A Google Doodle depicts Anzaldúa between two worlds.
Borders and the experience of living in different cultures at the same time are the themes of Tuesday’s Google Doodle in the US, which celebrates the work of Gloria E. Anzaldúa.
An author and scholar, Anzaldúa was born in a Texas town near the Mexican border. She grew up in border towns and developed theories about the way marginal cultures develop. She died in 2004. Tuesday would have been her 75th birthday.
Anzaldúa’s writing drew from her experiences growing up as both American and Mexican, exploring the ways a person can be shaped by geography, geopolitics, language and myth. Google notes that Anzaldúa’s work has influenced scholars across multiple disciplines including Chicano studies, women’s studies, LGBT studies and postcolonial studies.
In 1981 she co-edited “This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color” with feminist activist Cherríe Moraga. Anzaldúa is perhaps best known for writing the semi-autobiographical “Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza,” which was published in 1987 and examined the invisible “borders” that exist in society.
Google keeps an archive of previous Doodles here.