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Nahuatl and spanish in contact: language practices in mexico.

1. Introduction

2. language shift and maintenance, 3. indigenous language use, studies on nahuatl language use, 4. methodology, 4.1. research question, 4.2. participants, 4.3. instrument, 4.4. data analysis, 5.2. community, 5.3. emotions, 6. discussion, 7. conclusions, 8. implications for language planning, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Gomashie, G.A. Nahuatl and Spanish in Contact: Language Practices in Mexico. Languages 2021 , 6 , 135. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6030135

Gomashie GA. Nahuatl and Spanish in Contact: Language Practices in Mexico. Languages . 2021; 6(3):135. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6030135

Gomashie, Grace A. 2021. "Nahuatl and Spanish in Contact: Language Practices in Mexico" Languages 6, no. 3: 135. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6030135

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 “Dia de los Muertos Altar Scene.”

Gift of Janice and Glenn Hatfield. Available at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

The Day of the Dead (or, in Spanish, Día de los Muertos ) is a commemorative holiday observed annually on November 1 and 2, both in its native Mexico and among Mexican people around the world. On the Day of the Dead, celebrants honor their deceased loved ones by leaving offerings at home altars ( ofrendas ), writing playful poems ( calaveras literarias ), and wearing colorful costumes, often including the holiday’s signature skull masks ( calacas ). Ahead of this year’s festivities, learn about thirteen projects funded by the NEH Division of Research Programs that explore Mexican history, literature, and culture.

Published Books

Bueno, Christina. The Pursuit of Ruins: Archaeology, History, and the Making of Modern Mexico (University of New Mexico Press, 2016).

During Porfirio Díaz’s thirty-one years as president in the late nineteenth century, Mexico’s state-sponsored history came to feature indigeneity more prominently, as Díaz sought to symbolically bind modern Mexico to the “great civilizations” of pre-colonial times. Yet, as Christina Bueno catalogs in The Pursuit of Ruins , even as Díaz’s government went to great lengths to preserve archaeological evidence of Mexico’s Indigenous past, the process of reframing the nation’s history excluded and denigrated its modern Indigenous population. Learn more about Bueno’s work here .

Burkhart, Louise M. Staging Christ's Passion in Eighteenth-Century Nahua Mexico (University Press of Colorado, 2023).

While living under eighteenth-century Spanish colonial rule, the Nahuas, a Mexican Indigenous group, performed their own versions of Christian “Passion plays” in the Nahuatl language. In Staging Christ’s Passion , Louise Burkhart characterizes the Nahuas’ dramaturgical modifications, which included depicting Jesus as a Nahua man, as an expression of Indigenous resistance to Spanish occupation. Learn more about Burkhart’s work here . Burkhart was also part of a team at SUNY Albany that was awarded an NEH grant to prepare digital translations of ten Nahuatl-language Passion plays.

Chowning, Margaret. Catholic Women and Mexican Politics, 1750-1940 (Princeton University Press, 2023).

Throughout Mexico’s history of sustained anti-clericalism, women have been the key to the Catholic Church’s resilience, as Margaret Chowning argues in Catholic Women and Mexican Politics . For nearly 200 years, women ensured that Catholicism remained a central element of Mexican civil society by forming lay associations, which bolstered the church’s political influence. Consequently, Chowning demonstrates that women have long been in the vanguard of Mexican conservative politics. Learn more about Chowning’s work here .

Graziano, Frank. Miraculous Images and Votive Offerings in Mexico (Oxford University Press, 2015).

Exploring the role of artwork in contemporary Mexico, Frank Graziano’s Miraculous Images and Votive Offerings analyzes numerous Mexican statues and paintings that are believed to have “miraculous” capabilities. Along with analyses of the artworks themselves, the book discusses votive offerings, which are left at shrines dedicated to individual artworks as thanks for performing miracles. Thus, Graziano’s project not only offers insight into Mexican artwork and art history; it also provides insight into a distinctive dimension of the nation’s spiritual culture. Learn more about Graziano’s work here .

Rashkin, Elissa J. The Stridentist Movement in Mexico: The Avant-Garde and Cultural Change in the 1920s (Lexington Books, 2009).

In the turbulent decade after the Mexican Revolution, the Stridentist Movement gained traction in multiple Central Mexican cities before, eventually, finding the most success in Xalapa, Veracruz. The Stridentists championed modernity and technological innovation by publishing books and manifestos, staging theatrical performances, and producing artwork and literature. In The Stridentist Movement in Mexico , Elissa Rashkin illustrates that while the Stridentist Movement disbanded by 1928, its message reverberated throughout the Americas and influenced other cultural movements well after the 1920s. Learn more about Rashkin’s work here .

Rodríguez-Alegría, Enrique. How to Make a New Spain: The Material Worlds of Colonial Mexico City (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Stevens, Donald Fithian. Mexico in the Time of Cholera (University of New Mexico Press, 2019).

Although its title alludes to public health, Mexico in the Time of Cholera offers an expansive history of daily life in Mexico's early years of independence. Using the second cholera pandemic as his book’s axis, Donald Stevens explores the everyday experiences of Mexican citizens as their nation confronted contagion, emerged from colonial rule, transitioned into the modern era, and disestablished the Catholic Church. Stevens is particularly interested in Catholicism in mid nineteenth-century Mexico, and the book cites parish archives to probe the role of religion in Mexico at a time of national crisis. Learn more about Stevens’s work here .

Townsend, Camilla. Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (Oxford University Press, 2019).

In Fifth Sun , Camilla Townsend recounts the Spanish conquest of Mexico solely from the perspective of the Aztec people. To accomplish this feat, Townsend uses infrequently referenced Nahuatl-language sources, in which the Aztecs not only cataloged their experience of Spanish colonization, but also their history prior to European incursion. By relying exclusively on these self-narratives, Townsend provides a revised account of Mexico’s early history. Learn more about Townsend’s work here . Additionally, Fifth Sun received the Cundill History Prize, awarded annually by McGill University to the best book of history, in 2020. As part of this award, Townsend gave the 2021 Cundill Lecture, which can be viewed here .

Wright, Amy E. Serial Mexico: Storytelling Across Media, from Nationhood to Now (Vanderbilt University Press, 2023).

Originating in oral tradition, serial narratives are fixtures in Mexican popular culture. Amy Wright, in Serial Mexico , explains how these time-honored stories document both change and continuity in Mexican culture. While serial narratives’ characters and story arcs may remain relatively fixed, their transmutation in the digital age—into forms ranging from comics to telenovelas—reflects evolving social and political beliefs in Mexico. Learn more about Wright’s work here .

Upcoming Books

“Revolutionary Forms: U.S. Literary Modernism and the Mexican Vogue, 1910-1940” by Geneva M. Gano

Analyzing artwork and writing produced by Mexican and U.S. artists in the early twentieth century, Geneva Gano’s upcoming book will highlight the Mexican Revolution’s influence on literary modernism in the United States. Unlike canonical scholarship on modernist literature, which typically exalts European impact in the U.S., Gano’s study will situate the works of prominent modernists in the context of the Americas, demonstrating the under-documented confluence of U.S. and Mexican literature. Learn more about Gano’s work here .

“Mexican Soundscapes of the Colonial Era” by Alexander Hidalgo

Although Alexander Hidalgo’s upcoming book will draw on print archival sources, his subject cannot be fully captured in written media. Focusing on Mexico’s colonial era, Hidalgo will explore the varied “soundscapes” of early Mexican history, from the cannon blasts that colonizers used to enforce obedience to the riotous shouts of anti-colonial protestors. With sound as its focal point, Hidalgo’s book promises to provide an account of Spanish colonialism in Mexico unlike any written previously. Learn more about Hidalgo’s work here .

“Protestant Women and Political Activism in Mexico, 1900-1955” by Kathleen Mary McIntyre

In what will be the first history of its kind, Kathleen McIntyre’s upcoming book will document the distinct forms that Protestant women’s citizenship took in post-revolutionary Mexico. Despite prevailing beliefs that politics were antithetical to both Protestantism and femininity, these women organized numerous civil society groups—including suffrage clubs and temperance organizations—that advanced both evangelical and feminist aims. McIntyre will also discuss contemporary relations between Catholic and Protestant Mexican women at a time when their nation’s religious culture was exceptionally fraught. Learn more about McIntyre’s work here .

“Making Paper in Mexico: A Material, Political, and Environmental History” by Corinna Zeltsman

In her upcoming material history, Corinna Zeltsman will explore the wide-ranging implications of papermaking in Mexico’s past. While paper was a source of political power during the nation’s early years of independence, it quickly became a locus of economic and political contention in the nineteenth century as various industries—from logging to paper mills, to newspapers—became increasingly dependent on paper for their prosperity. Learn more about Zeltsman’s work here .

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• v.22(6); 2017 Nov

The reality of scientific research in Latin America; an insider’s perspective

Daniel r. ciocca.

1 Oncology Laboratory, Institute of Experimental Medicine and Biology, CONICET, CCT, 5500 Mendoza, Argentina

Gabriela Delgado

2 Immunotoxicology Research Group, Pharmacy Department, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Carrera 30 No. 45-03, Edificio 450, Bogotá, Colombia

There is tremendous disparity in scientific productivity among nations, particularly in Latin America. At first sight, this could be linked to the relative economic health of the different countries of the region, but even large and relatively rich Latin American countries do not produce a good level of science. Although Latin America has increased the number of its scientists and research institutions in recent years, the gap between developed countries and Latin American countries is startling. The prime importance of science and technology to the development of a nation remains unacknowledged. The major factors contributing to low scientific productivity are the limited access to grant opportunities, inadequate budgets, substandard levels of laboratory infrastructure and equipment, the high cost and limited supply of reagents, and inadequate salaries and personal insecurity of scientists. The political and economic instability in several Latin America countries results in a lack of long-term goals that are essential to the development of science. In Latin America, science is not an engine of the economy. Most equipment and supplies are imported, and national industries are not given the incentives to produce these goods at home. It is a pity that Latin American society has become accustomed to expect new science and technological developments to come from developed countries rather than from their own scientists. In this article, we present a critical view of the Latin American investigator’s daily life, particularly in the area of biomedicine. Too many bright young minds continue to leave Latin America for developed countries, where they are very successful. However, we still have many enthusiastic young graduates who want to make a career in science and contribute to society. Governments need to improve the status of science for the sake of these young graduates who represent the intellectual and economic future of their countries.

Social and economic disparities in Latin America

The day-to-day life of Latin Americans is greatly affected by the political composition of their ruling governments. Policies implemented by parties that come and go have a great impact on the economy; health care; and education; and not surprisingly, scientific activity. Latin America is made up of many countries with different histories, different economies, and different political situations (Schneider 2014 ). However, even relatively stable countries like Chile and Uruguay (currently politically and economically healthy) have suffered in recent history from dictatorial, autocratic, and/or populist governments (Puhle 1987 ; Arenas 2006 ; Donghi 2013 ). None of these countries give enough priority to scientific and technological developments (Schneider 2014 ), which has a tremendous impact on the life of their citizens. In some countries, the existence of a well-equipped research laboratory depends on whether the investigator shares the ideology of the ruling government. Moreover, Latin American countries have the most unequal income distribution in the world (United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development 2013 ) which results in research inequalities across the region (Van Noorden 2014 ). The macro-economy reflected in the gross domestic product (GDP) of nations like Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina is far higher than of other Latin American countries (World Development Indicators), but these countries are coping with the same problems as others in the region. Brazil is fighting political and economic instability, corruption, crime, and narco-traffickers and is slowly emerging out of its recession; Mexico has high levels of corruption, crime, and narco-trafficking; and Argentina has a very high level of inflation and is fighting corruption, crime, and narco-traffickers. Colombia has been at war with guerrillas and narco-traffickers for years, Venezuela is suffering from a decaying economy after years of populism, Peruvians are clamoring for less discrimination and inequality, Chileans are demanding better educational options and lower inequality, and Cubans are still trying to identify and solve their own problems. All this creates stress for ordinary citizens and scientists alike and makes us pessimistic about the economic forecast for Latin America (Cottani and Oliveros-Rosen 2016 ).

