Intro: What are the problems of a border consciousness and how do we overcome them?

1. Mestiza Dilemma

1. Culture Clash

1. Dominant and Subordinate cultures send messages about the world –and they are conflicting (c.f. Ambition)
2. Membership in multiple cultures causes internal strife.

1. The Dilemma

1. Who to Listen to? The messages are all "me" and also "not me"
2. Defiance (1^st Step): counter-stance to attacking aspects of culture –a reaction to different Ways
3. Q: Leading a reactive life is not having a Way of Life, but what is a Mestiza Way?
4. The Mestiza Way (2^nd Step): many possibilities open once we ACT –in ourselves and with others.

1. Tolerance and Ambiguity: prerequisites to the Mestiza Way

1. Duality: us/them, male/female, acceptable/not-acceptable are all physically, psychologically, and emotionally manifested in habits –internal patterns of thought, feeling, and overt external behavior.
2. Mestiza Consciousness

1. Convergent vs. Divergent Thinking: "zero in and exclude" vs. moving away from accepted paradigms in order to expand and include multiple possibilities
2. Synthesis: creation of new consciousness, embracing and breaking down contradictions of Duality, to create from ambiguity
3. Change: focus acts on the way we see reality and ourselves and our corresponding behavior

1. The Mestiza Way (personal/political growth)

1. Inventory: history and culture are scrutinized –primary focus is to discern oppressive traditions laced in with cultural practices
2. The Nahual: Communicating, Seeing, and Embracing

1. Communicating: speak out about the oppression
2. Seeing: view others & the Others with a new perspective –from the crossroads, i.e. one’s own growing sense of mestizaje
3. Embracing: willing to be vulnerable (with oneself and others), i.e. to be confused, inept, unfamiliar, unsafe/insecure –to be a new thing in the world, to be a beginner.

1. Resistance to Male Power

1. No Acceptance: allegiance to Culture or content of cultural ways serves as no justification for oppressive traditions
2. No Tolerance: mestiza’s will not let such practices continue to go unchallenged
3. Demands Made of Men

1. Admit to Violence: physical, psychological, and emotional
2. Commit to Change: take active measures to end traditions of violence and foster tenderness.