Cruz-Ventura 1

Antonio Cruz-Ventura

English 102

Professor Batty

September 25, 2017

The Final Struggle

The struggle for acceptance has always been one of humanities biggest struggle. In the

poem, Cibuatlyotl, Women Alone by Gloria Anzaldua, the author talks how Raza affected her life

growing up as a female queer woman. Race or in other words Raza is a topic that is very

controversial in society because people have to follow certain traditions and culture in order to

be part of them. There are many poem reviews that talk about Anzaldua's life and how she

became a very proud and strong woman that fought for queer, Chicano (a) movements, and

female identities, so they relate her poems to her life. Although many may argue that Anzaldua

was a strong woman that fought to become who she is. I'm suggesting that she wrote about the

thoughts of dying from diabetes and how death will soon help her escape from the Raza, she

expresses this idea through her poem by using literary devices like imagery, and diction. Even

though the author focuses on the theme Raza in her poem, she explains how death can be used to

scape culture and tradition.

In this poem, Imagery plays a part. The use of symbolism can be used to relate this poem to

Anzuldua life, it makes sense to me that she was using this poem to express how a race was

affecting her life. At beginning of the poem we see how much hate she has against Raza

Many years I have fought off you hands. Raza

Father mother church your rage at my desire to be

With my self, alone (1-3)

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In other words, we see that she describes Raza as culture, religion, family traditions by using

father, mother, and religion in the poem. It makes sense that she was struggling for years

because she comes from a family that has a strict tradition and culture, so they make rules and

regulations are very serious to the Raza. In her case, she has done bad to the Raza because she's a

Chicana lesbian. And to the Raza being gay or lesbian is prohibited, well it used to be but now a

day is more accepted. Anzaldua uses with myself, alone to represent an idea of reaching the end

of her life. She knows that she will die soon and she doesn't have to worry about traditions

because when people die they leave everything behind and they die only by themselves. Some

poem critics might say that she was not writing about death that she was most likely writing

about overcoming to be strong women. In the poem review Gloria Anzalda: Place, Race,

Language, and Sexuality in the Magic Valley by Maria Herrera-Sober say that Aduzaldua was

fighting for personal freedom but also to fight for her own beliefs against culture and traditions.

In addition, to the imagery of death Aduzaldua writes

This lifelong battle has ended,

Raza I don't need to flail against you.

Raza india Mexicana norteamericana, there's no-

Thing more you can chop off (26-29)

Basically, Aduzaldua is restating that she has fought this battle where she was being picked on

for being lesbian. It's interesting that in this part of the poem she names three different races, her

indigenous, Mexican, and North America. Which makes me believe that she was suffering to be

herself and not only was she being picked on by only the Mexican Raza but also the Raza that

was around which included mostly everyone around her. Anzaldua ends this part of the poem
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with a thought which would represent her saying that when she dies there is no one that could

pick on her for being a lesbian because she could finally be free and alone.

The diction that is used in this poem is key to understand why Aduzaldua was talking

about her future death. For example, the word Cibuatlyotl means a female spirit. This word

choice is interesting because spirits usually belong to the other world. When the title of the poem

is united, it has a great significance because Cibuatlyotl, and Women Alone show an image of

Aduzaldua heading to the other world. She knew that her life was coming to an end because

diabetes might kill her. In article Gloria Anzaldua (1942-2004): as a "threshold person," a

nepantlera, Anzaldua moved among worlds in her art, her politics, and her spirituality

AnaLouise Keating, Lets us know that many of the people that knew Anzaldua didn't know that

she had diabetes and the people that knew her shocked that she had died from diabetes. The word

choice in this poem makes me think that Anzaldua was using words to hide messages that show

that she was going to die.

The separation of three different languages is important because it shows that Aduzaldua

felt like she was no accepted in three different cultures. She uses language to manipulate the flow

of the poem. At the beginning of the poem, she uses Raza to represents her family and cultural

beliefs but then she uses it to define multiple races. This makes me think that Aduzaldua was a

woman that was struggling a lot for acceptance in her community. Of course, many will probably

disagree with this assertion of her struggle. In one of Anzaldua biography, says that she said we

should belong to ourselves and only to ourselves. To put it differently, it meant that culture

should not control who a person is.

As a result, in this poem, we could see that Anzaldua was using literature to express what

was going on her real life. By analyzing this poem, I see that Anzaldua was trying to find an
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escape from the Raza; her escape was that she was going to die from diabetes. Her struggle as

Chicana lesbian was to show her struggle through imagery and diction.
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Work cited

"Gloria Anzaldua." Gay & Lesbian Biography, edited by Michael J. Tyrkus and Michael

Bronski, St. James Press, 1997. Literature Resource Center,

library.lavc.edu Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.

Herrera-Sobek, Mara. "Gloria Anzalda: Place, Race, Language, and Sexuality in the Magic

Valley." Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 350,

Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center, library.lavc.edu Accessed 23 Sept. 2017.

Keating, AnaLouise. "Gloria Anzaldua (1942-2004): as a 'threshold person,' a nepantlera,

Anzaldua moved among worlds in her art, her politics, and her spirituality." The

Women's Review of Books, Oct. 2004, p. 1+. Literature Resource Center,

library.lavc.edu. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.