New Cross, London, SE 14, England
London, the homeland of the colonized and the colonizer. Here I met Gloria’s words, 21 years after her passing. At the beginning of her famed book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she wrote, “To you whom I never chanced to meet but who inhabit borderlands similar to mine.”¹⁴ The word nepantla drift away from her Texas-U.S./Mexican border has now find a place between China and Burma, weaving into our shared old tales——It is said that the Gautama Buddha was once a prince, born in a family of luxurious. But rather than continuing his life of kingship, the prince turned to be homeless. After years of wandering and self-mortification, the ascetic realized such practice is unworthy. So, he stopped under a bodhi tree, where he realized a middle way that avoids extremes and leads to calm and insight. I believe that the Buddha was once residing in nepantla, and this prince as well homeless was also a nepantlera.
“Affliction is identical to enlightenment.”¹⁵ The nepantla is at the same time magga. “The future…depends on the straddling of two or more cultures. By creating a new mythos——that is, a change in the way we perceive reality, the way we see ourselves, and the ways we behave.”¹⁶ Me realizing the borderland is me being disintegrated. Only then revolution is allowed to happen, not by creating blood and volution of abysses, but to revolve around abysses, and to build bridge where none exist——that is residing in nepantla.
14. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 1.
15. Vimalakirtinirdesa Sutra, The Pennsylvania State University.
16. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 102.