Book Recommendations: Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
As part of our new blog series we’ll be sharing book recommendations sent into us from our volunteers, board members, staff, and community at-large when they were given this prompt:
“WHAT BOOK HAVE YOU READ RECENTLY THAT FUELED, INSPIRED OR GAVE YOU NEW PERSPECTIVE ON CULMORE CLINIC’S WORK?
For our next entry, we have Volunteer Intern, Erica Harp’s recommendations:
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa
And here’s how Erica answered our prompt:
Anzaldúa's work gave me valuable insight into the often complex experience of immigration and the formation of one's personal identity, especially through the lenses of gender, class, and race. I really enjoyed learning about Anzaldúa's own identity as a Chicana woman living on the "borderlands" between Mexico and the U.S., navigating her connections to both countries and cultures. As many of our patients are immigrants themselves, any further perspectives I can gain on the many version of the immigrant experience, the better.
Summary of the Book (Amazon): Rooted in Gloria Anzaldúa's experience as a Chicana, a lesbian, an activist, and a writer, the essays and poems in this volume profoundly challenged, and continue to challenge, how we think about identity. Borderlands / La Frontera remaps our understanding of what a "border" is, presenting it not as a simple divide between here and there, us and them, but as a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us.
We recommend you check out your locally-owned bookshop for this title, or, order on Amazon Smile and a portion of the proceeds goes to Culmore Clinic if we’re your charity of choice! Learn more about setting that up below.
Want to purchase these books and give back to Culmore Clinic at the same time?
Purchase them from your Amazon Smile account and we get a portion of the sale! Learn more about how to set up an Amazon Smile account below:
If you shop Amazon, you can set your account to automatically instruct Amazon to gift a percentage of your order’s total to Culmore Clinic. It’s no extra cost for you, and it’s very easy to set up! Simply go to smile.amazon.com. It should automatically link to your Amazon account. Then follow the steps and when prompted search and select "Culmore Clinic." Then, anytime you want to shop, just go to smile.amazon.com and a percentage of your purchase will be donated to us! Want to double your impact? Shop for items off our Amazon Wishlist!
What are you reading?
Have a good book recommendation that has reminded you of Culmore Clinic’s work? Email us with the title, author and the answer to the prompt above and we may feature you on the next blog!