Publication Date
Spring 5-9-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in English (MA)
Department
English
Committee Chair
Jonathan W. Murphy
Committee Member
Debbie R. Lelekis
Committee Member
Zachary R. Hernandez
Committee Member
Jonathan Martinez
Abstract
This thesis explores how Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) and Helena María Viramontes’ short story “The Cariboo Café” (1985) portray marginalized individuals navigating liminal spaces of identity, oppression, and survival. Borderlands/La Frontera and “The Cariboo Café” show how systematic violence and displacement shatter the self, pushing characters to navigate trauma in a dystopian space. Sonya, Macky, the café owner, and the grieving mother represent Anzaldúa’s concepts of borderland subjectivity, betrayal, and spectral haunting.
Sonya and Macky, two undocumented children, represent Anzaldúa’s borderlands subjects and reside in a state of nepantla, an in-between space of cultural dislocation. The café owner represents an authoritative distortion of Anzaldúa’s La Llorona and La Malinche, both of whom are symbols of betrayal and loss. Anzaldúa’s critique of internalized oppression correlates with his responsibility in the children’s suffering, where “[the] dual of oppressor and oppressed; locked in mortal combat, like the cop and the criminal, both are reduced to a common denominator of violence” (Borderlands 84). His café, which was meant to be a refuge, devolved into a dystopian trap that fostered systemic violence.
The grieving mother whose child was abducted by state forces appears as a spectral borderland figure, combining La Llorona’s wailing with the political horror of the desaparecidos. Anzaldúa’s claim that borders cause people to live “entre dos mundos” emphasizes the narrow line between sanity and insanity (83). The grieving mother’s fragmented mind reflects the collective trauma of oppressed individuals.
This thesis argues that through their writing, both writers show the brutal reality of liminal existence, where survival necessitates resistance to erasure. By combining Anzaldúa’s Borderlands theory with Viramontes’ short story, this thesis will show how dystopian spaces like the Cariboo café embody the violence of borders, both physical and ideological, while also emphasizing the resilience of individuals who live there.
Recommended Citation
Ramos, Oralia G., "Voices in the Borderlands: Reimagining Identity, Cultural Belonging, and Dystopian Spaces in Anzaldúa’s Borderlands and Viramontes’s “The Cariboo Café”" (2025). Theses and Dissertations. 222.
https://rio.tamiu.edu/etds/222
Included in
American Literature Commons, Chicana/o Studies Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, Latin American Literature Commons, Latina/o Studies Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Spanish Literature Commons, Women's Studies Commons
