Teaching la Conciencia de la Mestiza in the Midst of White Privilege

Abstract

Those of us teaching cultural studies, women’s studies, and other courses exploring issues of oppression and second-class citizenship status are often mired in perplexity: How can we reach students of privilege about the manifest and latent privileges they hold? In a year when I attained an academic triple crown of sorts—tenure and promotion, the university’s award for distinguished teaching, and co-directorship of the University Honors Program—the odds are seemingly with me as I attempt to help my students access a text which is, for them, inseparably dense, challenging, and potentially transformative. However, my credentials are mere fodder when it comes to using Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera with uninitiated students for whom crossing a border means leaving the state of Pennsylvania for the first time in their eighteen or twenty years or actually speaking to a “real live” person of color.