In Praise of Her Twisted Tongue

Reflections on history while writing my novel, American Hero. 

Shakira or Malinche

Ah, Malinche, or Malinalli, or Malintzin, or Doña Marina. No matter what name you use, no matter what mask you put on—Mayan, Aztec, Spaniard, Mestizo, slave, soldier, translator, traitor—how they hate you, how they abuse you, how they just don’t get you.

But I do.

We met at a party at Laura Esquivel’s house. The Mexican author of Como aqua para chocolate wanted to show you off. You were charming, shy, girlish, and, behind those liquid eyes, you had secrets.

Did you really love Cortez? For conquering the Aztecs with a few hundred men, he’s even more vilified than you. You know, he never got a statue for pigeons to baptize? Well, he did invade Mexico illegally. And, he ransacked Tenochtitlan and completely annihilated the city he called “the most beautiful in the world.” Oh, and he cruelly subjected any Indians not lucky enough to die from small pox to slavery, torture, humiliation, and other fates worse than death.

Cortez used the age-old Get Out Of Hell Free card by claiming his atrocities were committed in the name of God. All good Catholics know that Jesus came with a sword, not a basket of Welcome to the Neighborhood muffins.

But were the Aztecs great humanitarians? Ask those on line at their gut-wrenching ride, Heartripperouter. During one crazy Memorial Day weekend they dedefibrillated over 80,000 lucky contestants at the rate of 14 per minute. The streets of Tenochtitlan flooded with a river of human blood you could actually row a boat through.

Now the Incas didn’t do this. The Mayans didn’t do this. Even the Aztecs didn’t do this when their golden boy Emperor Quetzalcoatl ruled the roost about five hundred years earlier. In fact, old Feathered Serpent replaced humans with hummingbirds (!Ahw!) on the sacrificial hot seat. Of course, Q-coatl was banished for being soft on psycho killers, and things were brought back to normal with a reviving blood bath (good for the skin).

Into this world only Dexter could love comes young Malinche, a Mayan made a slave at age 4 and probably fast-tracked at Sacrificial Victims Academy. Since Child Services was not available, she ran away (somehow) and ended up with the Aztec version of Lost’s the Others, the Tlaxacans. That’s when Cortez came calling.

But helping the enemy of her enemy did not give me a histo-crush on Malintzin Tenépal, which in Mayan means “Woman With Tongue Made Of Twisted Grass” (trying fitting that on Twitter).

The reason I think modern day Latinos, especially Latinas, should give the chica her props is this: she kicked butt. She made her own decisions. She hated the Aztecs and wanted them dead, like a true Tarantino chick. (Not to totally dis the Aztecs, they had some good qualities, hot cocoa, I think). This was a respected woman. She married a Spanish officer and had a son (by Cortez—hey, it’s good to be the conquistador in charge) who was the first mestizo we know of and who’s family line became prominent in Mexico even today.

Malinche mothered a new race: Spanish-Indians.

Her life set a precedent of cultural blending—in contrast to the apartheid-happy English who couldn’t tolerate the Irish, much less anything that came in a shade darker than Navajo White.

Doña Marina counted us off to that crazy mambo of social, religious, musical, lingual, culinary jambalaya that is the modern Hispanic world.

There is a direct line from Malinalli to Shakira—not bad company to be in, especially at the Congo Room after a couple of mojitos.

So, mija Malinche, estoy enamorado. I’ll take your tongue any day, no matter how twisted.