This is an old article I had kept to think about subjectivity in Anzaldúa and also Vallejo. It’s outmoded now, but some of the points are still valid, on the precariousness of identity and subject positions. Having no secure position to which to return distinguishes “passing” from “passing as,” she says. “Passing” is like Morrison’s “becoming” — entering what one is estranged from, reconsidering the self one has long thought one’s own. We want to NOT resurrect the humanist subject. If we do, we all have to be either confessional – “authentic”, or fraudulent. Instead, we should keep the provisional nature of every “I” firmly in mind … because the humanist subject is NOT the solution to the cultural problematic that places us all in the position of having to pass.
There is something suggestive here, too, about Cecilia Valdés: you cannot pass as a mother.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 