Textual Palimpsests. Unfolding Becoming in Más antes en los ranchos

Abstract

This article’s subject is the chapter Más antes en los ranchos in Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderland/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Moving closely along with the lyrical speaker, this article first delivers a close analysis of the five texts of this chapter, focusing on the literary and poetic expression of the lives en los ranchos (the small villages). The reoccurring images of animals, manhood and womanhood are subsequently put into context with Deleuze & Guattari’s key concept of devenir (becoming), especially devenir-animal (becoming-animal). Finally, this close analysis shows how Más antes en los ranchos delivers a textual palimpsest in which different layers of past and present tense, but also key ideas of class, gender and race shine through.