Taking Back The Narrative

The style and themes present in this piece present a contrasting argument to both, The Siege of Tenochtitlan painting and the Road to El Dorado movie as it represents the Indigenous side of the story in the visual language and materials used in Aztec artwork. The work displayed at the Douglass Library was a digital copy of the original piece made with the same techniques and materials used by the Mexica to make codexes. By mimicking the ancient style, she evokes a sense of tradition and heritage that was lost because of the European intrusion. The artist pictures a map of part of North and Central America with the seas painted blue around the tan land lined by black lines. The texture of the amate paper is visible throughout the piece. The west coast shines with a golden outline, symbolizing the riches the Spaniards desired. The current border between Mexico and the United States is also black, referencing the current issues Mexican people face. Rodriguez paints the Spanish ship close to the shore as well as key moments of Malinche’s story marking the location of each event on the map. She can be identified by the white clothing she wears in every scene. Her expression also is unchanged, with the eyes facing down in a submissive manner representing her life as an enslaved Indigenous woman meant to serve a European man. In the same map Rodriguez tells the story of colonialism she talks about current events marked by the US-Mexico border. She only divides the United States from Latin America and no other borders between Hispanic countries were defined, suggesting the connection between colonialism and current issues of immigration and xenophobia faced by Latinos. Native species of plants and animals in traditional styles are also mapped throughout the piece.