A Nun, an Interpreter and a Revolutionary: Madrinas to Us All
We do not always know their names, but still we hear them whispering in our ears. We do not always speak the same language, nor live in the same century, but they run in our blood like a message of love, an echo of strength.
They may not even call themselves by the same ethnic designation we may choose to use, but they have marked us with their actions, their courage and their stubborn reshaping of history. They are our spiritual foremothers, our historical madrinas , the Latinas who helped make us who we are today.
Thousands of them have shaped our lives and our world - some of these we were lucky enough to know personally - a grandmother, a comadre , a neighborhood activist, a role model - but a significant handful have made an impact that has fundamentally changed the way a society works.
In the next few issues, we will pay tribute to a number of these special Latina historical figures, women with whom we share a commitment, a caring and a concern for our familias and our comunidad as a whole.
1. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
(1651-1695, biographies also report her birth year as 1648)
Literarily and philosophically arguing the concept of feminism 300 years before it became common, this intellectual Mexican poet and writer of the 1600s taught herself to read at age 3, to write at 5 and to speak Latin at 10. As a child, she begged her parents to let her dress as a boy in order to study at the university, but she was refused a formal education because of her sex. Her brilliance attracted the attention of many, and by 15, she was invited to live at Court, sponsored by the Viceroy and Vicereine, who later challenged 40 university professors to subject the 17-year-old to their most stringent oral examinations. She successfully and expertly answered and countered all of their queries, but many enviously argued that a woman could not truly understand the concepts she was debating. Later, she joined a convent, the only practical way in the 17th century for a woman to continue her studies.
Author of the famous lines " Hombres necios, que acuseis ..." (Foolish men who accuse women capriciously. . Why do you expect them to be chaste while you invite them to sin?) Sor Juana spent 23 years at the Convent of San Jerónimo, conducting scientific experiments, publishing poetry and philosophical treatises, and collecting a library of more than 4,000 volumes, but shocked church officials by arguing a women's right to develop her intellect as well as her soul. Her progressive thinking gained her much political and clerical disfavor, and eventually, she was forced to give up her library and her writing instruments. She died of a fever in her early 40s, while nursing fellow nuns during an epidemic.
2. La Malinche
(approx. 1505-1547)
A young Aztec girl sold into slavery for the Mayans, she was eventually given by the Mayans as a "gift" to the Spaniards and soon became the trilingual interpreter, political advisor and lover to Hernán Cortés. Challenging the interpretation of La Malinche as a traitor to her people because of her aid to Cortés in his battle against the Aztecs and her symbolic role as mother of the first mestizo child (Martín Cortés, half Indian and half Spanish), modern feminist analysts have redefined her intellectual position as leader of a new mestizaje , trying to smooth the cultural blending of the two peoples in a time of inevitable chaos and massive loss.
While destructive and ethnocentric colonialism was common in the world at this time, the writings of Cortés and one of his soldiers, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, convey the Spaniards' awe for Mexico City, which lay as a testament to the elegance, beauty and advancement of the Aztec civilization. Yet treatment of the Indians after the conquest was inhumane. (In the century after the arrival of Cortés, the Indians lost nine-tenths of their population, and many Indian women were taken as slaves, sometimes being branded or forced to breed silkworm eggs under their breasts.) Perhaps it was La Malinche's relationship with Cortés and his respect for her intelligence and political astuteness that made him partially aware of what loss lay at risk, and, later in his life, Cortés, along with one of his three sons, worked to have the Court of Spain pass Las Leyes de la Indias , rules to protect the rights of the indigenous peoples. Very little is known about La Malinche's later life, except that she later married another Spaniard, and at one point, traveled to Spain.
3. Mariana Bracetti
(1825-1903)
Born in 1825 in the city of Añasco , Puerto Rico, Mariana Bracetti was courageously committed to her ideals and was a strong believer in women's rights and in the independence of Puerto Rico . Her first marriage was a failure, but her discussions with Miguel Rojas, a coffee plantation owner, soon developed into a strong partnership of ideology and romance. They married, had children and began to transform his plantation, El Triunfo , into the core of the Puerto Rican Republic 's independence conspiracy. Soon, Bracetti was known as the Brazo de Oro (Golden Arm) of the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and was elected the leader of the Lares Revolutionary Council. She designed and knitted the first flag of the future " Republic of Puerto Rico ." In 1868, an army of 800 met at El Triunfo and proceeded to take the town of Lares, placing the banner on the High Altar of the Parish church, making El Grito de Lares and declaring the New Republic of Puerto Rico. The revolution failed and all of the survivors were jailed, including Bracetti. Eighty of the prisoners died in jail, but Bracetti was released in 1869, after the newly elected Spanish Republican Government declared an amnesty.
Carmen Tafolla, Ph.D., is the author of five books of poetry, one volume of nonfiction, seven screenplays, and numerous short stories, articles and children's works. Called "a world-class writer" by "Roots" author Alex Haley, Tafolla has been recognized by the National Association for Chicano Studies for writing that has depicted and given voice to our communities.
Su Conexión:
Sor Juana: www.dartmouth.edu/~sorjuana and "Atlas of Hispanic American History" by George Ochoa
La Malinche: "History of the Conquest of Mexico " by William Prescott and "Diosa y Hembra" by Martha Cotera
Mariana Bracetti: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Bracetti and www.worldhistory.com/wiki/M/Mariana_Bracetti
