I will examine how gender-based violence negatively impacts the mental health/overall well-being of Latinx women and how there is hope for healing through the strength of Latinx women. I will support this using the impact of domestic abuse on Cleófilas in “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros and “Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza” by Gloria Anzadua. I want to analyze how each woman responded to these events, how the violence affected her mental health, and what she did to move forward in her life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Borderlands by Gloria Anzadua shows that there is hope and resilience instilled in Latinx women. Anzaldua writes that in the borderlands you can coexist with all marginalized identities and become something new and powerful. For Latinx women, this can look like being bicultural, being queer, or being a survivor. Possessing all of these identities at once can make you susceptible to overlapping systems of oppression, but Anzaldua says we need to change the way we think about it. “A massive eradication of dualistic thinking in individual and collective consciousness is the beginning of a long struggle, but one which could, in our best hopes, bring us to the end of rape, of violence, of war.” Changing the way people think about how identities intersect while one exists could lead to an end to violence against women. Living in the borderlands can be a boring place to live. While there may be rejection, pain, and fear in expressing all of your identities, there is also freedom, resistance, and joy. Anzaldúa writes that you can never choose which parts you want to express and which you want to hide. They all exist at the same time and follow you wherever you go. There's power in that, and there's power in being a Latinx woman and a survivor. In "Woman Hollering Creek", Cleófilas comes to the United States to marry Juan Pedro. Juan Pedro abuses Cleófilas, but due to society's expectations, Cleófilas feels trapped. Survivors can have many different responses to violence and I will analyze Cleófilas' response. In the article "Literary Representations of Battered Women: Spectacular Domestic Punishment" Restuccia and Frances wrote about how Cleophila responds to violence with mutism. Cleófilas "sits silently beside [the men's] conversation," waiting, nodding in agreement, smiling politely, and laughing at appropriate moments—he is now the object of the narrator's narration, who has become, for the purpose, omniscient. The negative effect that Juan Pedro's abuse had on Clefilas' well-being is evident. Cleophilas felt as if her voice had been taken away from her and she felt unable to resist this violent man. Restuccia and Frances introduce a concept that applies to many survivors of domestic abuse called “the love phase.” “He seems to be aware, for example, of what Lenore Walker in The Battered Woman calls the 'love phase' (phase three), in which abusers affectionately seek forgiveness.” The “love phase” and mutism often go hand in hand. Cleofilas still cared for Juan Pedro, even though he was violent towards him. “After each beating, in silence, he 'stroked the dark curls of the man who was crying and would cry like a child, his tears of repentance and shame.' In society, even after a man hurts a woman, women are often expected to nurture and love her. This is very dangerous. Cleófilas felt he could not leave his situation because he fears i..