2025 marks 1,200 years since the founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan in the Valley of Mexico. On March 13, 1325, a small island on Lake Texcoco became the home of what was to become the great Mexica-Aztec Empire.
The founding was based on a vision that described the designated place as having an eagle perched on a Nopal plant devouring a serpent. That image is the central part that dominates the view on the Mexican flag.
President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo has proclaimed 2025 as the year of the indigenous woman. That decision has brought to the forefront questions about the role La Malinche played in the Spanish conquest of the Empire.
La Malinche also known as Malinalli, Malintzin and Dona Marina was born to Nahuatl nobility in the Yucatan peninsula in 1500, during a period when both the Aztec and the Mayan Empires were vying for control of the area. Evidently her family was on the losing side of a political struggle and at the age of 8 Malinalli was sold into slavery.
It is in the peninsula city of Pontonchan that in 1519 she was given along with other women to Hernan Cortes and his men who were on their way to Veracruz where they were to begin the conquest of the Aztec Empire.
Because of her noble birth and education Malinalli was versed in Mayan, Nahuatl, high Nahuatl and soon learned Spanish under the tutelage of one of the Spanish priests. She became most useful to Cortes as an interpreter, especially in her ability to speak high Nahuatl that was the language of Aztec nobility.
As the primary interpreter, Malinalli had the power to affect the course of Spanish history in America. Because she did not use this power to benefit Cortes’ adversaries she was judged as a traitor to her people.
She became “La Malinche” a pejorative take on her name that Octavio Paz in the Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) cites as the mother of a rootless Mexican with a confused past and identity. She was also branded “La Llorona,” the wailing mother that searches in the wind for the children she lost to destiny.
However, women voices have risen to defend Malintzin’s struggle to overcome her condition as a slave in the middle of a historic moment that was the Conquest. Among those voices is that of Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel of Agua Con Chocolate (1989) fame that in her novel Malinche (2006) humanizes the character and presents her as a victim of circumstance.
To her defense also comes author Veronica Chapa and her novel Malinalli (2025). It is important to note that Chapa is a Mexican American from Chicago. She sees Malinalli as a complex character that history has somewhat misunderstood. Taught by her grandmother the story of Quetzalcoatl Topiltzin’s promise to return on his birthday, Malinalli believed that Hernan Cortes was that returning god and endeavored to do everything she could to help Cortes (Quetzalcoatl) regain his throne as god of the Nahuatl people.
As time goes on, Malinalli begins to realize that Cortes is all too human and all too willing to sacrifice those closest to him in his effort to gain the riches and power that the Empire offers. She eventually achieves her freedom, marries into Spanish nobility and has Mestizo children.
The issue of Identity because of conquest and cultural duality has haunted not only the Mexican but also the Chicano in America. Like Octavio Paz, Esquivel and Chapa’s recapitulation of history in this regard seek the same answers.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of LaVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to News@lavozcolorado.com.
