One identity is never enough. People evolve and grow everyday, and different parts of who they are affect how they view the world. On that same note, Gloria Anzaldua described herself a Chicana, Tejana, lesbian, dyke, feminist, writer, poet, and cultural theorist. Her theories helped push the Chicana, feminist, and queer movements forward.

Her first book called Borderlands/La Frontera discussed so many parts of who she is: Mexican-Indian, a woman, and a lesbian. The book was considered to be groundbreaking in cultural, feminist, and queer theories.

When Anzaldua committed herself to a life of writing to raise awareness, she found out that there weren’t many writings about women of color. So she used language to her advantage and found a way to include Latinxs by inserting the use of Spanish in her books.

She not only continued to educate herself by seeking answers to cultural and social questions that nobody seemed to ask, she also wanted to answer them by educating others through her writings and teachings. It was important to her to pass along these messages because in her words, “What we say and what we do ultimately comes back to us so let us own our responsibility, place it in our hands, and carry it with dignity and strength.”

While she was working on her doctoral dissertation, she was going through major health issues and died in 2004 of diabetic complications. But it wasn’t all for naught. UC Santa Cruz gave her a posthumous PhD and in her life, she was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Award, the Lambda Lesbian Small Press Book Award, and was on the Journal’s list of best books.