Date of Award
5-17-2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
Martha Wiseman
Second Advisor
Margaret Greaves
Abstract
In the year 1987, two of the most important American writers of the twentieth century, Toni Morrison and Gloria Anzaldúa, published what many consider to be their respective magnum opuses: Morrison’s Beloved and Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. In these groundbreaking texts, Morrison and Anzaldúa boldly confront the complex legacies of American imperialism and slavery, examining the effect colonization has had on their respective communities, ancestors, and selves. In this essay, I argue that literature emerging from marginalized communities within the United States can and should be considered among global postcolonial texts; Morrison and Anzaldúa illustrate the ways in which internalized colonialism harms and perpetuates colonization within their communities. Ultimately, though, they suggest that decolonization is possible through a rejection of these racist, colonialist projections.
Recommended Citation
Keir, Grace, ""You Your Best Thing”: The Anti-Colonial Power of the Mind in Black and Chicanx American Literature" (2020). English Honors Theses. 48.
https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/eng_stu_schol/48
Included in
African American Studies Commons, Chicana/o Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons