This factsheet is a distillation of Gloria Anzaldua’s “La conciencia de la mestiza,” a piece about Anzaldua’s philosophy as an Indigenous Mexican American scholar and feminist. The “mestiza” is a new consciousness that comes from the cross-pollination of ideology, culture, race and biology. The mestiza consciousness is rooted largely in living on the borderlands, where multiple opposing cultural messages speak to a person at once, and the mestiza, thus, learns to juggle cultures.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. “La Conciencia de La Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness.” In Borderlands / La Frontera: The Mestiza 4th ed. Aunt Lute Books, 2012[1987]: 99–113.