Welcome to The Mestiza!
I’m Clare Ashcraft, and welcome to the launch of my Substack “The Mestiza”.
Who Am I?
I am nobody interesting. I am 20, and I will graduate from my small private college in Ohio in less than six months, whence I will attempt to be a writer. I do have a “real job,” working in media bias research and bridging the political divide, trying to address the immense political polarization in America.
Though I am by nature a mediator and bridge-builder, I try to hold strong opinions loosely, meaning I am not moderate or a “squishy centrist,” where centrism is not the answer. On some issues, I can be fiercely partisan, but I try to continue to be open to changing my mind, which is what I mean by holding my opinions loosely. Several people have told me that my opinions are interesting and I should write them publicly, but they simultaneously ask “don’t I want to write about more than politics?” I do, and I am.
I have never cared what someone’s policy take is on immigration or energy policy; frankly, I am not educated enough on most of those issues to care. I am a student of writing, philosophy, and psychology. My interest in politics is only insofar as it relates to culture, identity, and how we treat one another. So, on this Substack I will write about culture and politics, but it’s never for the sake of politics, it’s to learn how we interact with one another.
Ultimately, I am no more interesting than anyone else. We are all people stumbling in the dark through life, trying to mask the fact that none of us really have answers. I hope to be able to give words to the experiences of some and to properly articulate issues. As a writer, I see my job as bearing witness and providing clarity.
What is “The Mestiza”?
Let me give you some backstory about the name. A mestiza is someone of mixed ancestry, usually white European and non-European Indigenous—someone with the blood of oppressor and oppressed. Specifically, Mestiza is a term from Latin America used by the philosopher and poet Gloria E. Anzaldua.
In her book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), Anzaldua lays out her theory of Mestiza Consciousness. Anzaldua is Chicana and identifies as a feminist and queer woman. Exploring the intersection of these different identities is at the center of Borderlands/La Frontera. She describes herself as a crossroads and a bridge, uniquely suited to communicate across various group identities. Mestiza Consciousness is the ability to hold all of her identities in tension with one another. She describes that sometimes her racial group culture is patriarchal, and sometimes the queer community is racist, but both are hers, and living within that reality can actually be an asset and build tolerance for contradictions. Mestiza Consciousness transcends duality and black-and-white thinking. It acknowledges that there is no Us vs. Them battle because, with so many facets of our own identities, no one is neatly squared in the “Us” or “Them” box.
Anzaldua expanded “mestiza” from a racial concept to a broader mindset that applies across identity groups. I recommend reading Anzaldua directly because it is quite difficult to boil down to a few paragraphs, but her ideas have had an immense impact on me.
I pride myself on being nuanced and seeing multiple sides of an issue, though I’m not always successful, and I don’t neatly fit into binaries. I don’t consider myself on the political left or right; I would call myself a classical liberal who cares about free speech culture, reason, and meritocracy. I’m bisexual and have never fit into the straight stereotype of what a woman should be (I dress somewhat masculine and I have never wanted children), yet I don’t feel at home in the LGBTQ+ community, which, in my opinion, has become too intertwined with leftist politics, and I reject that children should be allowed to medically transition except in very specific cases (though I don’t think the government should ban it). I am an atheist, but I sporadically wish I was convinced by Christianity. I try to live ethically and be globally engaged—I am vegan, I thrift the majority of my clothes to avoid sweatshops, and I frequently educate myself on human rights abroad—yet I reject the way the American left has projected a western identity politics onto global issues like Israel and Palestine. In these ways, I am a mestiza. (If you disagree with me on any of the above issues, I hope you’ll stay and hear me out—I would love to discuss where we disagree and practice holding my strongest opinions loosely.)
The theory of Mestiza Consciousness clearly comes from a leftist perspective, and I was at first worried about invoking it as the name for my Substack, wondering if Anzaldua would have approved of my application of her theory when my conclusions do not and will not always agree with her. However, I ultimately believe that the mestiza framework of holding our multiple identities in tension with one another is useful for injecting nuance into any topic and it was immensely transformative for me. So, I will continue to invoke her ideas where they are useful from a place of admiration and occasionally respectful disagreement with what she would have said. Ideas were meant to be used, changed, and built upon.
What You Can Expect.
I’ll be periodically posting personal essays and commentary style essays on “The Mestiza,” covering all things culture, politics, academia (primarily philosophy and psychology), and life. I hope you’ll find some value in my experiences, ideas, and perspectives.
For at least the next six months, all of my posts will be free and publicly accessible, though you can pay for a subscription to my Substack if you wish to support me financially. After the six-month period, I will evaluate if I want to begin paywalling some of my content, so get it while you can!
- Clare Ashcraft