Importance of science

The contributions of science to society are obvious in many discoveries in medicine (e.g., antibiotics) and in the development of technologies (e.g., computers). For this reason, developed countries spend a large proportion of their annual budgets on research. Unfortunately, this paradigm has not been adopted by Latin American countries where research is still a minor activity performed by an “elite” class of individuals. Thus, countries with a weak research tradition are reliant on nations with a robust research culture and remain mainly providers of raw materials. Moreover, problems unique to a particular developing country will remain ignored by the global scientific community until they too are affected, as was clearly shown in the case of the Ebola epidemic (Omoleke et al. 2016 ). Latin American scientists have been very successful in global scientific work; several Latin American investigators have been Nobel Laureates in the Natural Sciences (LaRosa and Mejia 2015 ). The low scientific productivity in Latin America is not the result of a lack of creativity but is rather the product of a negative environment created by the leadership of each nation. The allocation of resources for research in Latin America is in great disproportion with that in developed countries (Table ​ (Table1 1 ).

Funds assigned for research and other data in Latin America

Some countries are not mentioned because we were unable to locate their GDP for R + D

NA not available

a Population for the year 2013, expressed in millions (M)

b,c Annual inflation and UR: unemployment rate from http://www.focus-economics.com/regions/latin-america

d Percentage of the GDP assigned to Research and Development. From http://datos.bancomundial.org/indicador/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS

e Per million people. Data from: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6

We acknowledge some progress in the sciences however; Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina have been leading in several parameters of science in Latin America (Albornoz 2002 ). Mexico increased its expenditures in research and development between 2012 and 2016 (Sánchez 2016 ). But, all Latin American countries are still functioning far below developed countries (Ruiz 2000 ; Piñón 2003 ; Kuramoto 2013 ). It is clear that in Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Peru, the resources assigned for research and development (by both public funds and by private businesses) are not priorities for their governments (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). In addition, Latin American countries are not using scientific developments to solve their problems in health care, education, poverty, and the unequal distribution of wealth. According to the Chilean scientist P. Astudillo, a scientific policy was adopted in Chile that reduced research to its economic dimension only and which has proved a failure (Astudillo 2016 ). This author also emphasizes that in today’s society, decision-making in practically all areas must be accompanied by scientific knowledge (Astudillo 2016 ). In a global world, scientific and technological development will generate jobs of both high quality and high human capital and those nations that do not keep pace will suffer the greatest loss (Schuster 2017 ).

Research funding in Latin America

Although Latin American institutions have high expectations for their investigators and require them to publish in high impact journals (Thomaz and Mormul 2014 ), the financial support for research is inadequate to meet these high standards. Most grants in Latin America are provided by governmental institutions and are insufficient for the needs of a competitive research enterprise. A typical governmental grant for a research group or laboratory in Latin America is in the order of $5,000 to $40,000 per year, which is well below typical grants provided by well-developed countries.

Unlike in the USA where science is truly an engine of the economy, private industries in Latin America are in general reluctant to invest in scientific development. Latin America and the Caribbean countries invest less in research than other developed and emerging countries, and the participation of private companies is very limited (Lemarchand 2010 , United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development 2013 ). There are some government programs designed to encourage private companies to invest in scientific and technological developments, such as the FONTAR program in Argentina that assigned almost $50 million to develop manufacturing of computerized machinery and equipment. However, these possibilities are limited and are basically driven by the government (Erben 2016 ).

A major problem in Latin America is a lack of clear rules for the distribution of research funding, which is sometimes distributed based on political alliances and aggravated by economic instability, resulting in a negative impact on the development of innovative technologies. Moreover, government taxes are high without a corresponding investment in resources. Most reagents and equipment have to be imported from other countries. When asked to provide goods for research, Latin American industries argue that scientists prefer to purchase products from recognized international companies and that they cannot compete with foreign companies.

The contribution to science by universities differs from country to country. Argentina mandates that professors combine their teaching with high-impact scientific work; however, the government and university support for academic research is very limited (Dallanegra Pedraza 2004 ). In Colombia and Brazil, support for research activities is significant at private universities. In Colombia, public universities invest even more in research and development than private universities do. In Chile, universities play a significant role, with about 80% of the total number of researchers having a doctoral degree (Quiroz 2016 ). In Cuba, despite the existence of a set of laws and resolutions to organize science financing, these resources are often not well used due to the poor organization of this financing system (Benet Rodríguez et al. 2010 ).

In summary, economic resources assigned for research grants in Latin America fall short of what is needed. The UNESCO Science Report (UNESCO 2015 ) emphasized that most Latin American countries have not used their valuable exports in recent years to stimulate scientific and technological competitiveness, such as in the development of pharmaceutical and/or equipment industries to avoid the high cost of medical supplies.

Purchasing products for scientific research: the economic drain

The international scientific community is probably unaware of the difficulties Latin American researchers face daily to acquire the reagents and equipment necessary for their work. Prices are disproportionately high compared with those in developed countries. Two factors drive up the cost of scientific reagents and equipment in Latin America. The import of scientific supplies is not excluded from a heavy tax intended to protect national products and which does not apply to research products that are locally produced. Indeed, many Latin American countries do not support free trade agreements with the USA, and research goods are considerably more expensive. In addition, customs bureaucracy is responsible for the delay of merchandise delivery which affects the quality of the products. Finally, there is no free competition among reagent suppliers, which form a monopoly directed at speculation. Most Latin American countries concentrate their resources and researchers in large cities, placing smaller cities at a disadvantage for the distribution of reagents and supplies and making collaboration among scientists more difficult. In a relatively small city (1 million), when one research laboratory has a broken flow cytometer, there may be no replacement in the same city.

The economic and social burden of Latin American scientists

In many Latin America countries, scientists do not have a salary in accordance with their education, knowledge, and contribution to society. Scientists’ salaries are markedly lower than those of judges and elected officials (Table ​ (Table2). 2 ). The low purchasing power of scientists makes it difficult to buy a home and support the education of their children. In addition, increased crime has forced scientists to live in gated communities, and the deterioration of public education has forced them to send their children to private schools. Scientists expend a large proportion of their salaries on these important items. Many young graduates see the scientific environment as too restricted, too competitive, and too poorly funded to provide a certain future in research institutions. Because a career in science is poorly paid, most medical doctors are better off pursuing a clinical practice rather than participating in research, even part time. Indeed, there are fewer than 10% of medical doctors in the Commission of Medical Sciences in the Argentine National Research Council (CONICET).

Data comparing salaries and prices of apartments and cars in Latin America

The salary in USD per month, in the case of researches considering the first position (young investigator) and the last position (about 30 years) in the main research institutions. These data have been provided by researchers from the different countries and the salaries are considering the basic + additional (pocket money). Judge: federal, with 30 years. Senator: national. Professor: full time in a National University. Apartment: price of a two bedrooms apartment in the capital of the country in a good location. Car: price of a brand new, medium-sized car (taken as example Renault Duster)

Nowadays, a publication fee of $3400–5000 applies to high-impact factor journals; these journals offer publication fee discounts for papers whose corresponding authors are based in HINARI countries (the world’s lowest-income countries as defined by the World Bank): Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua are in the free-access group while Argentina, Bolivia, and El Salvador are in the low-cost access. Therefore, many Latin American scientists prefer to publish their scientific discoveries in journals that do not charge for publication costs since it is very difficult to pay page charges from their modest grants. These journals are the ones with lower impact factors, which may make Latin American science seem second rate. In addition, most governments or academic institutions have not signed agreements for access to open-access articles, creating difficulties for Latin American scientists to obtain high-impact research articles; the cost of subscriptions is a serious problem for Latin American institutions with very limited budgets.

Bureaucracy and other problems

At first sight, the number of research institutions, programs, commissions, and other research-related entities in Latin America is overwhelming (Lemarchand 2010 ). However, most of these institutions are plagued with bureaucracy. For example, the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Productive Innovation of Argentina has 19 independent agencies, programs, foundations, and offices, of which CONICET is one. The administrative structure is at odds with the reduced grant support, and therefore, it is not surprising that in CONICET, almost 95% of the resources are destined to pay wages. It is clear that science has not been a priority for Latin American governments; in 2014, Argentina spent about $150 million dollars on the program “Soccer for All” (a program that supported the free televising of soccer games), a budget similar to that of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Productive Innovation (this soccer program has since been discontinued).

The lack of vision that science and technology are of prime importance to the development of a nation is a chronic problem. Latin American countries are still very far from other countries in scientific performance. For the period 2000–2015, Brazil ranked 14th, while Mexico ranked 30th, whereas Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama appeared even lower in the list (in that order) (Zanotto et al. 2016 ). This report stressed the importance of scientific collaboration, which is still far from what it should be. The low number of patents is another parameter to be considered (Kreimer 2016 ). The statement that Chile needs long and medium-term (public) policies to establish clear goals bringing together its political class, citizens, entrepreneurs, and scientists (Quiroz 2016 ) is applicable to most Latin American countries.

Latin American scientists have to be at an international level to win grants and promotions in the scientific careers and have to compete on research topics of international interest. It could be argued that science in Latin America should be directed to solve specific local problems, such as the impact of Dengue and Zika infections, and Chagas disease, or to find cheaper diagnostic methods and new regional phytochemicals that could be used to treat diseases. However, grants to support applied research are not easy to obtain because national priorities are unfocused and because it is difficult to publish the results in high-impact journals, which is against the interests of the investigators, thus creating a vicious circle. The World Health Organization has stressed the importance of research into local problems to improve health systems, priorities, and research goals for low- and middle-income countries (Xue et al. 2014 ).

The problem of brain drain

Latin America has a long history of “brain drain” while developed countries have the advantage of “brain gain.” In Chile, many young researchers and post-doctoral students find it difficult to get a foothold in the scientific system and only obtain precarious research jobs (Astudillo 2016 ). Central to this problem is the question: Are there enough research institutions to hire and retain scientists in their home countries? We mentioned earlier that the number of research institutions in Latin America is surprisingly large (Lemarchand 2010 ). However, the facilities are often inadequate; laboratories are not up to date; grants are relatively low; salaries are not at an international level; and scientists, like other citizens, feel personally insecure. In Argentina, the number of people with a doctoral education has increased noticeably in recent years, but only 50% have been absorbed into the national scientific system, with 20% leaving the country and the rest being lost to science (Estado y Perspectivas de las Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales en la Argentina 2015 ). In recent years, 1269 researchers wanted to return to Argentina from overseas to continue their research careers but there were not enough research positions to absorb this outstanding group of investigators. Moreover, Latin American researchers in developed countries feel more appreciated than at home. Salary is not the only reason; researchers find more freedom, stability, resources, and grants to develop their scientific capacity to the fullest extent. Therefore, the temptation to continue a scientific career abroad is high. In Colombia, approximately 70–80% of the resources of COLCIENCIAS (Administrative Department of Science, Technology and Innovation) are directed to support post-doctoral fellows, but there are no funds to support the scientific project locally. Therefore, if institutions do not provide the resources for research, fellowship recipients leave to pursue investigations abroad in well-equipped laboratories, which usually results in their not returning home. Indeed, many post-doctoral fellows prefer to pay back their credit-fellowship rather than return to Colombia. Brazil’s brain drain issues continue to grow after the endemic problem of the Brazilian body politic (Murati 2016 ). In contrast, despite losing many highly qualified professionals, Mexico has attracted foreign scientists to their institutions thanks to programs for the consolidation of science and technology and to the success of international cooperation programs (Didou and Durand 2013 ).

