most consistent commentators on the literature of Mexico’s border region during its early descriptive stages. They have suggested that in order to study border literature in Mexico, one must not view either its literature or geography as a massive whole. The region is made up of diverse topographies, natural resources, and climates. Urban development differs significantly from one state to the next. Consequently, contrary to the concept of “border literature” in the United States, la literatura de la frontera norte is a phenomenon set into motion differently by the unique cultural factors existing in different places. For these authors, Mexico’s border literature emerged and coalesced during the

1970s especially in the most important urban centers such as Tijuana, Mexicali, and Ciudad Juárez. Literary production and publication took place in cities located on the border or in other important urban centers in Mexico’s northern states such as Chihuahua City, Monterrey, or Ciudad Victoria. Narrative and poetry stand out as the most widely employed literary forms. Among the diverse themes of both genres, the border’s geographic realities (the desert, the sea, mountains, the border line, urban centers) are fundamental. The colloquial and vernacular quality of the language permits the portrayal of the region’s typical linguistic characteristics; however, bilingualism and code-switching are not common practices in the literary works. The re-creation of everyday life is given priority, and representation of the urban space is one of its unique traits, without falling prey to the provincial costumbrismo of the past. The authors producing this literature were born, for the most part, since the 1950s, and their work began to be published in the 1980s. The authors more recognized nationally and internationally are: Jesús Gardea (Los viernes de Lautaro), Ricardo Elizondo (Maurilia Maldonado y otras simplezas), Rosina Conde (El agente secreto), Daniel Sada (Lampa vida), Luis Humberto Crosthwaite (El gran pretender), Rosario Sanmiguel (Callejón Sucre y otros relatos), Gabriel Trujillo Muñoz (Mezquite road), José Javier Villarreal (Portuaria), Minerva Margarita Villarreal (El corazón más secreto), Patricia Laurent Kullick (El camino de Santiago), David Toscana (El ejército iluminado), and Eduardo Antonio Parra (Nadie los vio salir). Among other writers who have managed to establish solid reputations within the regional and national literary scene are: Sylvia Aguilar Zéleny (Gente Menuda) Margarita Oropeza (Después de la montaña), José Manuel Di Bella (Pegado a la herida), Heriberto Yépez (Al otro lado), Rafa Saavedra (Buten Smileys), Arminé Arjona (Delincuentos; historias de narcotráfico), Federico Schaffler (Contactos en el cielo), Gerardo Cornejo (Juan Justino judicial), Carmen Amato (Estación Tempe), and Regina Swain (La Señorita Supermán y otras danzas). There are also a number of authors who participate in creative endeavors in

their local communities. It is worth emphasizing that not all border writers write about their regional contexts or experiences; a number place their writings at a distance from the region’s temporality and its sociological conflicts; and there is a trend in the state of Tamaulipas on writing science fiction. Defining the territorial limits of the “border” or of the “northern border” is

another difficulty we face. In his works dealing with border narrative, Berumen includes both those writers who live and work in urban centers as well as those who live 900 kilometers to the south of the US-Mexican border. One of the arguments used to justify these limits is Berumen’s contention that one must not approach the region from a vantage point of its administrative characteristics when discussing literary phenomena, but rather its sociocultural traits. This is perhaps Berumen’s least convincing argument since there may well be more differences than similarities and we could end up having an essentialist view of the border. At present and with the use of technology, younger writers such as Cristina Rivera

