The, Mexican Feminist Theorist Gloria Anzladua s An...

In Borderlands/La Frontera, Mexican Feminist theorist Gloria Anzladua’s introduces an analytical framework for considering the relationship between minority faces, spaces, and languages as they compete, interact and inform America’s institutionalized whiteness. While her book specifically deals with the â€Å"minority faces† of Mexican immigrants, the epigraph suggests, racial minorities who interact with historically white spaces cross a â€Å"border† that is at once culturally and linguistically metaphoric, and physically literal. Thus, Anzaldua’s frame of the â€Å"border† suggests that minority experience is a product of cultural collision—or â€Å"choque†Ã¢â‚¬â€that occurs as they enter into white spaces and are forced to mediate their lived experience with their new surroundings (Anzaldua, 28). This paper will use Anzaldua’s theoretical lens of â€Å"the border† to contextualize conversations of music and culture pertaining to American slavery. Anzaldua’s work differentiates between the â€Å"border† as a geographical space and the â€Å"Border† that is the intellectual and culture production that happens in the aforementioned geographical space (Anzaldua, 9). As such, I seek to historically and racially broaden Anzaldua’s lens in order to define the plantation as the â€Å"border† and the culture and music as the â€Å"Border† when analyzing American slavery. As American slaves physically border their masters, they navigate the cultural and political borders between Slavery and Freedom. One such cultural formation of