Conclusions

Although the picture presented in this essay is discouraging, we want to finish on a positive note. Our region has many young graduates who enthusiastically wish to make a career in science. Senior scientists must guide and stimulate these younger scientists to increase the depth of their scientific inquiries (Thomaz and Mormul 2014 ) and encourage them to contribute to the improvement of science in their home countries. The Latin American society has got used to expecting new science and technological developments to come from developed countries rather than from their own scientists. We need to generate closeness between our citizens and scientists through science education and the active participation of researchers in activities within the community (Quiroz 2016 ). There is still hope that Latin America will again be the scientific powerhouse it was in the past. Latin American scientists are bright, innovative visionaries and hard workers, as shown by the great success of Latin American scientists when they are provided with stability, resources, and the freedom to investigate. Latin American governments must follow the example of developed countries and invest in long-term research goals that are not subject to change by the transition from one political party to another. The scientific/technological base of a country is constructed in a cumulative, interdependent, and competitive way (Gonçalves da Silva 2016 ). A robust commitment to research has a great influence on education and social justice too. We must all work together to advance the future of science in Latin America to create a productive environment for future generations.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank colleagues from Latin America who helped with their opinions, discussions, and data. The referee comments contributed to improve significantly the manuscript.

Contributor Information

Daniel R. Ciocca, Email: ra.bog.tecinoc-azodnem@accoicd .

Gabriela Delgado, Email: oc.ude.lanu@modagledgl .

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• Dialnet: Tesis Repository of full text PhD dissertations from some 40 Spanish universities.
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• Portal de Tesis Latinoamericanas Full text theses and dissertations from Latin American universities.
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International

• Global Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Search ETDs from more than 200 universities on all continents.
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Latin American Collections (Archival)

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Colonial Spanish America

• Dale I. Perry Papers, 1976-1982 The collection contains photocopies of articles, publications, and sections of publications, as well as bibliographical notes, handwritten notes, correspondence, and microfilm relating to Perry’s research for his dissertation on art patronage in colonial Mexico. Much of the material focuses on Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza and the Cathedral at Puebla, Mexico.
• Documents from the Archivo General de La Nación de México and Other Related Archives, 1520-1878 The collection contains selected Spanish documents copied from the Archivo General de La Nación and other archives in Mexico City, with related transcriptions and notes. The collection is mainly focused on the colonial history of New Mexico and New Spain, with some materials for the Caribbean, Latin America and the U.S. Borderlands.
• Documents from the Archivo General de Indias and Other Related Archives, 1508-1812 The collection contains selected Spanish documents copied from the Archivo General de Indias and other archives in Spain, the Vatican Library, and U.S. Libraries, with related transcriptions and notes. Mainly focused on the colonial history of New Mexico and New Spain, with some materials for the Caribbean, Latin America, Philippines, and the U.S. Borderlands.
• D'Armand Collection of Spanish Language Documents, 1792-1871 contains nine New Mexico documents providing a view of social classes, children, mestizos, servants, democratic government, defense, Indian attacks, and economic, tax, environment and property issues.
• Miguel Antonio Lovato Papers, 1790-1849 provides documents about the unavailability of the holy sacraments to area Hispanics and Indians, poor prison conditions, Pueblo land losses, social classes, military and economic troubles and suggestions to the Spanish King for remedies.
• New Mexico Documents Collection, 1758-1876 includes Spanish and Mexican era documents that address social, government, judicial, economic, land and water issues
• Indian Affairs Collection, 1684-1903 includes disputes and claims by Pueblos of New Mexico for lands, water, etc. This collection is available in UNM CSWR Indian Affairs New Mexico Digital Collection.
• Thomas B. Catron Papers, 1840-1921 contains personal, business, political, legal and land grant papers and maps. Some land records and historic maps have been digitized.
• Sandoval County, New Mexico Land Documents, 1790-1872 This collection, compiled by Julius Seligman, contains documents regarding the sale and purchase of land in Sandoval County, New Mexico, in and around Bernalillo, Algodones, Placitas, Santa Ana Pueblo, San Felipe Pueblo, and Jemez Pueblo. Hispanics and some Native Americans Pueblos were involved in transactions, with Spanish Protector de los Indios.
• Catholic Church Report Regarding New Mexico Missions, 1794 provides descriptions, with demographic data from 1794, on various New Mexico communities - both Spanish and Pueblos. In Spanish, with transcription.
• Spanish Archives of New Mexico II consists of administrative, civil, military, and ecclesiastical records of the Spanish colonial government in New Mexico, 1621-1821. Records cover both the local and provincial levels, and include correspondence between officials in Santa Fe and Mexico. Few pre-Revolt documents are contained in this collection. Significant documents from the Pueblo Revolt period (1680-1693) include Antonio de Otermin's 1681 journal of the attempted reconquest of New Mexico, and various administrative and judicial records for the exiled government in El Paso del Norte, Diego de Vargas' journal of the 1692-1693 reconquest and the subsequent re-establishment of Spanish government through 1691. Also included are accusations of the Cabildo of Santa Fe and a series of depositions against Vargas in 1697-1698, together with numerous administrative, military, and judicial records reflect the political and social turmoil of the post-revolt period. The materials over the next 120 years of Spanish rule span a broad range of subjects, revealing information about such topics as domestic relations, political intrigue, crime and punishment, material culture, the Camino Real, relations between Spanish settlers and Native Americans, the intrusion of Anglo-Americans, and the growing unrest that resulted in Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821.
• Guatemalan Mass Registry, 1794-1892 a registry of masses, both sung and said, at the Convento Nuestro Padre San Francisco in the Ciudad Real de Guatemala. Within the text, the convent is also referred to as San Antonio. The first section of the book is dedicated to the enumeration of specific masses recited at the convent, while the second half deals with those masses which were sung. In addition to the actual registration of masses given each month, the book contains the names of the priests that performed the masses, the number and type of masses each month and the names of the Church officials certifying the information. The registry was used continually between the years 1794 and 1817. According to the signed affidavit at the end of the text, the registry was discovered at the convent forgotten and full of dust 15 June 1892.
• Jane C. Sanchez Papers, 1663-2004 This collection contains papers of Jane C. Sanchez, a historian and playwright in New Mexico. The materials relate to her research primarily regarding land grants, colonial history, Spanish and Mexican law, and storylines for theatrical and movie productions
• John L. Kessell Papers, 1582-2000 As one of the leading historians of New Mexico and the Spanish Southwest, John L. Kessell conducted extensive research in these areas. This collection includes photocopies of some of the primary source materials he used for his scholarship, as well as notes, correspondence, manuscripts, and other research materials.
• Frances V. Scholes Papers, 1492-1979 The France V. Scholes Papers contain research and teaching notes, maps and correspondence about the colonial history of Mexico, Yucatan and New Mexico, with some related material about the Caribbean, Central and Latin America. The collection also includes academic and personal information.
• Legal Documents of Families from Zacatecas, Mexico, 1647-1819 This collection contains groups of legal documents relating to the properties of the Arratia, Beltran, Calera, Cubero, Martinez, Monrreal, Piña, and Roldan families of Zacatecas, Mexico, dating from 1647 to 1759. A town and municipality in the state of Zacatecas carriesthe name Calera. The brother of Jose Beltran de Barnuevo, Father Luis Beltran was a famed author of sermons and religious poetry. Among the types of documents represented in the collection are wills, inventories of properties, receipts, declarations, claims, certificates. The collection provides insight into the systems of inheritance, accumulation of wealth, and distribution of properties in the mid-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries in the rich mining area of Zacatecas, Mexico.
• Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco Reproduction, 1890-1920 This collection contains badly faded reproductions of “Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco,” a seventeenth-century Mexican codex also called Codex Campos. The Mapa tells the story of an Indian cacique named Tepoztecatzin and his experiences during the Conquest of Mexico including the introduction of Christianity to his village. The original Mapa, consisting of 44 oil paintings of European paper, each 30 x 40 cm., was discovered in 1836 by the Padre D. José Vicente Campos.
• Paul Van de Velde Papers, 1618-1939 The majority of the materials in this collection were written or acquired in Mexico by Paul Van de Velde during his term of diplomatic service for the Belgian government from around 1910 to 1940. The materials were primarily collected in Oaxaca during his tenure there. Included are correspondence, newspaper clippings, legal and government documents, pamphlets, and flyers. Materials are in English and Spanish. The collection is divided according to the format of the material (bound, un¬bound, handwritten manuscripts, etc.)
• Register of Clients of José Mariano Cardenas, 1798-1806 The collection consists of one register of the clients of José Mariano Cardenas, Public Defender in Mexico, perhaps Mexico City, between the years 1798 and 1806. Clients’ names, charges against them, and dispositions are included; civil and criminal cases are registered. The register is written in Spanish.
• Richard E. Greenleaf Papers, 1519-2004 Richard Greenleaf’s papers deal with major people and events during the initial decades of Spanish presence in Mexico, as noted in the topics described below. The collection mainly consists of typed Spanish transcriptions and English translations of colonial documents made by Professor Greenleaf over his five decades of teaching, research and publication on the colonial history of Mexico. The documentary material was drawn mainly from the Archivo General de Indias of Seville and the Archivo General de la Nación of Mexico City.
• Spanish Colonial, Baroque, and Rococco Photograph Collection Black and white photographs of Spanish Colonial art: sculpture, religious architecture, and painting. The smaller prints include 35 mm negatives of Puerto Rican Santos. Others images were made in Mexico, Central, and South America and used in the book, Baroque and Rococco in Latin America by Pál Kelemen. Elisabeth Zulauf Kelemen took the photographs
• Vargas Project Records, 1642-1999 The collection is divided into three series. Project files contain correspondence, notes, research material, draft manuscripts, citations and records of office operations. The original filing system and file titles have been maintained. Archival documents include photocopies of colonial documents with corresponding control cards, transcriptions, translations and research notes. Many of these documents are from archives in Spain, Mexico and the United States and are difficult or impossible to access. These archives include Archivo General de Notarías del Distrito Federal (Mexico City), Archivo Histórico de Protocolos (Madrid), Archivo del Marqués de la Nava de Barcinas (Madrid), Archivo de Rafael Gasset Dorado (Madrid), Archivo General del Ministerio de Justicia (Spain), Archivo de Notarías de Torrelaguna (Spain), Archivo Histórico de Parral (Chihuahua), and Ritch Collection (Huntington Library, CA). The photocopied documents and transcriptions/translations from these archives are not only valuable in relation to this project, but could offer additional historical information for researchers of the period. Archives research material includes loose transcriptions, bibliographies, document lists and notes, archival resource guides and indexes, hard to find academic journal articles and genealogies.

Collection Strengths

UNM's Manuscript holdings are particularly strong in Colonial Spanish American Sources, 20 th Century Mexican and Guatemalan sources and Visual and Musical resources. Also notable are travel related manuscripts and personal or institutional collections addressing other parts of Latin America. The lists here are not exhaustive, so researchers should consult New Mexico Archives Online ( NMAO) – an inventory of archival collections in Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, which is technologically and administratively managed by UNM University Libraries. Please contact the Curator of Latin American Collections, Margie Montañez with an questions or recommendations.

