The archives

Last week, I visited the Benson Library at the University of Texas at Austin to spend time with the Gloria Anzaldúa Collection. This vast set of archives houses an incredible array of Anzaldúa’s biographical documents, personal notes, original manuscripts, and correspondence. Folder after folder was a wonder to behold.

Gloria Anzaldúa has been an inspiration to me ever since I first encountered her work during my time living in the Rio Grande Valley. As I continue my own journey of identity exploration into deepening consciousness, I often return to her words and find them to be a tremendous comfort.

Spending time with her archives made me feel as if I were sitting down to tea with her, making space for her to share the stories that never made it into her published texts. Handwritten notes from her college coursework titled “How to write a novel” along with other scribbled quotes from authors she, herself, admired felt like curated messages passed down to me from instructors across the ages.

In these pages, I witnessed some of Anzaldúa’s vulnerable moments of self doubt and deep inquiry. I held book covers that she’d converted into meditation and prayer tools outlining her wishes, hopes, and goals for the season ahead. I held some of her manuscripts with notes scribbled into the margins, sections scratched out, and type-written paragraphs, cut, pasted, and re-ordered to fit an evolving vision.

In these archives, I saw an author engaged in a journey of becoming. How grateful I am to Anzaldúa for preserving her papers and allowing them to be archived as sources of inspiration for fellow travelers.

I left the library more committed to sharing the stories and ideas that live within me and to heed her handwritten words:

“Troubling events always loom in the horizon
Don’t react, don’t alter your path, remain open
When you feel isolated and vulnerable, retain your composure and patience
When the earth begins to tremble, it brings out the worst and the best
Take quick action
Under pressure–that’s where opportunities to make great gains are presented.”