Historically speaking, Borderlands / La Frontera is firmly embedded within the ideologies that came out of the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 70s. This social and political movement was closely aligned with the Black Power movement, and it worked to encourage and define an explicitly Chicano identity while also combatting the political and structural racism faced by Chicano individuals. The Chicano movement itself had roots in earlier cultural movements by people of Mexican descent, dating back to the 1940s and 50s. Figures such as Cesar Chavez, who Anzaldúa mentions as a pioneer of Chicano unification, rose to prominence and began organizing labor unions and resistance movements in order to promote greater equality and justice. However, the movement began to lose traction in the late 1970s due to factors such as police brutality and a lack of inclusivity when it came to women and queer people. Anzaldúa, who published Borderlands / La Frontera in 1987, directly responds to some of the criticisms the original movement drew while continuing to engage with notions of increased civil rights and a re-embracing of Chicano indigineity. Her emphasis on the need to include women and queer individuals in Chicano activism is particularly salient to her identity as a queer, female, Chicana writer and activist.

However, for as much as Anzaldúa emphasizes the need for cultural unity and understanding, there is also a focus on the development of the individual. The author herself left home in order to pursue an education, and she speaks frequently on the importance of self-reflection and personal autonomy. The poem “Cihuatlyotl, Woman Alone” serves as a sort of manifesto regarding the importance of personal identity that is shaped, but not completely determined by, cultural identity. Indeed, Anzaldúa also warns against relying overly much on the familiar precepts of a home culture. Although home is familiar and comfortable, it can also inspire complacency and lead to the perpetuation of toxic and harmful ideologies. In order to enact transformative change, a balance is needed: one must accept their place within a collective culture but also be autonomous enough to recognize and endeavor to remedy the faults within that structure.

The emphasis on Coatlicue and Anzaldúa’s theory of the Coatlicue state seem to be drawn from this belief in the importance of individual self-discovery and advancement. Coatlicue was once a complete image of womanhood, in possession of both light and dark aspects. However, her once-complete nature was stripped and separated by the male-dominated Aztec culture, and she was instead divided into individual pieces, with Tonantsi—and subsequently, the Virgin of Guadalupe—inheriting her protective maternal qualities, while Tlalozeotl and other, darker goddesses inherited her sexuality and rage. Symbolically, this splitting of Coatlicue represents the splitting of the female identity, which has also been carved into different aspects: virgin maiden, devoted mother, and filthy “whore.” In order to reclaim a complete sense of womanhood, and therefore a complete sense of self, one must first come face to face with their inner Coatlicue and face the parts of oneself that the culture has attempted to remove, replace, or oppress.

On a structural level, Borderlands / La Frontera is filled with mixed mediums and languages. Though it is written primarily in English, there is also a large amount of Spanish, some of which is translated, and other portions of which are not. This in many ways forces monolingual English readers to undergo the same experience that many Chicano youth must undergo: exposed to snippets of a language that they are unfamiliar with, they must learn to adapt to a reading experience that is not explicitly oriented toward them.