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Picturing the Past: Indigenous Expressions in Colonial Mexico

With the Spanish invasion of Mesoamerica in the sixteenth century, indigenous societies experienced profound upheavals that permeated all facets of life. Indigenous modes of recording information and recounting the past, including pictorial traditions, oral discourses, and embodied practices were transformed under Spanish rule by the introduction of alphabetic script, giving rise to distinct forms of expression. Sometimes working in conjunction with missionaries, and other times working independently, indigenous artists and scribes drew upon pre-Columbian, colonial, and European traditions— inventing new modes of documentation in which both image and text functioned to reclaim ownership of contested territories, preserve personal lineages and collective histories, and maintain indigenous ways of life.    Curated by the students of HIAA 1151: Painting Indigenous Histories in Colonial Mexico , a course taught by Mellon Postdoctoral Research Associate (and former JCB fellow) Jessica Stair, the following exhibition centers around six colonial-era indigenous manuscripts from the John Carter Brown Library’s collection, whose dates of creation range from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century. These documents engage four key themes: The Political Force of Images , an analysis of the multifaceted uses of text and images to assert political authority in the Boban Calendar Wheel; Friars Interpret Indigenous Pasts , which considers orality, image, and text in friar Juan de Tovar’s codex; Proselytizing with Image and Text , which features three pictorial catechisms and narrates the use of pictorial and alphabetic writing in Spanish and indigenous Catholicisms; and Preserving Property and Primordial Pasts , which examines the strategic revival of iconographic conventions and materials of the pre-Columbian past in the Codex Coyoacán. Together, these themes illuminate the evolution of indigenous pictorial and scribal traditions in colonial Mexico and provide a glimpse into the complex dynamics of indigenous life under Spanish rule, where pictorial manuscripts functioned as resilient sites of negotiation, contestation, preservation, and innovation.

The Political Force of Images

The Boban Calendar Wheel is an early colonial manuscript that likely played a role in bolstering the political and authoritative claims of an indigenous leader of Texcoco during the first decades of Spanish colonial rule. Historian Patricia Lopes Don has shed light on the historical circumstances under which the manuscript was likely made, suggesting that it was produced between 1545–46 and featured in the legal battle that occurred over the lands of the deceased ruler of Texcoco, don Carlos Ometochtli. 1 Texcocan leader don Antonio Pimentel Tlahuitoltzin sought to use the manuscript, among others, to bolster his claim to royal lineage and property. 2 The manuscript served both an administrative and cultural purpose, acting as a court document that functioned as a cultural intermediary between the indigenous leaders of Texcoco and the new colonial administrative architecture. The manuscript illustrates a marriage between colonial and indigenous cultural forms, featuring indigenous iconography that centers time, genealogy, and space to serve multiple functions in a culturally ambiguous milieu. By carefully utilizing image and text, the Boban Calendar Wheel tapped into multiple significations for both Spanish and indigenous readers, alike. This multifaceted object, which has received relatively little scholarly attention, presents an early perspective on colonial Mexico that allows contemporary scholars and interested readers to glimpse into the reality of law and life for indigenous colonial subjects. 

Presented by Andres O’Sullivan-Comparan.

Actors and Purpose

Directly beneath them, two additional figures are pictured, each sitting on an icpalli , a woven reed throne. These figures are Nezahualcoyotl and Itzcoatl, two leaders of the Triple Alliance, a pact between the most powerful city-states in the Basin of Mexico before the Spanish invasion. At the bottom of the manuscript, two additional figures who are no longer visible due to deterioration are depicted, representing Chichimec ancestors. Their symmetrical alignment and adjacency to don Hernando and don Antonio at the top of the manuscript visually insinuates a longstanding connection between these two indigenous leaders and the most powerful dynastic rulers of Central Mexican  history. 

Iconographic versus Textual Representations

Calendrical Continuity

5. Lopes Don, Patricia. Bonfires of Culture,  197.

Friars Interpret Indigenous Pasts

As part of their larger project of disseminating Catholicism and establishing colonialism in the Americas, friars sought to learn about various aspects of indigenous cultures and often collaborated with native artists to document indigenous histories. Jesuit Juan de Tovar, who was born in Mexico to Spanish parents, composed a manuscript known as the Tovar Codex, which provides a history of the Aztecs; a presentation of religious rites and ceremonies; and an explanation of the Mexican solar calendar in relation to the Christian calendar. The work was written in Spanish and later brought to Spain by Jesuit José de Acosta, with whom Tovar exchanged letters concerning his methods of collecting information about indigenous cultures. The first few pages of the manuscript include their correspondence, which describes how Tovar consulted the elders and lords of Mexico City, Texcoco, and Tula who orally recounted their histories from ancient pictorial manuscripts.    The Tovar Codex consists of three primary sections. The first, which is written in alphabetic script, relies heavily on the work of Dominican friar Diego de Durán and presents a history of the origins, rites and ceremonies of the Aztecs. The second section is composed of pictures relating to the preceding alphabetic section and also draws upon the work of Durán. The third portion was likely made in collaboration with an indigenous artist and overlays the Christian and Mexican calendars using both text and image. Unlike some of his Spanish contemporaries, Tovar trusted indigenous oral and pictorial modes of recounting the past, which, along with Durán’s textual history, contributed to the composition of his own history.

Presented collectively by members of the class.

Questioning Images and Orality

While Acosta’s misgivings shed light on the authority of the written word in Spanish culture, it is Tovar’s response that provides the greatest insight into the ways in which indigenous histories were preserved, relayed, corroborated, and eventually transcribed. In an effort to certify his own history, Tovar responds with a lengthy description of his process of acquiring information from knowledgeable elders and nobles from Mexico City, Texcoco, and Tula who consulted ancient pictorial manuscripts and recounted their histories with great precision. 

Acknowledging the lack of an indigenous alphabetic history, Tovar details the other kinds of characters, hieroglyphics and calendrical forms that constituted the indigenous record—ones that he himself, admittedly, could not understand entirely. His complete history, then, considered a number of sources and intermediaries. First, Tovar drew from his own recollections of accounts that were elaborated and narrated to him by natives well-versed in their histories, who had consulted pictorial manuscripts. To substantiate and supplement these findings, Tovar then consulted the writings of Dominican friar Diego de Durán, relying heavily on Durán’s work to complete the first two sections of the Tovar Codex. 

Recounting History with Both Text and Image

The Tovar Codex presents an Aztec history using multiple expressive forms that register the cultural convergence that Mexico was experiencing during the sixteenth century. Tovar relied on alphabetic script, indigenous pictorial forms, and a mixture of the two that are married in the later calendrical portions of the manuscript. The first two sections of the codex, which include both alphabetic and pictorial histories, drew upon friar Diego de Durán’s Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e islas de la tierra firme . This page from the textual history section of the codex describes the foundation of Tenochtitlan, which is referenced and pictured in the pictorial history section of the manuscript.

In the pictorial history section, Tovar illustrates a defining moment in the Aztec migration narrative: the founding of Tenochtitlan. The page features the iconic eagle standing on top of a nopal cactus growing from a stone in the middle of a lake that has become synonymous with Mexican identity. Yet, in this image the eagle is eating a bird as opposed to a serpent, which is most often depicted in the mythical foundation of Tenochtitlan. Footsteps leading up to the bottom of the nopal cactus specify the long migration these early settlers took to reach the site of what would become their capital city. Seated on either side of the cactus upon woven reed thrones are two Aztec rulers, whose names are indicated with the glyphs above them. 

The rabbit glyph identifies the figure on the left at Tochtzin, and the glyph of a flowering nopal cactus and a stone indicates that the figure on the right is Tenoch. This iconography is supplemented above by a short text referencing the cactus, eagle, and the great lake of Tenochtitlan. The textual section of the manuscript briefly mentions the image in its narration of the event, but the image with its glyphic forms conveys meaning distinct from the text, further emphasizing the multifaceted communicative modes that Tovar relied upon to create his history of the Aztecs.

Merging Calendrical Systems

The Tovar Codex depicts three different kinds of calendars within the manuscript, but the most notable one appears in a section that combines the Julian calendar and the Aztec year count. The superimposition of the two calendars allows important dates to be easily convertible between the two systems, while allowing for Spanish friars to manifest their legitimacy through their own representation of time.

The Julian calendar divides the year into twelve months with a leap day every four years. Each day is given a name based on where it falls with the seven-day week. The Aztec year count divides the solar year into eighteen veintenas of twenty days each, plus five leftover days. In combining the two systems, the Tovar Calendar presents a page or two for each Aztec veintena , but labels each day with the European day name. 

The days are depicted as a chain going up the page, each day represented by one circle, and each group of five curiously divided with a small dash. Inscribed within each circle are the letters A through G, indicating the day of the Christian week. To the left of the days are images related to the Aztec veintena , with the name of the veintena written below it in alphabetic Nahuatl. Above the days and to the right of the chain is written information about the veintenas and associated festivities that occur with them, penned presumably by Juan de Tovar, who relied on Nahua informants for information about each veintena .

This page shows the twenty days of Toçoztontli, the second veintena in the Tovar Calendar. The Christian feast day of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary occurs on the ninth day, indicated in red by a gloss next to a letter “A.” The symbol for this veintena , a bird pierced with a bone object, appears to the left of the day count.

Compiling Histories

In the same way that Juan de Tovar drew upon the work of another friar to write his history, José de Acosta drew upon the work of Tovar to write his own history. Acosta’s Historia natual y moral de las Indias examines mineral, plant, and animal life, as well as the religious and political practices of indigenous peoples. Not only does Acosta mention Tovar by name as one of his sources, but he also reproduces portions of text that appear in Tovar’s manuscript in his section recounting the migration and dynastic history of the Aztecs.

In Book Six, Acosta provides a description of a Mexican calendar wheel that he had in his possession , which is strikingly similar to one pictured in the Tovar Codex, though it is probably not the exact calendar he was referencing. He describes the wheel as having a sun painted in the center from which four arms extend to the edge of the circle, each with its own color of green, blue, red, or yellow. Each arm was divided into thirteen sections and was associated with one of the Aztec year signs: house, rabbit, reed, or flint. He goes on to say that events that took place in each year would be painted next to the corresponding year. Though Acosta’s work is written in alphabetic script and privileges the Latin letter, he relies on both pictorial and alphabetic sources to inform his understanding of Mexican history.

Later in Book Six, Acosta questions the precision with which Mexican picture writing could preserve history, as seen in the correspondence between Tovar and Acosta at the beginning of the Tovar Codex. Yet he nonetheless praises the ways that Mexican youths learned oral discourses with exactitude and admires the ways in which indigenous parishioners wrote the general confession with pictures.

Proselytizing With Image and Text

Soon after the Spanish invasion of Mexico in the sixteenth century, missionaries attempted to convert and indoctrinate indigenous peoples in the Catholic faith. Their methods relied on adapting indigenous traditions of picture writing while also introducing new tools, such as the alphabet and oral sermons in Nahuatl for further propagating Catholicism. The forced conversion of indigenous populations was one aspect of Spain’s colonizing project in the New World, and the embrace of Catholic dogma reflects that unequal power structure. However, Nahuas were still able to maintain the use of pictured text, and they continued to reshape and innovate their cultural expressions in response. In producing syncretic expressions of faith, indigenous communities who practiced Catholicism transformed picture writing to produce new types of texts – specifically pictorial catechisms. Long considered to be a solely sixteenth century phenomenon, recent scholarship on the subject has extended their production and use to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Pictorial catechisms provided tangible material related to church doctrine, while also reclaiming and reaffirming identity by recalling an indigenous past that legitimized the documents’ creators in the contemporary moment. This section details the use of picture writing and alphabetic Nahuatl in colonial Catholic proselytizing contexts, starting with the adaptation of pictorial writing by friars, and the later adaptation by indigenous nobles. Together, these texts present a diachronic account of religious writings in colonial Mexico, establishing the complex negotiations that took place over script and pictorial form between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

Presented by Parker Zane.

Indoctrinating with Pictures

Diego de Valadés’s Rhetorica Christiana (1579) centers on the theological issues of proselytizing indigenous peoples in colonial Mexico. His engraving of a Franciscan atrium demonstrates the instructive practices of missionaries to indigenous neophytes. Friars are shown describing the creation of the world, discussing doctrine, and explaining penitence, among other depictions of sacraments and tenets of the Catholic faith. In the upper left corner of the page, a friar, Pedro de Gante, gestures towards a page covered with what appears to be pictographic writing.

