Alfredo ramos martinez la malinche biography
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Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche
Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche examines the historical and cultural legacy of La Malinche and her representation throughout the years. Malinche was an enslaved Indigenous girl who served as a translator and cultural interpreter for the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, eventually becoming his mistress and the mother of Cortés’ first-born son. She played a key role in the transactions, negotiations, and conflicts between the Spanish and the Indigenous populations of Mexico that impacted the course of global politics for centuries to come.
While Malinche has been the subject of numerous historical publications and works of art, Traitor, Survivor, Icon is the first museum exhibition to present a comprehensive visual exploration of Malinche’s enduring impact on communities living on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Five hundred years after her death, her image and legacy remain relevant to conversations ar
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Who Was La Malinche?
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The main players in the Spanish–Aztec War (–21) are well known: Hernán Cortés and Montezuma. Lesser-known, though no less important, is a brilliant and multilingual exiled Aztec woman who was enslaved, then served as a guide and interpreter, then became Cortés&#;s mistress. She was known as Doña Marina, Malintzin, and more widely as La Malinche.
There&#;s little comprehensive documentation about La Malinche. What historians know has been stitched together through mentions of her in various contemporary writings. While Cortés himself referred to her just briefly in his letters, and only identified her as an interpreter, scholar Cordelia Candelaria writes in Frontiers:
her paramount value to the Spaniards was not merely linguistic&#;She was an interpreter/liaison who served as a guide to the region, as an advisor on native customs and beliefs, and as a competent strategist.
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MEXICO, MONTEREY, MEXICO CITY, COYOACAN AND THE ACADEMY
MONTERREY, MÉXICO, COYOACÁN Y LA ACADEMIA
Through countless golden afternoons and well into silvery moonlit evenings, Alfredo Ramos Martinez would wander through Coyoacan, gazing up at its bell towers, strolling through its plazas and narrow streets, all the while taking in the geometry of the huge stones of the walls, the adobe walls, and the rounded cobblestones. After making numerous quick sketches, he would return home to transform his studies into watercolor compositions. This sixteenth century Coyoacan, with its churches and open markets of fruit and flower stalls can be seen in Ramos Martinez’s early works.
Ramos’ friend, the Mexican poet, painter and translator, José Juan Tablada contended years later in his memoir, La Feria de la Vida (“The Festival of Life,” ) that these watercolors were among the first artistic manifestations of a revolutionary art, originating as they did, in the observations