The main idea of Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera, and Arturo Schomburg's "The Negro Digs Up His Past", is the same – to ensure colored people that they are not worse than the whites and that they should be proud of their ancestors. Both authors wanted to say that the black people and Mexican-Americans should know their history and get empowered by it. Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa told the story of people who lived in a specific geographical area – on the border of the United States and Mexico. There local people were pressured by the Americans and treated by them as if they were inferior. Arturo Alfonso Schomburg was insulted by the treatment of the whites to the black-skinned people. He wanted to say in his essay that history can unite black people from any African diaspora. Both writers used history as the method to wipe out racism and give hope for a positive future.
Gloria Anzaldúa wrote a story “Borderlands/La Frontera” in 1987, when the issue of racism was urgent. She told the story of people who inhabited the borderland between Mexico and the U.S.A. There people of various races lived on one territory. That was the place of contradictions where anger, hatred and exploitations were common things (Gloria Anzaldúa). The local people Chicanos spoke the mixture of various languages and the language they used was considered bastard and was not approved by society. According to Anzaldúa, the inhabitants of the borderland were considered transgressors and aliens, except for white people. The author recalls the history of local people and ensures them that they have ancient roots and must be proud of their ancestors. She tells that the oldest evidence of human kind that was ever found in the U.S.A. were the Chicanos’ ancestors who lived in Texas 35000 B.C. The culture of those people was the parent culture of the Aztecs (Gloria Anzaldúa). At the time Hernan Cortez conquered the Mexican land, more than 25 million people inhabited that place, but by 1650, just 1.5 million Indians remained alive. That was the first time local people suffered from the whites. In 1836, when Texas became a republic, the locals lost their land and became foreigners. The whites locked the locals into the fiction of their superiority and gained total political power (Gloria Anzaldúa). Local people were jerked out by the roots and separated from their history and their identity. Gloria Anzaldúa told the history in order to inspire the borderland inhabitants and persuade them that they are not worse than the whites.
Arturo Schomburg wrote his essay “Negro Digs Up His Past” in 1925. This article was published in the Survey Graphic – a popular magazine in the beginning of the 20th century (“The Negro Digs Up His Past”- Commentary). In this work he aroused the problem of history of the blacks. The thing was that there was no history of the blacks at all, though it was evident that there were a lot of prominent people with African roots who played a significant role in history. The aim of this essay also was to make the colored people believe that they are equal to the whites, be proud of themselves and do not feel shame for the color of their skin. History collected the individual achievements of dark-skinned people and treasured them. The Negroes were people without history as they were even without culture (Arthur Schomburg). But time changes and nowadays we learn that African culture as well as African history is great enough to be proud of it. History gives black people self-respect and pride. The treatment of white people to the blacks was awful and that was documented in various papers, so the prowess has been too weighty to be considered exceptional (Arthur Schomburg). Schomburg is sure that ‘race issues is the plague on both historical houses’.
Gloria Anzaldúa writes about the race problems and illustrates it by the life of the Mexicans. She is more specific while describing the history of the colored people than Arturo Schomburg, who describes the same issue but illustrates it by the Africans. She makes the reader live through all mishaps that happen to the Chicanos while Schomburg just enlists prominent African people. Anzaldúa enlists numerous facts that prove that the life of the ‘boarder’ people is unbearable. In addition, she writes a lot about the history of local people. Schomburg is disappointed with the fact that the Negroes do not have any history, but he himself also does not describe the history of Africans, instead he offers the readers to turn to the historical works that were collected by special organizations, like American Negro Academy and the Negro Society for Historical Research. He makes a conclusion that people with African roots played a vital role in American history and gave a lot of benefits and glory to this country. Both authors persuade the readers that history of these people is outstanding and that makes us admire them. The issue of race is very urgent in America, so it must be discussed. The thing is that the whites treated to the colored people as if they are worse than they are, and they even persuaded the racial minorities that it is true. Learning the history of the Mexicans and Africans will help people understand that they are not less great than the whites. So, the issue of race plays the same role in both texts, though geography, generally, does not matter much.
Though Anzaldúa and Schomburg wrote works that are not similar in a literary sense, but they both tried to tell about one and the same thing – learning history of racial minorities is a necessity. White people had a leading role in society, they put the colored people down and made them believe that they were not as highly developed as the whites. But, history proves that both the Mexicans and Africans have enough reasons to be proud of being colored.
Works cited
Anzaldúa, Gloria. “Borderlands/La Frontera” (4th edition). 2012, San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. Print.
Schomburg, Arthur A. “The Negro Digs Up His Past”. wooster.edu. 2012. Web. Accessed 30 March 2016 at http://hisblkamerica2012.voices.wooster.edu/files/2012/01/Arthur-Schomburg-The-Negro-Digs-Up-His-Past.pdf
‘“The Negro Digs Up His Past”- Commentary’. politeonsociety.com. 2012. Web. Accessed 30 March 2016 at http://www.politeonsociety.com/2012/09/16/the-negro-digs-up-his-past-commentary/
