EASy Lesson: Race and class in colonial Latin America

In my face to face World History classes I have often used Jose Clement Orozco's 1926 mural, Cortes y Malinche, 1926, to describe the origins of mestizo racial classification and culture in Mexico and Latin America (image at right, courtesy of the American Historical Association). I projected the image and students examined it. After some discussion of the image I introduced the word mestizo and students wrote a definition into their notes. Sometimes I have combined this with an experiential exercise in which students took positions in various pyramids--seated on the floor, seated in desks or seated on desks--to simulate continuity and change in Mexican social structure. While the art critique appealed to visual students and the simulation was more kinesthetic and interactive both are activities in which students absorb content. I discovered both of these lessons in the Teachers' Curriculum Institute's original world history unit on Modern Latin America in the mid-1990s. Their latest materialsI aim to develop a lesson to meet this bench mark from the current Minnesota Social Studies Standards: "Describe the interactions and negotiations between Americans (Mayans, Aztecs, Incas) and European explorers, as well as the consequences." The learning target pursuant to this bench mark will be for students to create a written interpretation of artistic renderings of colonial Latin American ideas about race. Students will write a two-paragraph analysis of the visual representations of racial ideas that is supported with evidence in the form of paintings. In addition to the Orozco mural students will examine Casta paintings from the colonial era that illustrate racial categorization schemes. The myriad racial categorizations illustrated in the paintings demonstrate how racialization was more complex in Latin America than in British America, but, similarly, was a vehicle for white supremacy.I have deepened the original assignment for two reasons. First, as mentioned above I am looking to include more Latin American content in my World History course. Moving the course online presents an opportunity to make these types of adjustments. Second, the new lesson takes advantage of e-learning to push students toward more critical understandings of the images. The extended wait time of forum conversations and students ability to easily juxtapose writing and text online, both facilitate deeper inquiry into the images.

Reflection: I was very happy with this lesson initially, but I made one significant change to it based on instructor feedback. I added to the synthesize component by instructing students to make comparisons to visual representations of racial identities in today's world. I think this was a very useful suggestion because making that extra connection should make their understanding of the historical content more secure. I also added elaborations explaining how each of the three components of the online versions represent evaluation, analysis, and synthesis. This, I hope, clarifies my reasoning for developing the lesson.