Interface

Gloria Anzaldua highlights the concept of duality and the dichotomy between American Culture and Mexican Culture. She states, “ Not only was the brain split into two functions but so was reality. Thus people who inhabit both realities are forced to live in the interface between the two, forced to become adept at switching modes (59). She also focuses on the duality of gender, and how the distinction between man and woman undermines her own culture. She explains that she is caught in two worlds not only sexually, as she explains homophobia, but also physically in her own country on the border. Anzaldua explains that her culture restricts women into three roles, prostitute, nun or wife/mother. Anzaldua embodies all three of these roles through her sexual a religious descriptions. This idea of dual identity or trying to synthesize the world as well as the self reminds me of being a teenager or young adult.
In college I am forced to release my childhood demeanor and attempt to conform into an adult-like society. Yet, as a freshman I remember being very confused because I was leaving my home and family and trying to fit into both the college world and even the professional world. I felt that I could not fit into any of these worlds, however. When I went home to visit I could still act like a kid, but I was still detached. But on my journey I am discovering there is a bridge between these worlds that does not necessarily leave me stranded in limbo. I can still retain some of the imaginative qualities of childhood and still be viewed and accepted as an adult in society. I can synthesize the worlds of my teenage years with the new and exciting opportunities of independence and professionalism. I do not have to choose on or the other, even though it seemed that way while I was a freshmen and sophomore. Like Anzaldua, she does not have to simply give up her culture even though many of Mexican traditional roles of woman does not line up with her own views, and still meet her own goals in America. She is still Mexican even though she feels like an Alien and she can adopt other cultures into her own. She even mentions that she wants to create her own culture, where everyone is accepted.
Anzaldua describes the differences in her worlds and how she feels as the interface between these worlds. Interface is defined, “as surface regarded as the common boundary of two bodies, spaces, or phases” (dictionary.com). There is an emphasis on the concept of common boundary; the interface shares both sides of one entity. It is a component of both, and I believe that Anzaldua not only lives in an interface, but I think she is an interface between two cultures. I am also an interface between my childhood and the adult world I am entering. Yet, there is a point which the interface must move past encompassing both worlds as a boundary and in essence become a new world.