Google Doodle Celebrates Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s Birthday. Here’s What to Know About Her

Tuesday’s Google Doodle celebrates the 75th birthday of American scholar Gloria E. Anzaldúa.

Anzaldúa spent her life investigating and writing about society, feminism, borders and identity, inspired by a childhood on the Mexico-Texas border. She died in 2004 at age 61.

Born on September 26 in 1942 in the Rio Grande Valley, Anzaldúa wrote about mixed identity in books such as Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza and Light in the Dark: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality.

She graduated from Pan American University in 1969 and went on to teach migrant students before moving to California in 1977. She was awarded a posthumous Ph.D. in literature by the University of California Santa Cruz.

The doodle celebrates her mixed identity, power as a woman, and ability to live across geographical and social divides.