Very early on in the text, Anzaldúa reveals a sense of self-deprecation that she feels she inherited from the culture in which she was socialized. She identifies a form of doubled oppression, wherein individuals already oppressed by a larger Other, i.e. American society, further oppress factions of their own, specifically women and homosexuals. Anzaldúa, by her own self-admission, is both. Anzaldúa also mentions the anti-native stigma perpetuated by her own mother. The poem above captures this dynamic of self-reinforcing hate by pointing out that social marginalization is an active process performed by both the oppressor and the oppressed.