Malinche: The Voice of a Nation
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meant to evoke ex-voto devotional images from Mexico. Malinche
appears as a beautiful young woman with a demure downcast gaze.
Behind her appear representations o f the conquest, the introduction o f
Christianity, and the violence o f both. It does not deny the horrors o f the
Spanish conquest. Rather, it paints a world where beauty and violence
co-exist.
Mexican author, Laura Esquivel, re-interpreted Malinche to
reclaim positive cultural figures for women. Esquivel observed:
“whoever Controls Information, whoever Controls meaning, acquires
power” (68). She described M alinche’s belief that Cortes was the
reincamation o f a forefather god o f her tribe, detailed their passionate
love affair, and discussed M alinche’s growing realization that Cortes was
willing to sacrifice anything, even their love, in his all too human lust for
power.
According to Adelaida Del Castillo, Professor o f Ethnie Studies
at San Diego State, Chicana feminist discourse began with Malinche and
“continues to be preoccupied with her signification” (Encyclopedia o f
Race and Racism). She wrote that anyone who slanders M alinche
defames Chicana women. She chided Diaz, the chronicler, for making
Malinche a goddess. She insisted that Malinche was a real person, an
actual force in history. She rebuked Carlos Fuentes for misogynistic
reasoning that portrays women as evil and thereby, justifiably in need o f
m ale domination. Del Castillo exeoriated American Novelist M argaret
Shedd for her novel Malinche and Cortes, a work that characterizes
Malinche as a whore and nymphomaniac (Cypess La Malinche 142).
Rolando Romero and Amanda Harris in Feminism, Nation and
Myth, La Malinche, note the plight o f modern Chicanas “whose lives are
characterized by poverty, racism, and sexism, not only in the dominant
culture, but also within their own culture” (15). The Chicano movement
too often assigns them limited roles. These roles include faithful
follower, sexual partner, and nurturing mother. Traditionally Chicanos
belonged to groups; Chicanas belonged to men (Romo 140). These
limited roles are the results o f stereotypes perpetuated by the
heterosexual and patriarchal imagery in Mexican art and literature that
Start with Malinche.
Chicanas challenged the negative view o f Malinche and
constructed an alternative “herstory” o f this important historical figure.
Their Malinche “personifies intellect, ingenuity, adaptability and
leadership” (Koronkiewicz 3). They cast o ff the title o f traitor and see
her as a figure o f valor, an ambassador and strategist. They emphasized