Pedro de Gante was one of the earliest friars to arrive in New Spain. He translated the Christian doctrine into Nahuatl and set up a school for the children of indigenous elites in Mexico City, San Jose de los Naturales, whose curriculum included fine arts and trades, as well as the liberal arts. Gante is shown before a group of native pupils. This scene has been interpreted as an early depiction of Europeans using picture writing to convey Christian doctrine to an indigenous community. While it is not clear what exact scriptural text the images in Valadés’s engraving depict, it is nonetheless an important illustration of the ways in which pictographic writing was reshaped and repurposed within a sixteenth century colonial context.

Spoken Language and the Latin Alphabet

Catholic missionaries drew upon a variety of tools to indoctrinate indigenous neophytes, including the development of alphabetic Nahuatl to translate religious texts word-for-word. Alonso de Molina, a Franciscan perhaps best known for his Vocabulario en lengua castellana y Mexicana (1555/1571), a seminal Spanish-Nahuatl / Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary, also wrote an alphabetic catechism in Nahuatl. Many later editions of this catechism were printed between its original publication date in 1578 and the eighteenth century.

Because there is not a clear one-to-one correspondence between the phonetics of the Latin alphabet and the sounds of Nahuatl, complex negotiations took place in order for the Latin alphabet to functionally represent Nahuatl. Compared to pictorial writing, alphabetic writing relies on a fundamentally different mode of reading – it is purely phonetic. In this 1675 edition, the introductory pages visualize the new alphabetic script. It presents a combination of consonants and vowels – both short and long – in every consonant-vowel syllable combination that Nahuatl allows. This presentation indicates the novelty of the script to the reader and that this text was part of the beginning of a new, untested tradition.

Picturing Nahua Catholicisms

The John Carter Brown Library houses three pictorial catechisms from colonial Mexico. They summarize the Catholic doctrine using picture writing to encode Nahuatl or other indigenous languages. Importantly, this represents an innovation rather than a mere continuation of pre-Columbian picture writing into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We see a development of a new style: pictorial signs that, while sharing some iconography with earlier manuscripts, take on new meanings and forms. The catechisms are written linearly from left to right and top to bottom across the two open pages, as opposed to the non-fixed and multidirectional forms of reading common in earlier manuscripts. As a tool for propagating and reaffirming the Catholic faith, the pictorial catechisms are extremely successful in terms of scale. The pictorial catechisms are small, portable objects intended for personal use; they can be carried around in one’s pocket, providing the reader an easily accessible opportunity to reaffirm their faith throughout the day.

Constructing a Pictorial Catechism

As pictorial catechisms are generally small texts, they only contain the most essential aspects of Catholic doctrine for worshippers. This allows for a better understanding of Nahua Catholicism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as each manuscript reflects the deeply personal religious practices of their owners. The catechisms, relying on a new form of picture writing, evoke earlier indigenous practices, and subvert norms by following a linear reading order where each picture corresponds to a specific word or phrase of Catholic doctrine, allowing faith to be expressed pictorially using indigenous languages. These texts can include such material as important prayers – such as the Lord’s Prayer and Ave Maria, descriptions of the faith’s tenets, and a question and answer section.

The pictorial catechisms draw upon multiple textual traditions, occasionally excerpting portions of older catechisms. Within this manuscript, the question and answer section has been identified by ethnohistorian and anthropologist Louise Burkhart as part of the “Little Doctrine”, a specific collection of questions. These questions focus on key aspects of the Catholic faith, such as the concept of the Holy Trinity, the life of Christ, and the nature of heaven and hell, to name a few. 1 This specific manuscript contains a version of the “Little Doctrine” that features nineteen questions. 2 Variations on the question and answer section were propagated through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries across eleven indigenous languages in both alphabetic and pictorial texts. 3

Reading a Pictorial Catechism

For a modern scholar, it can be difficult to read a pictorial catechism precisely. While it is possible to know the underlying text – such as what prayers are represented – understanding the meaning of the signs themselves can be difficult, as signs can vary across the entire corpus. However, for the scribe and owners of a catechism, reading these would likely have been much easier, as a catechism was often used as a memory aid to remember important doctrine rather than to learn it for the first time. The base text would already have been ingrained into the reader’s memory.

The catechism is read left to right across the two open pages. The first three lines of this leaf were identified by Nicolas León to contain the Lord’s Prayer, represented with pictorial writing. 4 More work needs to be done with this manuscript before we can confidently recognize and interpret each sign, but some more stable signs appear throughout the corpus of pictorial catechisms, allowing us to guess a reading. The third sign of the first line is a circle of crosses inscribed with two nested circles. Compared to other similar signs in pictorial catechisms, it is possible to suggest a reading of heaven.

4. León, Nicolas. “A Mazahua Catechism in Testera-Amerind Hieroglyphics.” American Anthropologist 2, no. 4 (1900), 728 and 731.

Preserving Property and Primordial Pasts

The Codex Coyoacán belongs to a distinct subset of indigenous manuscripts known as the Techialoyans. Although originally misidentified as sixteenth century manuscripts, the Techialoyans are now widely regarded as documents of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Due to the striking stylistic similarities in both image and text, as well as material composition across the Techialoyan corpus, scholars have suggested that they were made under the purview of a single studio or workshop for surrounding communities in Central Mexico. 1   To indigenous populations, Techialoyans not only provided important pictorial and textual records of indigenous histories—often recounting the founding of local polities and delineating pre-Columbian dynastic lineages—but also acted as administrative documents to assert ownership over their native territories. Faced with the prospect of displacement and relocation, indigenous communities used the Techialoyan codices as both internal repositories of great historical and cultural importance, and as means of outward defense against Spanish attempts at land consolidation and redistribution.  

Presented by Grace Wilkins.

Materials of the Past

A defining characteristic of the Techialoyan codices is the use of amatl , a tree bark substrate traditionally used in the creation of indigenous pictorial manuscripts in the pre-Columbian era. Techialoyans like the Codex Coyoacán were produced by indigenous painters and scribes at a time when European paper was used commonly in Central Mexico. In fact, many Nahuatl and Spanish texts dating from the same period made use of European materials and processes of manuscript production.

It is then quite notable that the images and text of the Codex Coyoacán are presented on leaves of amatl . Each leaf of the codex is constructed from two layers of amatl , adhered together and sewn within a recto-verso book format. In the pre-Columbian period and the sixteenth century, amatl was produced in smooth, fine sheets, and was often layered with gesso, priming the surface for writing and painting in great detail. In this codex, however, the fibrous quality of the indigenous substrate is visible in the raw and frayed edges of the document and the various striations on the surface where the pigments have detached from the page. This rough material surface not only gives the pages their textured appearance but also was likely more difficult to paint and inscribe, necessitating a distinctly larger scribal handwriting. 2

What, then, was the purpose of using amatl ? What advantages did its use confer? Before the introduction of European paper, amatl constituted an essential means of recording information and preserving  pre-Columbian pictorial histories, lineages, and territories. In the case of the Codex Coyoacán and other Techialoyans—made to solidify indigenous histories and certify claims to native lands in the seventeenth  and eighteenth  centuries—returning  to this traditional method of paper production lent these codices and the histories they preserved a sense of tangible historicity. The very presence of the material placed these documents within a broader lineage of earlier indigenous histories, invoking traditional processes of making and telling and resulting in a prudent and legitimizing alignment of the colonial present with a material indigenous past.  

Picturing Places

These folios of the Codex Coyoacán detail through both image and text the boundary locations pertaining to the altepeme , or indigenous pueblos , of Tetelpan and Coyoacán. On the left page, a cross stands atop a stone mound, surrounded by Nahuatl alphabetic script that names the place as Cloxtitlan and delineates the 300 mecatl —a unit of measure roughly corresponding to 120 x 120 square feet of land—as belonging to the members of the altepetl . The opposite leaf contains an image of a structure painted within the outline of a hill, accompanied by a landscape of trees and water that fills the rest of the page. These images, like the cross, are accompanied by Nahuatl text that details the amount of land at or near a spring that belongs to Tetelpan. 

While these images could be read as wholly figural—merely representations of the places described in the text—they in fact call upon an enduring practice of glyphic writing established in pre-Columbian pictorial histories. The visual vocabulary of pre-Columbian codices is replete with ideograms that convey an expansive array of places, objects, and concepts. Of particular interest here is the convention of the toponym, or place-name, that encoded the name of a place with a succinct visual cue. Such toponyms frequently took the form of a hill glyph, a slightly rounded mound with a signifying image placed at the top.

It is with an understanding of this historical precedent that the images in these folios of the Codex Coyoacán should be read as both representational images and glyphic symbols—engaging in both past and present modes of encoding spatial and geographical information. The cross and the mound on the left page, for example, are not just features of the landscape that demarcate a territory, but, in fact, also act together as a symbolic cue for the name of the place itself, Cloxtitlan , which means “ Beside the Cross .” In the same way that the use of amatl evoked a past pictorial tradition, these allusions to traditional visual devices perform an archaizing function, legitimating this codex within the framework of the past to serve the needs of the colonial present, and to preserve local histories for generations to come. 

The Primacy of Image Over Text

The invasion of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century precipitated the widespread adoption of alphabetic text in Mexico—a marked shift from the principally oral and pictorial histories produced and performed in pre-Columbian society. The formation of a Nahuatl alphabetic script  allowed for an additional type of historical record separate from the purely pictorial and oral traditions of the past. Yet by the turn of the eighteenth century, when the Techialoyans were produced, indigenous scribes still drew upon painted images to recount the past. The now preferred means of documentation and communication included a combination of both image and alphabetic text. The two, in tandem, acted as complementary vessels of information, and it was increasingly rare for images to exist independently of their associated texts. 

Importantly, however, there are a number of instances in the Codex Coyoacán where images take precedence over text. The relationship between text and image in this folio is particularly telling. As is especially evident in the vertical script situated between the trees on the right, the alignment and orientation of the words is determined by, and must accommodate, the space as it is delimited by the boundaries of the pictures. Such an arrangement evidences a sequence of production in which the image was executed on the amatl before the inclusion of the alphabetic text. Here, the images act as the primary point of reference with the accompanying text addressing the pictures that precede them, serving a role not unlike the explanatory oral component of the pre-Columbian pictorial histories.

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This exhibition was curated collectively by undergraduate students in the Spring 2020 course HIAA 1151: Painting Indigenous Histories in Colonial Mexico : Andres O’Sullivan-Comparan, Grace Wilkins, and Parker Zane. Course Instructor: Jessica Stair.

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Research Paper

An Inspiration That Never Dies

The life of Frida Kahlo is one that is far from the ordinary. Her life has been defined as one of trial and tribulation, filled with pain, both emotional and physical. From her tumultuous relationship with Diego Rivera, to the artwork that she produced, Frida never shied away from controversy, but rather embraced her own thoughts and ideas that made up her identity both as a person, and an artist. Frida’s art was often viewed as questionable and sometimes even dark for many people, which distinguished her from other artists of the time. Although in her lifetime, Kahlo would mostly be known as the husband of Diego Rivera, Frida’s legacy after her death would propel her to becoming an iconic figure in social movements, especially for women. Throughout her life, Frida Kahlo paved the way for not only the future of female artists, but also future feminist movements by challenging the traditional abilities and daily roles of women and artists in society.

