In Borderlands La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua explains how the search for identity is difficult in a world that refuses to allow one. When reading this article I was impressed at the amount of poetic writing there was, and the use of metaphors. Though this article was directed towards Indians and Mexicans who have been psychologically "fenced" from the American culture.
When reading this I could not stop thinking about how similarly the issues in this article reflected the current issue with Homosexuality in the army. When reading this article yesterday, all I could think about was how similarly, the gays were being "fenced" as well and being forced to socially drop their identity as homosexuals in order fight for their country. One line in the article we read really stood out to me. "Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the "real" world unless it first happens in the images in our head." (Anzaldua) The intolerance that the military is experience at the moment just makes the think of that quote and if that quote is truly real, then the world has not developed mentally enough for there to be any sort of tolerance and change.
It's a good practice to not only link to the article in question but also EXCERPT it so that we know what part of the article you are responding to.
ReplyDeleteIt's not an unusual situation for subaltern identities (and hybrid individuals) to be forced to negate or suppress a section of their identities in certain contexts in order to be able to access rights and responsibilities available to other people.
Thats an interesting connection between Anzaldua and DADT, though.