Nuevas Voces

Mexican people and their indigenous ancestors have, more than a few times in history, been made to feel like foreigners in their own land. It happened to the Aztecs. It happened to the Kickapoo. And it’s happening now to Dreamers. In this episode we examine this common experience, and how it can illuminate the divisive immigration debate that stems from, in many ways, a failure of many Americans to identify with their own immigrant stories.

https://www.artesmexut.org/part10

Cinco de Mayo is often misunderstood by Americans as Mexico’s 4th of July or Independence Day. It’s not. In fact, Cinco de Mayo might be a bigger deal in the U.S. than it is in Mexico.

https://www.artesmexut.org/part9

Mexico and the United States tend to remember their 1847 conflict, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo very differently. More than 500 thousand square miles of land - which became California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming - became American property. To this day, generally speaking, Mexicans still consider the land unjustly stolen. On the other hand, many Americans still might claim the land was righteously obtained. While art was a powerful tool for convincing American people that conquering the frontier and claiming Mexico's territory was America's divine destiny, art remains an important means for remembering the conflict for both sides.

https://www.artesmexut.org/part8

Every country has its own origin story. Mexico is no different. Just as the United States was born from a war for independence from Great Britain, Mexico, or “New Spain,” also fought and won (sort of), its own war for independence from Spain. This episode explores how Mexican artists Juan O’Gorman and Román Sagredo captured key moments of Mexico's fight for independence.

https://www.artesmexut.org/part7

The Caste system that the Spanish imposed centuries ago still influences Mexicans today. Images of skin color have always mattered. While the "Las Castas" paintings were intended to create social order, the appearance of the Virgin Mary with brown skin helped the Europeans to control indigenous people and convert them to Catholicism. Nonetheless, modern images and art remind us of how Mexican people still grapple with a hurtful legacy of racist ideals and social inequality.

https://www.artesmexut.org/part6

Mexican people today still grapple with the fusion of cultures that resulted from the Spanish Conquest. While the storied romance between Cortez and Malinche, the Aztec woman who served as the Spanish General's translator and lover, remains controversial, many Mexican artists have explored the violent and emotional interpenetration of the Europeans and indigenous in vivid ways.

https://www.artesmexut.org/part5

The Spanish arrival in Mexico forever shaped what Mexico would become, and who Mexican people are. Diego Rivera famously tried to summarize the conquest in a single mural. He portrayed a brutal European power that spread disease, enslaved the indigenous people, but who also gave birth to a new race of people.

https://www.artesmexut.org/part4

The ancient Aztec idol Coatlicue was buried by the Spanish conquerors, only to be later discovered, but reburied, and later recovered again. Why? Was it because she was so mysterious and terrifying? Possibly. Yet, today the Aztec goddess represents a profound combination of feminism and power.

https://www.artesmexut.org/part3

The Aztec people who built the ancient city of Tenochtitlan – now Mexico City – proved themselves a highly competent and advanced civilization. Diego Rivera’s mural that imagines the ancient city at its peak, evokes wonder and pride by Mexican people about who the Aztecs were, and what else they could have achieved.

https://www.artesmexut.org/part2

Early Mesoamerican cultures like the Mayans, the Olmecs, and later the Aztecs remain shrouded in mystery. The Spanish who arrived in the 1500's apparently tried their best to bury and erase these mysteries further. But what’s been discovered indicates they were highly advanced civilizations that were intensely engaged with the cosmos and their living environment. They believed certain actions, like bloodletting or human sacrifice, could advance their world. But were their human sacrifice practices really any more strange or barbaric than other traditional notions of sacrifice?

https://www.artesmexut.org/part1