Identity formation in Borderlands communities is one of this novel’s most overt and important themes, and it connects this text to several of Ana Castillo’s other novels and Chicana literature as a whole. The Chicano movement sought to address inequality and prejudice within mainstream American culture and counter harmful stereotypes that flattened and distorted Mexican American identity. In this novel, Castillo depicts the Borderlands identity as complex, shifting, and multifaceted. She argues that within Mexican American communities, there are many axes of identification and avenues for belonging. Regina identifies as Mexican, Indigenous, and American and locates her sense of self within that space of hybridity. Gabo taps into the region’s religious history and bases his burgeoning identity on his Catholic faith. Rafa eschews Americanism and shies away from anything that might identify him as a “gringo.” Miguel proudly adopts the political identity of the Chicano. Through depicting these four different ways of identifying as Mexican American, Castillo argues that America’s Mexican American community is not a monolith.

Although Regina does not identify with all the politics of Chicanismo, she is aware of her region’s multiculturalism. She thinks critically about the Borderlands’ fraught colonial history and understands that her own family tree contains both Hispanic and Indigenous branches.