The Sons of La Malinche

"The Mexican venerates a bleeding and humiliated Christ, a Christ who has been beaten by the soldiers and condemned by the judges, because he sees in him a transfigured image of his own identity. And this brings to mind Cuauhtemoc, the young Aztec emperor who was dethroned, tortured and murdered by Cortes."

Reading this quote from Octavio Paz was like turning on a light and finally being able to see clearly. I served a LDS mission in northern Mexico. My wife is from Mexico City. I am no expert on Mexican culture but I do know the Mexican culture and have spent significant time within it. My wife and I have had numerous conversations talking about this very subject. The Mexican people are some of the greatest people that you will ever meet. They are caring, giving and hard working among many other qualities. But for some reason the Mexican society as a whole has not progressed very much throughout time. Mexico is one of the richest countries in terms of natural resources, yet the majority of the people are still poor. Even after so many conversations, my wife and I couldn't quite explain why this was. Sometimes we could feel it but not put words to it. In this chapter Paz described perfectly what my wife and I had disputed and felt but never been able to put into words.

Mexico has become a mainly dependent nation. What I mean by that is that a vast majority of the jobs in Mexico are in factories from other countries. The majority of gold, silver and copper mines are owned by foreigners. Mexico has become a "servant" nation like Paz says. The acceptance of this comes from innately from their cultural beliefs. Like Paz stated, they love the idea that they are a broken, punished and bleeding people. They do not celebrate the resurrected Christ because that is not what they see in themselves. This feeling of judgement and humiliation, according to Paz, comes from the beginning of the Mexican race and the fact that they are "hijos de la malinche."

I couldn't help but to think of this while reading the chapter (pg. 81). Talk about Identity Crisis!!!

Reading blog #1 8/30/12

"One very horrible and abominable custom they have which should be certainly punished..." (Hernan Cortes, Victors and Vanquished, 83)

This quote from one of Hernan Cortes's letters stood out to me. For several pages Hernan Cortes talks about why it is important that they are there to save the souls of the Mexica Indians and to bring them the Christian religion. In fact, he focuses more on the fact that they need to be introduced to the Catholic Church than they fact that he had just discovered an incredible land, plentiful with fruit and gold; that made me laugh. If you were to read Hernan’s letter and know nothing else about the conquest it would seem that the Spaniards conquered the Indians for religious purposes…and of course to save the Indians souls.

Reading Bernal Diaz’s letter, which I enjoyed the most of the three letters, gives a little bit of another perspective. I loved the description of almost every detail of what happened between the Indians and the Spaniards. The letter also shows the true interest that the Spaniards had in the Americas: gold. The presents that were given so freely to the Spaniards were absolutely incredible. The letter almost made me sad because it seemed like it was like stealing candy from a baby. While reading Diaz’s letter I tried to think what the Spaniards must have been thinking. They must have thought that the conquest of the Americas was going to be incredibly easier than they had prepared or thought. It also seems by Diaz’s writing compared to the other two letters that he had a soft spot for the Indians in his heart.