In The Mountain, Eli Clare describes the steep and difficult climb faced by those of us with marginalized identities. That metaphor felt deeply familiar. Every step we take, every opportunity we earn, feels like a struggle, and yet, even on this climb, we must remain mindful of who we’re helping up and who we might be leaving behind.
At a school like Dickinson, where only about 7.46% of students identify as Latinx or Caribbean, I often find myself questioning whether my voice or input even matters. That’s why reading the work of a strong and confident Mestiza figure like Gloria Anzaldúa, someone who expresses herself with such certainty in academic spaces makes me feel inspired. It reminds me that I do belong here.
Honestly, I felt like I was being called out throughout most of the reading. Too many times I’ve known the answer in class but didn’t have the confidence to speak up, afraid of sounding wrong. Even when I lacked the right words or felt like I wasn’t eloquent enough, what really matters is having the courage to speak not just for myself, but for my community who can’t. While I’m actively working on this, the imaginary binds around my throat still feel strong.
The metaphor of climbing the mountain to reach success in America made me reflect on which identities are seen as most ‘equipped’ to succeed: whiteness, wealth, heterosexuality. What Anzaldúa opened my eyes to was how, sometimes, within marginalized communities, we end up pitting ourselves against each other. We measure our worth and our success by how high we’ve climbed in comparison to others from our own communities. Gloria Anzaldúa writes:
“I can write this and yet I realize that many of us women of color who have strung degrees, credentials and published books around our necks like pearls that we hang onto for dear life are in danger of contributing to the invisibility of our sister writers. ‘La Vendida,’ the sell-out.”
This line hit me hard. It felt like both a warning and a plea. Yes, we face immense obstacles from systems that were never built for us, but we also need to reflect on how we might unintentionally uphold those same systems for women in more vulnerable positions. We need to uplift one another, not compete for scraps of validation on this mountain that was never meant to welcome any of us.
In my own experience, I’m motivated to earn my degree not only for myself, my family, and my community, but also partly to prove something to the outside world, to those who see us as criminals, dirty, or unintelligent. I want to show that if I can succeed in higher education, then the narratives they push about us hold no weight. But I had never truly considered how, as women of color, we also carry a responsibility to not let our degrees or credentials make us believe we are better or more adequate than other third world women who Anzaldua addresses.
I thought about this especially in the context of recent political shifts. Within Latinx spaces, there has been a lot of finger-pointing when it comes to political preferences. Especially after the surprising number of Latinos who voted for Trump, a man who has repeatedly disrespected and dehumanized our communities. In the aftermath of the election, people were scared and fired up, and I remember how quickly the blame started flying. Many Latinos began calling their own community members ignorant, unintelligent, mindless. In doing so, we were echoing the same harmful narratives that outsiders have used to shame us for generations.
And I’ll be real. I participated in some of that blame too. I felt frustrated with my own community, trying to understand how so many of us could vote for someone who sees us as less than human. But the truth is, this reaction speaks to a deeper issue. These choices don’t come out of nowhere, they’re shaped by real barriers: poverty, lack of access to education, limited resources, systemic neglect.
This is such a thoughtful blog post, thank you for sharing with us! Your analyses of Anzaldúa’s writing are so interesting. I read her piece “Mestiza Consciousness” earlier this semester for a class and was in awe of her ability to make a theory rigorous and yet personable, as you mentioned.
I liked how you phrased this: “[…] compete for scraps of validation on this mountain that was never meant to welcome any of us.” This, to me, is the crux of Clare and Anzaldúa’s arguments, because Anzaldúa emphasizes that people should write and let nothing stop them from writing. She isn’t arguing against academic participation. However, she does argue against academia being used as a weapon against others.
I related to what you wrote about ingroup frustration this past November, despite the differences in context/experience. I think it’s natural to be weighed down by the feeling of being neglected by one’s own community, but you wisely state that the oppressor’s narratives should not be perpetuated in this criticism. Your closing sentence really hit home with me. The very inequality discussed in our classes plays out in lived experiences, shaping decisions and perspectives.
I really appreciated your real life connection to Anzaldua and Eli Clare. I felt that the connection between these two are made very clear by the ways in which those texts connect to your experience of feeling hesitant to speak up or betrayed by majority of the Latino community that voted for Trump. I wonder if the ideas you brought up here can resonate with our class discussions about feeling/being isolated. I’m thinking in Loca, the scene where they prepare for the night club despite their anxieties. I’m also thinking about the scene in Cereus Bloom at Night where Tyler tries on the dress even though he regrets it afterwards.
I want to begin this response by thanking you for your vulnerability. Even though these posts are made under pseudonyms, what you speak on is deeply personal, and I am so very grateful you chose to share it with us. I think you make a very important point when you note how Anzaldúa cautions against education as a tool to be used to marginalize further groups who have historically been denied access to such institutions. There is a difficult balance that she highlights, and I am so grateful to have heard your perspective in how Anzaldúa’s writing impacts you.
Your reflection is incredibly thoughtful and vulnerable—thank you for sharing it. I was especially moved by how you linked Eli Clare’s metaphor of the mountain with Anzaldúa’s call for solidarity and self-awareness within marginalized communities. You captured something powerful in acknowledging both the pressure to succeed and the danger of internalizing oppressive values in that climb. Your honesty about feeling called out by Anzaldúa’s words resonates with me, especially the idea that silence in class isn’t just personal—it has communal weight. I also appreciated your nuanced take on intra-community tensions post-election.