Garza, Dolores Dorantes, Rafa Saavedara, and Heriberto Yépez, amongst others, can place themselves in a different borderland. Heriberto Yépez, in his essay “El mito del escrito fronterizo” (2003), questions many of the definitions from the 1990s that I have elaborated here. In fact by the end of the century, those of us involved in the study of Mexican northern border literature continued asking ourselves if these characteristics still apply, especially when many of the writers mentioned in the first group have moved to Mexico City or live in what we consider “central regional spaces” such as Chihuahua City or Monterrey and some of them are already publishing in mainstream presses. Therefore my question from the 1990s is still current. Is border literature about, on, of, or from the border? In Mexico, of whom have the terms “the border’s literature” or “border literature” – literatura de la frontera or literatura fronteriza – been coined? There is still a great deal of confusion on this matter. Academics tend to assume that border literature is comprised of those Mexican works that focus on regional themes. The origin of this misunderstanding lies in the fact that writers from Mexico City who write about the border are generally included in literary analyses of northern border literature, often to the detriment of less well-known writers from the border area who may or may not use local referents in their work. Danny Anderson, for example, posits that the perspectives of Laura Esquivel, Carlos Fuentes, Ricardo Garibay, Ethel Krauze, and Paco Ignacio Taibo II, who write about but not from the border (and I will add, do not have the geopolitical border experience), have provided a historical storehouse of “representations which help on to distinguish the uniqueness and the often responsive nature of literary production on the border in border states” (Anderson n.d.: 6). It is certain that by relying exclusively on these more canonical works one is likely to engage in what I have called “intellectual colonialism.” This colonialism is made manifest when one accepts the works of these authors as representative of the border, instead of seeking out other texts by writers from the area. As a result, those authors who write from the border find their work displaced from public consciousness in favor of the latest thematically related “border” book by a well-known centrist writer. It is, therefore, signally important to make the distinction between the border as expressed in literature as opposed to the literature, actually produced on the border or by a writer

who grew up on the border or in a northern border state. This differentiation helps prevent the erasure of Mexican border writers and their writings in favor of well-known Mexican or Chicano/a writers. When comparing border literature in the US and Mexico the efforts of theoreti-

cians to develop their analyses in an even-handed manner, the cultural products of these two countries fall into a distinct power differential, as is also true of the political realm. US border literature occupies the dominant space, and Mexican border literature falls into a subordinate one. While there is no doubt that Chicano/a (and Latino/a) literature serves as an expression of a minority culture within the United States (as Mexican border literature in Mexico), nevertheless when it is put into the perspective of a transborder literary project, the disparity is clear. Control of what and who crosses the border affects both literary texts and people. Chicano/a-Latino/a literature, as part of a relatively privileged distribution network within the US dominant culture, is in a position of distinct and clear advantage when compared to the extraordinary difficulties attending Mexican border writers both within the Mexican dominant establishment and with respect to international border theoretical discussions. Even if we talk about the fewer social, economic, and political advantages enjoyed by Mexico’s northern border states, Mexican writers in the region do not possess the publishing resources available to minority groups in the US. This means that it is not the same being a minority and having to resist the center in the United States as in Mexico. For example, small independent publishing houses or government and/or university-supported presses, while publishing and disseminating literature from the border area, do not have the resources or the recognition, range of design possibilities, press runs, or distribution outlets of even such “minor” publishing houses as Aunt Lute Press, Kitchen Table Press, Third Women Press, and Arte Público Press in the United States. Added to this already complicated scenario, we could also speak of how la literatura de la frontera disarticulates national Mexican canonical literature, and the tension both borders cause in their respective countries, which add another layer of contradiction and complexity to the discussion. As Chicano/a literature began being a part of a greater sociopolitical movement

during the 1960s that shifted the mythical Aztlán to the “borderlands” in the 1980s, Mexican northern border literature started to be recognized as a regional literary movement in the 1970s and reached full recognition at the end of the twentieth century. With this in mind, we can begin the articulation of a textual border, analogous to that defined in Chicano/a literature, in which a Mexican geographic space would also acquire a generalizable value, not in relationship with the United States or the rest of Mexico or Latin America, but in terms of the bonds existing in terms of the border states. In this rearticulation, the main differences between the literature on both sides of the border: for Chicano/a literature the border is an abstraction, an inexhaustible utopia, a “Garden of Eden.” In Mexican border literature, the topic of the border occupies an ordinary space, a place that is occasionally represented in writing. It is, in this literature, more than a trope, a locus amoenus, It is part of a literary regional movement that, like the border itself, is in a state of constant development and reflection: dynamic and forever changing.