Dr. Gloria Anzaldúa Literary Landmark
Ceremony and plaque unveiling at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley University Library in Edinburg, Texas, March 28, 2022.
Literary Landmarks are special places located across the country that attract tourists, book lovers, and history buffs to educate the public about important literary works and history. With only five Literary Landmark sites designated in our great and vast state, the Texas Center for the Book at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission launched the 2021 Literary Landmarks Roundup to double the number of landmarks in Texas. We sought nominations from libraries, historical associations, Chambers of Commerce, educational institutions, museums, and literary societies, among others. Four new Texas sites were approved this spring by United for Libraries, the national organization that administers the program.
Gloria Anzaldúa (1942 - 2004) was a native of the Rio Grande Valley area. She was born in Raymondville, graduated from Texas Pan Am University (now the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) and the University of Texas at Austin, and later lived in and is buried in Hargill. Anzaldúa wrote a number of books in her life but is best known for Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, published in 1987 by Aunt Lute Books in San Francisco. The book was hailed at the time of publication (it was named by Library Journal as one of the 38 best books of 1987), but has continued to grow in importance in the three decades since publication and is now widely considered a groundbreaking classic. The book became a foundational work in the areas of border studies, Chicana feminism, and LGBTQ rights. Anzaldúa was openly a lesbian and wrote about it, which was quite unusual at the time, especially among Hispanic writers. It cleared a path for a generation of authors that includes Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, Ana Castillo, and Norma Cantú, all of whom wrote essays praising Anzaldúa and her huge influence in an introduction to the 20th anniversary edition of Borderlands/La Frontera in 2007. Read more about the Dr. Gloria E. Anzaldúa Literary Landmark on the website: www.tsl.texas.gov/literarylandmark/anzaldua.
About the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Edinburg Library
Gloria E. Anzaldúa graduated from Pan American College, now known University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Edinburg (UTRGV). The library’s prominent location offers premier visibility on the Edinburg campus and in the Valley and reminds visitors that Anzaldúa’s early work was undoubtedly inspired as a student in 1960s. The Edinburg campus is centrally located in the Rio Grande Valley, where the local Gloria Anzaldúa Legacy Project (GAL Project) was formed and continues to work to ensure that Anzaldúa and her legacy remain viable to the Valley community; students as well as community will have access to the location and the UTRGV Center for Mexican American Studies annual event in her honor, El Retorno, including those who make the trip to UTRGV when they attend the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa El Mundo Zurdo conference in San Antonio. One of UTRGV's goals as one of the largest Hispanic-serving institutions in the nation is to become a Bilingual, Bicultural, and Biliterate (B3) university. For the past few years, the B3 Institute on campus, where the Center for Mexican American Studies is housed, has engaged in this work.
Gloria Anzaldúa lecture footage courtesy of the Difference, Power, and Discrimination Program Records (RG 250), Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Oregon State University Libraries.
Follow TSLAC's Literary Landmarks project at www.tsl.texas.gov/literarylandmark.
#TXCenterfortheBook #LiteraryLandmarks #TexasHistory #ReadYall