Just after the birth of Frida Kahlo in 1907, Mexico began to undergo immense changes as people revolted against the Porfirio Díaz regime. The Mexican Revolution brought radical changes to both the political and societal hierarchies, as people who fought in the Revolution wanted to eradicate any remnants of the past governments. Over the span of the next ten years, power would shift between three different leaders, as Mexico continued to wage civil war over which president would lead the country. The civil war left Mexico with an identity crisis, and as a result, many different rebel and political factions arose, including the Communist Party of Mexico, which Frida would join later in her life. To further engulf herself in the creation of her identity, Kahlo “claimed that she was born in 1910 so people would directly associate her with the revolution” (Frida Kahlo Foundation). While the revolution would last only a decade, social and political movements throughout Mexico would continue to call for change long after the signing of the Mexican Constitution. Until Kahlo’s death in 1954, she would be a strong advocate for several of these movements, not only in Mexico, but worldwide as well.

Figure 1. Frida Kahlo (center) loved to wear men’s clothing. Even for family picture, rather than traditional female dresses she wore men’s suits.

Living in Coyoacán, just outside of Mexico City, Frida was quick to separate herself and develop her own identity that was much different than girls of the same age. After contracting polio at the age of six, Frida was left with deformed right leg, which caused her to be taunted by many of her classmates at school. All of the taunting by her peers would help shape her to become a defiant and rebellious teenager as she enrolled in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, one of Mexico’s best preparatory schools. Although there were only a few girls at the ‘prepa’, Frida refused to follow in the other girls’ footsteps by flaunting her girlish charm to the other men. Instead, Frida would pull her hair back, wearing a skirt with a tie, rather than dressing to impress the crowds. For instance, it was very common for Kahlo to be pictured wearing men’s clothing, such as a suit and tie instead of the tradition female garb (Fig. 1). Even the way Frida spoke, and her use of foul language, showed how different she was from the rest of the girls her age. Isabel Alcántara and Sandra Egnolff, co-authors of the biography Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, describe the young Frida Kahlo, saying, “She invented her own personal slang, ‘fridesco’, and often shocked people by using vulgar and coarse language” (Alcántara and Egnolff 14). Frida was never one to try to fit in, but rather she began to defy the norms of society at a very young age. This rebellious and defiant persona for which Frida used to separate herself from societal norms, would become even more evident as she began to produce artwork that would be considered shocking for the time period.

Figure 2. Frida Kahlo, My Birth. 1932. Oil on metal. 30.5 x 35 cm. Private collection, USA Private collection

In all aspects of her life, Frida was not afraid to stand out and differentiate herself from others around her. Her artwork was no exception to this quality, as they were often deemed as graphic and untraditional during that time. While much of the Mexican art that was produced during the early decades of the 1900’s incorporated either political or nationalistic themes, most of Frida’s art portrayed real life tragedies, as well as the pain that she had suffered or was feeling at the time. For example, Frida’s painting My Birth (fig. 2) depicts a woman lying on a bed with a sheet laid over her head, as she gives birth to a baby Frida. Below the baby, whose head is protruding from between the woman’s legs with her eyes closed, there is a pool of blood staining the sheets of bed. Just above the bed’s headboard, a picture of the “Virgin of Sorrow” hangs, sadly watching over the gory scene and unable to help the woman. This picture, while meant to represent the stark contrast between life and death, was “a startling image for Western audiences since childbirth has not been addressed, if at all, so frankly in Christian iconography” (Motian-Meadows). For many viewers during that time, the image of a woman, whose face is covered, giving birth to a baby with a puddle of blood on the sheets was shocking and ghastly. Deborah Solomon, an American art critic, who has written for the New York Times and speaks about various artistic topics on NPR, agrees, stating that Kahlo was “shocking viewers with graphic depictions of [her] pain, which, in turn, has ‘exempted her from the standards of art and promoted [her] into a heroine of modern life’” (Lindauer 169). Although Kahlo certainly pushed the boundaries of what was socially acceptable when it came to her artwork, what made her art stand out more than others, was her ability to make her pieces relate to the struggles and sufferings faced by much of her audience.

Figure 3. Kahlo painted her plaster-molded cast while confined to her bed after the horrific bus accident in 1925.

Kahlo’s life would not only be filled with acts of defiance against societal norms, but would also be subject to pain and suffering. Physically, Kahlo’s body had been structurally impaired, due to a streetcar accident that occurred in 1925 when Frida was eighteen years old. She would suffer numerous breaks and fractures to almost her whole body, as well as be pierced by a metal rod which entered through her left hip and stuck out through the vagina (Alcántara and Egnolff 17). This accident would be the cause of many physical complications, including multiple miscarriages, and require over 30 surgeries during the span of her life. Kahlo’s recovery in the months following the accident would be the platform for which she began her artistic career, as she would teach herself to paint during the time she was immobilized (fig. 3). Kahlo would continue to improve her artistic abilities as she rehabilitated her broken body, producing several easel paintings during that time. Her physical problems though follow Frida throughout her whole life, serving as a central theme in nearly all her artwork.

Figure 4. Frida Kahlo, The Broken Column. 1944. Oil on canvas, mounted on wood. 40 x 30.7cm. Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum, Mexico City

For Frida, painting would be a means of portraying her pain and suffering conceived by her physical impairments from the bus accident. Her paintings would become a second reality as she created a “creature invented to help her withstand life’s blows” (Lindauer 4). As she began to rise and gain more notoriety in the art world, Frida’s audience, especially women and underrepresented groups of people, began to relate to the trials and tribulations faced by Kahlo throughout her lifetime. Her paintings, such as The Broken Column (fig. 4), have served as an inspiration for viewers who are struggling in certain parts of their lives. In the self-portrait, Kahlo paints herself half nude with her exposed upper body, which has been split down the middle. She is shown with support belts, which prevents her body from further separation and is reminiscent of the cast she wore during her recovery from the accident. A shattered column supports her upright posture in place of a normal backbone, suggesting the “bend but don’t break” attitude that someone, like her, needed to have to succeed in an industry dominated by men. Kahlo also includes numerous nails that pierce several parts of her body, and although there seem to be tears that are running down her cheeks to show that she is in pain, she still maintains a straight face to signify that she is determined and unrelenting. Throughout all of her paintings, Frida understood that the portrayal of her pain went far beyond what she felt, commenting, “they have a message of pain in them, but I think they’ll interest a few people. They’re not revolutionary, so why do I keep on believing they’re combative?” (Frida). Even though she was only painting what she felt at the time, Frida still understood that her art had significant influence and power over her audience. Although works of art like The Broken Column exemplified how Kahlo’s physical pain played a crucial role in her paintings, her emotional state would also be evident, stemming from her chaotic marriage to Diego Rivera.

Much of the emotional stress that Frida Kahlo suffered was a direct result of her marriage to Diego Rivera. Before and during the entirety of their relationship, Rivera was a womanizer, who constantly slept with other women, while Frida also seduced other men, and occasionally slept with women as well. This mutual relationship between Kahlo and Rivera, certainly took an emotional toll on Kahlo, as she once said, “There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst” (Frida). Kahlo’s emotional health was constantly in a state of stress during her marriage to Rivera, having to deal with all his affairs, one of which included her own sister. Kahlo’s pent-up anguish during her marriage with Rivera, much like her physical pain, is present in most of her artwork, and is especially evident in her painting A Few Small Nips (fig. 5).

Figure 5. Frida Kahlo, A Few Small Nips. 1935. Oil on metal. 29.5 x 39.5 cm. Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum, Mexico City

In the painting, Kahlo depicts a woman lying on a bed with stab wounds and blood all over her naked body. A man, who could presumably resemble Diego Rivera, stands over the body with his shirt soaked in blood, while two doves, the universal symbols of love, hold a banner which translates to “A Few Small Nips”. The painting seems to allude to the relationship between Frida and Diego, mirroring how Diego’s lack of faithfulness toward Frida is slowly, but surly, killing her. Ironically, Kahlo’s marriage to Rivera would help her to further develop her identity to which the world perceives her today.

Through all the infidelities and emotional trauma that both Frida and Diego caused to one another, there are still aspects of their chaotic relationship that have proven to have been beneficial, especially for Frida. Even before the marriage, Diego had an impact on her changing character, actively involving Frida in social and political movements which fought for the rights of Mexicans. Rivera’s strong sense of nationalism began to rub off onto Kahlo, as she embraced her mestizo, or mixed, culture (her mother was a native of Mexico, and her father was a Jewish Hungarian, born in Germany). Like much of Mexico during the post-revolutionary years, Frida started to take more pride in her “Mexicanidad”, wearing vibrant, elegant clothing and dresses that were traditionally worn by native, Tehuana women. Kahlo’s wearing of such exotic dresses were both intended to impress Rivera, but also to have nationalistic symbolism, which according to Lis Pankl and Kevin Blake are significant, because the Tehuana women are:

female descendants of the Zapotec people enjoy a large degree of equality with the men in their society and are producers of valuable material culture bought and sold in the markets. Historically, these women have represented strength, sensuality, and exoticism (Campbell and Green 1996). Also, the region itself symbolizes a purity independent from colonial conquest (Belnap 2001).

Figure 6. Frida Kahlo, Self Portrait as a Tehuana. 1943. Oil on board. 76 x 61cm. Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, Mexico City

Kahlo embraced this idea of associating her identity with that of the Tehuana women, with the intention that she would be able to portray qualities of strength and independence to inspire others to follow her lead. Rivera was very receptive to this perception, even “encouraging Kahlo to use the Tehuana trope as a guiding theme in her art” (Pankl and Blake 9). This reoccurring theme can be seen in almost all her self-portraits, such as her painting Self Portrait as a Tehuana (fig. 6). In the painting, Kahlo illustrates herself dressed in traditional Tehuana garb, with the same powerful, straight-faced look that demands respect. On her forehead, she paints an image of Diego, which could be symbolizing the impact and influence that he has had on molding Frida’s persona. Frida’s choice to associate with the symbolism of Tehuana women, as well as her elaborate clothing style, would help to propel her into becoming a pop icon, even after her death.

In the last decade, the life and times of Frida Kahlo has become popularized and thrust into the national spotlight of today’s analytical society. Frida certainly made waves of her own as both an activist and artist during her time, but her life did not achieve the same amount of critique and cult following that it has had since her death in 1954. It would not be until 1983, when author Hayden Herrera would publish Frida: A

Figure 7. Selma Hayak stars in the Julie Taymor film Frida, a recreation of the life of Kahlo. The critically-acclaimed film won numerous awards, including three Golden Globe awards.

Biography of Frida Kahlo, that Kahlo’s legacy would begin to take off. This biography, a “500-page tome that introduced the artist and her work to a wider audience” (Miranda), paved the way for her artwork and popularity to be hailed by people all over the world, who otherwise had no previous knowledge or familiarity with the artist. Herrera’s biography would be “perhaps the biggest boost to her popularity” (Miranda), being one of the first to fully write on the captivating life of Frida. Soon after, the legend and artwork of Frida Kahlo was revitalized, as more books, articles and movies, such as the Julie Taymor film Frida (fig. 7), attempted to recreate the image of Frida’s essence. The rise of “Fridamania” could not have come at a better time, particularly in the United States, where social movements were beginning to take shape in changing social culture. Activists within the Feminist and Gay Rights movements were, and still are, storming the streets of major cities across the country, represented by the image of the one and only, Frida Kahlo.

