Towards the building of a hybrid identity : an analysis of Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera and Jhumpa Lahiri's Mrs. Sen’s

Abstract

Cultures are characterized by diversity, and such diversity is manifested in those spaces of encounter and conflict where there is an overlap of identities which try to coexist. In the case of immigrants, once they are settled, they need to adapt to the new world. They struggle to achieve a certain adjustment without losing their own traditions, those that make up their culture and therefore, their identity. The categories of identity and culture have been the centre of attention and the object of study in several disciplines, and ever since the introduction of postcolonial theory, they have been consistently explored, deconstructed and reassembled. Defining postcolonialism is a difficult enterprise, since a range of conflicting viewpoints preclude any simple conceptualization. Nonetheless, it is a key concept in order to understand contemporary society and its practices. Scholars that study and are exponents of postcolonial theory are Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, and Homi Bhabha, or as Young (1995) calls them, “the Holy Trinity of Postcolonial Theory” (as cited in Mellino, 2005, 36). Their studies serve as a landmark in the study of this theory; therefore, their ideas will contribute to dispel part of the complexity.