How to Translate a “Wild Tongue”: A New Perspective on Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Abstract

Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) by Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa, is a paradigmatic text when it comes to the representation of “mestiza” identities expressed through several tongues. The particular use of language in this book poses an interesting challenge in terms of translation. This article addresses the coexistence of languages for Spanish readers in three translations of the second chapter of Borderlands, entitled “Movimientos de rebeldía y las culturas que traicionan”. I focus on a comparative textual analysis of a collective translation of the chapter by Maria Serrano Gimenez, Rocio Macho Ronco, Hugo Romero Fernández Sancho and Álvaro Salcedo Rufo (2004), and the translations by Norma Elia Cantú (2015) and Carmen Valle (2016). The different approaches to the translation of multilingualism in these versions of Anzaldúa’s text are examined.