Figure 8. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera marching with the Syndicate for Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors. Circa 1929

In the wake of the vast amounts of social change currently taking place in all different parts of the world, Frida Kahlo has become a heroine figure that has glorified the ideals of these movements. Social movements, such as the Feminist Movement and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual and Queer (LGBTQ) Movements and the Chicana Movements, have used Kahlo as a representation of their ongoing struggles and unwillingness to give in to societal norms. These movements are able to relate to the trials and tribulations that Kahlo struggled with her whole life, enduring all the pain that accompanied the hardship, but continuing to be resilient through it all. Camilla Brett, an arts and culture consultant in Mexico City and founder of Prospero Teatro Mexico, wrote recently in an article for The Guardian that, “Kahlo represents values such as “empowerment”, “freedom”, “independence”, “honesty” and “being true to yourself”” (Brett). Frida’s life message resonates fully with these movements, as they fight for equality and the right to be treated as such. Hilda Trujillo, director of the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City agrees with Brett, saying, “she didn’t respect social conventions, she did what she wanted. She represents the values of a contemporary woman: she is free, independent, and is not overcome by anything” (Brett). Frida was truly a revolutionary, and sought to inspire to fight for causes they believed in. While Frida was highly active in social movements during her life, her role as an activist was not limited to the time she had on this Earth, but has been extended to numerous causes that are fighting today.

No matter how controversial of a person Frida Kahlo was, there is no disputing that she was and still is a revolutionary artist whose influence has been evident, not only while she was alive, but long after her death. Frida challenged the role of women and female artists, by refusing to give in to societal norms, and being true to herself. Her sense of self, in addition to the physical and emotional pain that she endured her whole life, is evident within her artwork and serves as a testament to her perseverance and unwillingness to surrender to her life’s troubles. Through both her mannerisms and style, Frida demonstrated her innate ability to be resilient in the face of adversity, serving as an inspiration to those who feel they have been repressed. In an article for the New York Time, author Hayden Herrera commented:

In a society obsessed with self-discovery and self-disclosure, one bent on “sharing” even the most private facets of feeling, Kahlo’s autobiography in paint is exemplary. For a society drawn to notions of victimization and sadomasochism, Kahlo is certainly an alluring victim. For a people preoccupied with psychological health, fearful of AIDS and appalled by drug abuse, the gritty strength with which she endured, her illness is salutary. Although her paintings record specific moments in her life, all who look at them feel that Frida is speaking directly to them. Her Art Was a Bomb Tied With a Ribbon.

Although a long time has passed since Frida’s death, there is no doubt that her messages in her art, as well as through her life story will forever shape our perceptions of life. The legend of Frida Kahlo will continue to serve as a beacon of light, not just for women, but for all people today, throughout future generations.

Figure 9. Whether it was through her art, activism, style, or life story, Frida Kahlo has continued to be an inspirational and iconic figure for all people.

Bibliography

Alcántara, Isabel, and Sandra Egnolff. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Prestel Publishing, New York, New York, 1999. Print.

This book is a historical biography of the life and marriage of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Each chapter of the biography talks about different events during their lives that seemed to have the most impact in shaping them as a couple and as artists. This book gave me background information about Frida’s life and made the case about how certain events influenced who she was as person, especially later in her lifetime. I was also able to use this book for citing some of the artwork that I used within my essay.

Blake, Kevin, and Lis Pankl. Made In Her Image: Frida Kahlo as Material Culture. 2nd ed., vol. 44 pp. 1–17, Made In Her Image: Frida Kahlo as Material Culture. Web.  https://www.k-state.edu/geography/kblake/papers/Made in Her Image, Frida Kahlo as Material Cutlure.pdf . Accessed 5 Mar. 2017.

This paper, co-written by two professors from Kansas State University really helped to solidify my ideas of Frida’s image and how society was able to use her image as a means of becoming the face of numerous social movements. I was specifically able to key in on what the professors had to say about Kahlo’s dresses and style, which gave me more evidence to support the idea of Kahlo’s pride in her Mexican heritage. I found this source to be extremely helpful in also giving me more information about her life and how she was propelled into the national spotlight after her death.

Brett, Camila. “In the Footsteps of Frida Kahlo: How Is Life Changing for Mexico City’s Women?” Mexico City Live, The Guardian News and Media, 9 Nov. 2015. Web.  https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/09/frida-kahlo-how-life-changing-mexico-city-women . Accessed 5 Mar. 2017.

Camila Brett writes this article, speaking of the impact that Frida Kahlo had on social activism and fighting for women’s rights. Brett interviews multiple women throughout her article, citing the abuses and inequalities suffered by women in today’s society. Brett then explains how Frida has become an inspiration for women and underrepresented groups throughout the world. I gathered and used quotes from the curator of the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City, who was interviewed by Brett, to help support my arguments and solidify my ideas. The article was the most helpful for me to understand how Frida was able to empower others to fight for their rights.

“Frida and Diego.” The New York Times, Fordors, 1 Jan. 2006. Web.  http://www.nytimes.com/fodors/top/features/travel/destinations/mexico/mexicocity . Accessed 6 Feb. 2017

This article gives an overview of the life and relationship between Kahlo and Rivera. The author describes their unusual relationship and how both artists were able to achieve their own success in their own rights. I will use this source as a means of reinforcing the tumultuous relationship between the two artists and how they were able to maintain both personal and professional lives. This article also describes some of the political ideals of the artists and their relationship with the exiled Leon Trotsky.

Frida. “Frida Kahlo and Her Paintings.” Frida Kahlo – Paintings, Biography, and Quotes of Frida Kahlo. Web.  http://www.fridakahlo.org/ . Accessed 22 Feb. 2017.

This website not only provides a full biography on the life of Frida Kahlo, but also includes all of her artworks, both paintings and drawings, as well as the meaning and influence behind them. Although this source is not an academic source, it was useful because allowed me to use the meaning of her artwork to show how events in her life helped to influence her artwork. It also gave me insight as to the exhibitions and events held which publicized her artwork. As with the other sources, understanding her relationship with Rivera was also useful in the biographical background of Kahlo. The site also includes direct quotes spoken by Frida Kahlo, a few of which I used in my paper.

Herrera, Hayden. “Why Frida Kahlo Speaks to the 90’s.” The New York Times, 27 Oct. 1990. Web.  http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/28/arts/ . Accessed 5 Mar. 2017

This article, written by Hayden Herrera, who also wrote the book Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, talks about how Kahlo and her message was able to relate to people and social movements, especially during the 90’s. In the article, Herrera writes of Frida’s life, and how her struggles and artwork has had an influence on these movements, leading her to become one of leading faces of these campaigns. I use this article as a means of tying my central theme together and further supporting my thesis.

Lindauer, Margaret A. Devouring Frida: the Art History and Popular Celebrity of Frida Kahlo. Middletown, CT, Wesleyan University Press, 2003. Print.

This book provides interpretations of not only the art work of Frida Kahlo, but also of her whole life. Margaret Lindauer, an art history professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, gives insight as to the rise of Frida Kahlo, especially after her death and how she became a main stream celebrity for numerous social movements around the world. Lindauer also talks about how Kahlo’s art relates to her own life and how Kahlo was able to mask much of her life behind her self-portraits and works of art.

Miranda, Caroline A. “Saving Frida Kahlo From Her Own Celebrity.” Art News,14 July 2014. Web.  http://www.artnews.com/2014/07/14/saving-frida-kahlo-from-her-own-celebrity/ . Accessed 5 Mar. 2017.

In her article for the Art News, Miranda tackles the issues surrounding the celebrity status of Frida Kahlo, and how it has shied away from the true meaning of her artwork. Miranda details how Kahlo went from an obscure Mexican artist to a popular icon in a matter of three decades, as well as the rise of “Fridamania”. I was able to use some of Miranda’s argument in order to prove how Frida was able to make such a rise to celebrity stature, especially after her death. Miranda’s article was particularly useful in helping to understand how books and movies were able to propel Frida and her life into the spotlight, and I quoted her article a few times throughout my essay.

Motian-Meadows, Mary. “Kahlo As Artist, Woman, Rebel.” Solidarity News, May 1995. Web.  https://www.solidarity-us.org/node/2782 . Accessed 26 Feb. 2017.

Mary Motian-Meadows, in this article for May/June 1995 edition of Solidarity News, talks about the role that Frida Kahlo has played for the Feminists Movements, and how she was representative of the ideal feminist. In the article, Motian-Meadows points out characteristics of Kahlo’s art that was seen as rebellious and untraditional during that time. She also talks about Kahlo’s personality and how she was very proud of where she came from and who she was. I quote this article in my essay to further support my points with expert analysis. This allows my readers to be able to understand that my ideas agree with someone who has an extensive art background and has vast knowledge about Frida Kahlo.

Stechler, Amy, director. The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo. Public Broadcasting Service, Mar. 2005. Web.  http://www.pbs.org/weta/fridakahlo/today/ . Accessed 22 Feb. 2017.

This site gave me insight as to the life and works of Frida Kahlo. The site covers topics from her youth, to her marriage to Diego Rivera, and even describes her lust for life. The page includes direct quotes from Kahlo, which I will be able to use in order to support my argument about her art. The site gives in-depth detail of the relationship between Rivera and Kahlo, further supporting other sources about the relationship. I will also be able to utilize some of the dates provided by the author to give a sense of background to when events were occurring.

Tibol, Raquel. Frida by Frida. México, Editorial RM, 2006. Print.

This book is a collection of letters written and sent by Frida Kahlo to different recipients, such as her high school love, Alejandro Gomez Arias, as well as Diego Rivera. Most of the letters were translated to English, but are still the same words written by Frida herself. This was used as a primary source for me to better understand her life and to also use in order to get a better understanding of her thought process.

Trebay, Guy. “Frida Kahlo Is Having a Moment.” The New York Times, 8 May 2015. Web.  https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/style/frida-kahlo-is-having-a-moment . Accessed 5 Mar. 2017.

I was able to use this article as a means of supporting my argument of how Frida Kahlo rose to such popularity, especially in the past two decades. Trebay emphasizes Kahlo’s life and how “Fridamania” has exploded with the sale of Kahlo’s art, exhibits that feature much of her work, as well as Frida Kahlo merchandise that has been sold. This piece gave me a bit of background on the rise of Kahlo as a pop icon.

Vernon, Diana. “Fridamania: The Frida Kahlo Effect.” Culture Trip, 12 May 2016. Web.  https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/mexico/articles/fridamania-the-frida-kahlo-effect/ . Accessed 5 Mar. 2017.

In this article, Vernon explains the life and art of Frida Kahlo. Vernon gives insight as to how her art and influence has become so popular, especially after her death. She also talks about how Kahlo’s life was destined to become due to her lifestyle choices and how Kahlo’s controversial art reflected taboo subjects. This article was able to support my ideas and thesis of how Kahlo was able to become an icon even after her death, and have her life, as well as her artwork influence others.

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500 Years Later, The Spanish Conquest Of Mexico Is Still Being Debated

James Fredrick

An artistic rendering of the retreat of Hernán Cortés from Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, in 1520. The Spanish conquistador led an expedition to present-day Mexico, landing in 1519. Although the Spanish forces numbered some 500 men, they managed to capture Aztec Emperor Montezuma II. The city later revolted, forcing Cortés and his men to retreat. Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images hide caption

An artistic rendering of the retreat of Hernán Cortés from Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, in 1520. The Spanish conquistador led an expedition to present-day Mexico, landing in 1519. Although the Spanish forces numbered some 500 men, they managed to capture Aztec Emperor Montezuma II. The city later revolted, forcing Cortés and his men to retreat.

Five-hundred years ago, two men met and changed much of the world forever.

About 500 Spanish conquistadors — ragged from skirmishes, a massacre of an Indigenous village and a hike between massive volcanoes — couldn't believe what they saw: an elegant island city in a land that Europeans didn't know existed until a few years before.

"It was all so wonderful that I do not know how to describe this first glimpse of things never heard of, seen or dreamed of before," wrote conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo.

The date was Nov. 8, 1519. Bernal's leader, Hernán Cortés, walked them down a causeway leading into the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, and was greeted by this land's most powerful man: Emperor Montezuma II. (Montezuma was Mexica, but the term Aztec is often used to denote the triple alliance of civilizations that made up his empire.)

