A New Feminist Consciousness in Conceição Evaristo and Gloria Anzaldúa

Abstract

This essay analyzes the Mestizo consciousness in Borderlands: The New Mestiza, by Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldúa, together with the short story “Olhos d’Agua” by the Afro-Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo. In both works, there is an attempt to return to the indigenous tradition as a way of opposing Western male domination. Both writers, belonging to historically marginalized social groups and finding themselves in the middle of two cultures, take elements from precolonial cultures in their texts to propose a decolonized new way of understanding the world.