Rooted in Gloria Anzaldúa's experience as a Chicana, a lesbian, an activist, and a writer, the groundbreaking essays and poems in this volume profoundly challenge ideas about identity. Borderlands/La Frontera remaps our understanding of what a "border" is, presenting it not as a simple divide between here and there, us and them, but as a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us. 

We are excited to have Cali Mellin, a recent graduate of the St. Thomas English MA program, leading this month's discussion. Cali has extensively investigated conceptions of the feminine, particularly through explorations of the female voice and agency. In her Master's Essay, she applied insights from Borderlands to better understand and discuss conceptions of victimhood and agency as each applies to the feminicidio victims in Ciudad Juárez.