According to Cortés, Montezuma immediately recognized the divine right of the Spanish and the Catholic Church to rule these lands and he surrendered his empire.

But according to historian Matthew Restall, author of the book When Montezuma Met Cortés, this is simply wrong.

"The more that I thought about [the surrender], the more I decided it just didn't quite make sense," he tells NPR. "But then what really got me interested was this question, 'If it's a lie, how has it lasted for 500 years?' "

The meeting of Montezuma and Cortés — in what today is Mexico City — and the true story of the conquest that followed it still weigh heavily in Mexico half a millennium later.

Twice this year, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has publicly asked the Spanish crown to apologize for atrocities against native people.

"We have not forgotten this issue and continue believing they should offer an apology for the invasion," he said during a news briefing in October. So far, Spain has rejected that request.

The story of the Spanish conquest, as it has been commonly understood for 500 years, goes like this: Montezuma surrendered his empire to Cortés. Cortés and his men entered Tenochtitlán and lived there peacefully for months until rebellious Aztecs attacked them. Montezuma was killed by friendly fire. The surviving conquistadors escaped the city and later returned with Spanish reinforcements. They bravely laid siege to Tenochtitlán for months and finally captured it on Aug. 13, 1521, with the Spanish taking their rightful place as leaders of the land we now know as Mexico. Conquest accomplished.

"History is messy, and this story tidies up all of that mess and turns the messy, unpleasant war that took place 500 years ago into a nice, tidy dramatic narrative that has a hero [Cortés] and antihero [Montezuma] and has some kind of climactic, glorious ending," says Restall.

In When Montezuma Met Cortés , Restall revises this story. He ditches the word "conquest" and instead refers to the time as the Spanish-Aztec war. He says Cortés was a "mediocrity" with little personal impact on the unfolding of events and refocuses on complex territorial battles between the Aztecs and their rivals. The Tlaxcallan Empire, which allied with the Spanish, was the driving force, outnumbering conquistadors 50-to-1 during the war with the Aztecs. Smallpox and a betrayal from an Aztec ally dealt the final blow. The wondrous island city fell, but it would take years for the Spanish to establish control in New Spain.

The messy history of the Spanish and Aztecs is still strikingly visible in the center of Mexico City. Right next to the imposing Metropolitan Cathedral (a centuries-long expansion of the first Spanish church built here, in the 1520s) sit the remains of the Aztec Templo Mayor, or Great Temple, buried beneath the city surface.

Archaeologists have made key discoveries about the Aztecs at the Great Temple site in Mexico City. Eduardo Verdugo/AP hide caption

Archaeologists have made key discoveries about the Aztecs at the Great Temple site in Mexico City.

"After they arrived here on Nov. 8, it's likely that the first place the Aztecs brought the Spanish was here to the Great Temple," says Carlos Javier González González, former director of the Great Temple project. "Symbolically, the Great Temple was the center of the universe to the Aztecs. It was the point from which the world turned."

NPR joined González and Raúl Barrera Rodríguez, director of the urban archaeology program at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, for a tour around the Great Temple's remains.

For centuries, Spanish testimony portrayed the Aztecs and other Indigenous groups in the Americas as uncivilized, savage barbarians. But continued excavation of the Great Temple and Tenochtitlán has helped change that perception.

"Tenochtitlán was a huge city," says Barrera. "It had public institutions, a whole system of government, public servants, schools, public services — it was a totally organized city."

After the fall of Tenochtitlán, the Spanish built their city directly on top of it. Barrera's urban archaeology program, which has first rights to excavation at any buildings under construction or renovation in Mexico City's historical center, aims to reveal this underground city.

"It's like a puzzle we're trying to put together," he says.

In 2017, Barrera's team uncovered the Huey Tzompantli, a tower of human skulls that was a monument to the Aztecs' highest deity, Huitzilopochtli, the god of war and the sun. The conquistadors described a terrifying satanic sight. It was precisely the opposite for Aztecs.

The Two-Way

Aztec 'tower of skulls' reveals women, children were sacrificed.

"It is important to understand the worldview of the Aztecs," says Barrera. "The tzompantli was about giving life."

As Barrera explains, the Aztecs had deep, complex rituals around death. Aztecs believed their gods needed nourishment to survive and made them offerings of people and animals. For example, offering warriors — primarily prisoners of war — ensured the sun would continue to shine and the Aztecs would be successful in war. The Spanish didn't see it that way.

"The image we have of the Aztecs was overwhelmingly invented by Spaniards at the time," says Restall. "They used it to not only justify the conquest and colonization but any and all acts of violence that subsequently emerged."

About 650,000 people come to learn about the Aztecs at the Great Temple every year, 80% of them Mexican, according to the National Institute of Anthropology and History. José María Rosas, a 62-year-old taxi driver in Mexico City, was visiting it for the first time in early November.

"Seeing this is like going back in time, and I'm recognizing that these are my roots," he says. "Who am I as a descendant of the Indigenous people?"

González says he has seen that attitudes toward pre-Hispanic history have changed during his four decades of work at the Great Temple.

"The interest in and importance of all this is growing, to recover and incorporate our pre-Hispanic history into our identity as Mexicans," he says.

And Restall thinks the implications reach even further.

"Misunderstanding and misrepresentation of something like Aztec civilization today can make it easier for us to misunderstand and misrepresent Indigenous peoples of the Americas," he says.

With Mexico's president still insisting on Spain's apology and calling for "reconciliation" with the Spanish over the conquest, it will continue to be present in modern-day Mexico.

Correction Nov. 10, 2019

An earlier version of this story mistakenly referred to Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History as the National Institute of Archeology and History.

• Hernán Cortés
• Spanish conquest
• conquistadors
• Mezoamerican
• Mexican history

Home > University Libraries > CSWR > Spanish Colonial Research Center

Spanish Colonial Research Center

Introduction.

As a way of recognizing our Spanish colonial past in the present-day United States and in commemoration of the Columbus Quincentennial in 1992, the National Park Service established the Spanish Colonial Research Center in 1986 as a partnership with the University of New Mexico. The Spanish Colonial Research Center's primary purpose is to preserve its collection of early Spanish colonial documents and maps and develop finding aids. It employs University of Mexico students interested in learning Spanish Colonial and Mexican National Period paleography. The Spanish Colonial Research Center cooperates with research entities in Spain, Portugal, and Mexico and is a part of the Center for Southwest Research (CSWR) at Zimmerman Library at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Stephen Mandrgoc serves as the Program Coordinator for the conservation of the collection.

The Resources of the Spanish Colonial Research Center

Under the direction of Dr. Joseph P. Sánchez, the Center accumulated over 500,000 pages of microfilmed Spanish colonial documents and approximately 8000 maps, architectural plans, and sketches of colonial North America from primarily 34 archives in Spain, Mexico, Portugal, France, Italy, and the Caribbean. The Center works to compile these collections, which historically reflect significant aspects of our national story, into digital format for public use. In association with the University of New Mexico, the Spanish Colonial Research Center provides opportunities for national and international scholarly exchanges.

The Spanish Colonial Research Center’s database serves researchers interested in the Spanish Colonial period in North American and the early Mexican National Period in the Greater Southwest. Previously, the SCRC has assisted the National Park Service and sister agencies in the interpretation/preservation of its programs, as well as providing a wealth of material for researchers at the University of New Mexico. It has provided the National Park Service parks with Spanish-language translations of wayside exhibits, General Management Plans, brochures, correspondence, and other important services linking our nation’s history to events during the Spanish Colonial period, including a standardized usage of Spanish grammar, syntax, and vocabulary which ensures accessibility for Spanish-speaking visitors at various national parks.

Our Spanish Colonial Heritage

Nearly 22 summers had passed after Christopher Columbus' first voyage in 1492, when Spanish explorers under Juan Ponce de León stood on the shores of Florida and claimed it for Spain. By the middle 1540s other expeditions such as those led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, and Hernando de Soto, had explored from California to Florida. These and other expeditions caught the first glimpse of North America for Europeans in the first half century since the European discovery of the New World. The legacy of the encounter between early Europeans and Native Americans throughout the New World is still with us today.

Spanish colonial exploration, settlement, and development of vast regions of North America are a part of our national story, which has made a major contribution to North America's settlement patterns, law, history, culture, and language. Long before there was a Jamestown, Virginia, or a Plymouth Rock, there was a San Agustin in Florida (1565) and San Juan de los Caballeros in New Mexico (1598). Between 1492 and 1821, the Spanish claim to North America extended from Alaska to Florida and the Caribbean as well as Mexico, Central and South America.

The National Park Service's Spanish Colonial Heritage sites range from Alaska to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and from California to Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas--all areas in North America once claimed by Spain. Among the many historically significant sites in the continental United States are Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, the site visited by Rodríguez Cabrillo, 1543; El Morro National Monument ("Inscription Rock") in New Mexico where early Spanish travelers such as Juan de Oñate (1604) carved their names; St. Augustine established by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (1565) in Florida; and other mission and fortification sites in the greater Southwest and Southeastern states.

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/scrc/

Albuquerque, New Mexico

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Spanish Colonial Research Center Zimmerman Library, University of New Mexico

Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131

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OPERATING HOURS:

The Spanish Colonial Research Center is open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday save for UNM holidays.

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Guide to the Microfilm Collection in the Spanish Colonial Research Center, National Park Service , Joseph Sánchez

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Mexico is a land of extremes, with high mountains and deep canyons in the center of the country, sweeping deserts in the north, and dense rain forests in the south and east.

Mountains cover much of Mexico. Between the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range in the east and the Sierra Madre Occidental in the west lie small mountain ranges on the Central Plateau. These regions are rich with valuable metals like silver and copper.

The stretch of land called the Yucatán Peninsula juts into the Gulf of Mexico from Mexico's southeastern tip. It was once the home of the Maya civilization, an ancient culture whose amazing buildings can still be seen today.

Map created by National Geographic Maps

PEOPLE & CULTURE

Mexico is the product of a rich Native American heritage, three centuries of Spanish rule, and a shared border with the world's richest country, the United States . Today, many Mexicans are mestizos, which means they have a mix of Native American and Spanish blood.

Throughout its history, Mexico has been home to great artists. The Maya and other Native Americans made impressive murals, sculptures, and jewelry. Modern Mexican artists include great painters, photographers, sculptors, and muralists.

Mexicans take sports seriously. In ancient times, losers of a ritual ball game were once put to death. In some dangerous sports, like bullfighting and rodeo (which was invented in Mexico), competitors still put their lives on the line.

Few nations on Earth support as many plant and animal species as Mexico does. Located partway between the Equator and the Arctic Circle, it is a refuge for animals fleeing extreme cold in the north and intense heat in the south.

In northern Mexico, deserts are full of plant and animal species that have found ways to survive the harsh environment. On Mexico's west coast, gray whales swim thousands of miles each year from Alaska to breed in the waters off Baja California .

The rain forests and coastal wetlands of eastern Mexico are home to thousands of tropical plant species and elusive animals like jaguars and quetzal birds.

GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY

Mexico is rich in natural resources, like oil, silver, copper, and agricultural products. Its economy boasts a rich diversity of agricultural crops, highly productive oil fields, a growing manufacturing base, as well as strong trade with the United States and Canada .

The Olmec people, Mexico's first complex society, emerged in the southeastern part of the country around 1200 B.C. They were later followed by the Maya, the Toltec, and the Aztec peoples.

Mexico's ancient societies built great cities and huge pyramids, created remarkable works of art, and even studied the stars and planets to determine when to plant crops and hold ceremonies.

In the early 1500s, the Spanish arrived in Mexico. The Aztec people got sick from smallpox and other diseases that the Spanish brought with them. The Spaniards also seized and destroyed the Aztec capital, called Tenochtilán. The Spanish ruled Mexico until 1821.

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