Paola Longo 22/05/2008 – 2nd draft

Comparison between Blues People, Borderlands and The Story of English

• “Black on White”, The Story of English, PBS video series, 1988.

• Anzaldúa, G., Borderlines – La Frontera.
• Chapter 2 – “The whisper wakes, the shudder plays”: “race”, nation and ethic
absolutism.
• Gilroy, P. There ain’t no Black in the Union Jack. The Cultural Politics of Race
and Nation, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1987.
• Jones, L, Blues People, The Negro Experience in White America and The Music
That Developed From It, New York, Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1963.
• Smith D. Anthony. Nations and Nationalism. Journal of the Association for the
Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism. 1996.

When we think of the American culture, we might assume that we have a very clear idea

of what it is and what it is not. However, Anzaldúa, Jones and the documentary produced

by PBS could easily challenge this notion: Boundaries are not as clear as they may seem

and American culture is more diverse than it might agree to accept.

In order to understand the processed through which some communities are seen as

belonging to a Nation and some other are not, we need to go into the very concept of

Nation. For Anthony D. Smith (1996: 359), a Nation is a community which shares some

common practices, traditions, history and values. The more homogeneous the

community is, the stronger the feeling of unity and Nationalism is. By analyzing national

unity, we can see how individuals or small groups which do not share the values, cultural

aspects, traditions or even language of the bigger, stronger community are excluded and

discriminated: they are seen as the others.

In this same line of thoughts, could we claim that American culture finds its cultural

origin, to some extent, in Africa? According to LeRoi Jones and the PBS documentary, it
Paola Longo 22/05/2008 – 2nd draft

certainly does. In Blues People, LeRoi Jones describes the African origins of blues and

how it later on developed into Jazz, a well-known rhythm which represents America

throughout the world. However, little is known that this rhythm was born in Africa and

was developed later in America by the slaves. During slavery, back people would use

their music to express their sorrows and sadness regarding their situation as slaves. There

was no other way in which they could express what they felt. Later on, once slavery was

abolished, Jazz began to develop using the same free structures and improvisation used

by Blues and African chants. However, white men started to sing Jazz and, little by little,

the strong attachments that Jazz had to its African roots was forgotten. The PBS

documentary shows how some other aspects of the American culture, like the language,

have been influenced by the African culture: words such as: crib, chill out and fresh, once

only used by the members of the black community, have been appropriated by the white

men. Their black origin of these expressions commonly used nowadays is, however, not

known by most people.

In the case of Borderline, Anzaldúa tries to show the incertitude she feels because she

does not seem to be accepted by either the American or the Mexican community.

However, she makes it clear that she does consider herself to be part of both cultures. To

show this sense of belonging, she writes her autobiographical text in Spanish and English

and she also adds aspects of the Chicano culture, the culture of the borderline which,

according to Anzaldúa, is neither American nor Mexican. Nation, in this text, is

compared to the notion of Family: she does not belong to the American culture more than

she belongs to the Mexican one: she shares aspects of both. Yet, having incorporated
Paola Longo 22/05/2008 – 2nd draft

elements of both cultures, she is constantly rejected because she does not comply with

what is expected by her: Americans want her to be American and Mexicans want her to

be solely Mexican, but what happens with those belonging to the Chicano community?

They are rejected, as is the author, for being a ‘mixture’, misfits.

The situation described by Anzaldúa was also experienced by the black men and women

in America after slavery was abolished, as described by LeRoi Jones, when they became

Americans but still carried an African cultural background. These people were indeed

seen as misfits, not real Americans: the idea of Nation was certainly being challenged.

This ‘threat’ also appeared when Anzaldúa tried to speak Spanish in class: she was

reprimanded and all traces of her Mexican origins had to be erased for her to be part of

the American culture, even her language.

At this point, we could see how the three texts converge: Nations are made of diversity

and individuals reflect that diversity even when this diversity is denied and oppressed.

There is an intrinsic need to find homogeneity in the idea of Nation, so some cultural

aspects are excluded and so are the people who share them. Anzaldúa was discriminated

for not being fully Mexican, for not being fully American and for not being a ‘good’

woman: she was condemned to be in the Borderline. The black community experienced

the same exclusion, but, one of the aspects of their culture, the music, was taken by the

white community and was Americanized. Its African origin, in time, was, however,

subdued and forgotten. In this way, we see how American has, throughout its history,

chosen some aspects of its culture and erased others in order to build itself as a Nation.