Episode 53: Borderlands with Trina Reynolds-Tyler

The Lit Review Podcast

​This was a hard book to talk about, but we’re so glad that we did. The late Gloria Anzaldúa’s book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza is beloved to many and considered a fundamental text in Chicana and Latinx studies. With gorgeous prose, she richly captures the unique experiences of those who inhabit the borderlands; of place, gender, class, and identity. Anzaldúa's book offers a poetic description of what it’s like to be caught between worlds. At the same time, this work is rightly called-out for those that it erases: Black, Indigenous, and trans people —all also existing and resisting in the borderlands. Monica and Page talk with Trina Reynolds-Tyler of the Invisible Institute about the ongoing influence this book has had on her as a Black woman living on the borderlands of Chicago’s south side.