Early Modern Period: Nonfiction, Jesuit Relations
Thwaites, Ruben, ed. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. Vol. 19, Quebec: Hurons, 1640. Clark, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange, 2005.

This excerpt comes from a 1639 letter written by Mother Marie de Saint Joseph, a French Ursuline nun in Canada. The letter is part of the Jesuit Relations, a collection of official yearly reports on the progress of Catholic missionary efforts based on the first-hand accounts of field... [more]

Health in Latin America: Official Document, Women’s Status (Latin America)
Organization of American States (OAS). Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on the Status of Women in the Americas, Washington DC, 1998.

The right to life is a basic prerequisite to definitions of the right to live a healthy life. However, because of violence against women and various other stringent challenges to their daily lives, neither women’s health nor their daily lives are fully secure.

This... [more]

Health in Latin America: Committee Hearing, Sterilization (Peru)
U.S. Congress. House. Peruvian Population Control Program, Hearing before the Subcommittee on the International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations, 105th Cong., 2nd sess., Feb. 25, 1998, 52-55.

Eugenics, defined as controlled human reproduction based on notions of desirable and undesirable populations or genotypes, have gained attention predominantly in the context of European fascist regimes that aimed at eliminating or controlling populations. Hitler’s campaign to eliminate Jews is... [more]

Health in Latin America: Newspaper, Domestic Violence (Brazil)
“Brazilian machismo gives way to husband beating: Soaring numbers of men seek help at abuse shelters in Rio.” National Post, July 28, 2003.

Domestic violence is hardly a new topic in the global history of gender relations. Scholars and counselors have long been familiar with responses to domestic violence, ranging from emergency hotlines and family counseling to restraining orders placed on abusive spouses or partners. However, the... [more]

Health in Latin America: Law, Maternity Leave (Cuba)
Randall, Margaret, Appendix in Women in Cuba: Twenty Years Later, Smyrna Press, 1981.

Motherhood and the many requirements that come with it provide a good starting point for analysis of women’s need for protection, on the one hand, and the limits on women’s decision-making imposed in protective legislation, on the other. When women entered the labor market, it became necessary to... [more]

Health in Latin America: Interview, Abortion Rights (Chile)
“Foreword: Interview with Carmen.” June 5, 1996. In Women Behind Bars: Chile’s Abortion Laws, A Human Rights Analysis. Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, The Open Forum on Reproductive Health and Rights. New York, 1998.

As a topic of discussion in the United States, abortion has long raised red flags. Not surprisingly, it is hardly a neutral subject in other national settings. Yet, apart from questions about the origin of life and legal questions about abortion rights, there are other dimensions to the history of... [more]

Health in Latin America: Personal Account, Prostitution (Mexico)
Colimoro, Claudia. “A prostitute’s election campaign.” In Compañeras: Voices from the Latin American Women’s Movement. Edited by Gaby Keippers. Latin America Bureau; London, 1992.

As a popular saying and historical reality suggest, prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. On one level, the topic of prostitution is connected to a set of moral-ethical considerations. On a different level, however, it is necessary to address prostitution from a health and human rights... [more]

Health in Latin America: Interview, Reproductive Rights (Brazil)
Teles, Maria A.. “A feminist perspective on power and population control.” In Compañeras: Voices from the Latin American Women’s Movement. Edited by Gaby Keippers. Latin America Bureau; London, 1992.

In the 1950s, when the first contraceptive pills were tested in Puerto Rico, politicians, health administrators, and Church officials worldwide began to discuss human reproduction in new ways. The understanding that pregnancy could be prevented by “scientific” means stimulated debates on the... [more]

Health in Latin America: Interview, Violence Against Women (Uruguay)
Repetto, Lady E.. “Women against violence against women.” In Compañeras: Voices from the Latin American Women’s Movement. Edited by Gaby Keippers. Latin America Bureau; London, 1992.

Violence against women may take place within families as well as in settings outside of the domestic environment. Policy makers, academics, and activists have long sought to identify root causes of violence. These efforts have included strategies to help the victims of violence and to terminate... [more]

Health in Latin America: Personal Account, Education (Honduras)
Ramirez, Francisca. “It all depends on the teacher.” In Latin American Women: The Meek Speak Out. Edited by June H. Turner. International Educational Development, Inc., 1980.

Access to education and the willingness to learn are crucial ingredients to improve the health of women throughout the world. Good health depends on an understanding of the human body, but also requires the knowledge to maintain a healthy lifestyle. However, access to that knowledge is often... [more]

Puerto Rican Labor Movement: Official Document, Women's Employment
Manning, Caroline. "The Employment of Women in Puerto Rico," Bulletin of the Women's Bureau, No. 118. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1934, p. 20.

The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a New Deal response to the Depression to stabilize and energize the economy of the United States. One function of the NRA was to set industry standards for products, production methods, and wages. The codes developed for U.S. garment workers were... [more]

Puerto Rican Labor Movement: Quantitative Evidence, 1920-1940 Census
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth census of the United States taken in the year 1920, Volume IV, Population, Occupations Report. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1921-1923.; U.S. Bureau of the Census. Censo de Puerto Rico: 1935: Poblacion y agricultura. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1938.; U.S. Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth census of the United States taken in the year 1940. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941-1943.

The census of the population is an important source for the study of women in society. Comparing census data over long periods of time allows us to see changes in patterns. This data shows, for example, that the number of women in the workforce almost doubled from 1920 to 1940, and also that the... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Letter, Hernán Cortés
Cortés, Hernán. Hernán Cortés to Emperor Carlos V., 1522. In Hernán Cortés: Letters from Mexico. Translated and edited by Anthony Pagden, 72-74. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986.

This excerpt from Cortés’s Second Letter, written to Charles V in 1519 and first published in 1522, is one of only two instances in Cortés’s letters to the King that explicitly mentions his indigenous translator. The letters represent eyewitness accounts of the conquistadors’ deeds and... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Personal Account, Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal. Chap. 22-23 in The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, 1517-1521. 1585. Translated by A. P. Maudsley. New York: The Noonday Press, 1965.

Perhaps the most famous 16th-century portrayal of doña Marina, this description is also the most extensive from the period. Díaz del Castillo claims she was beautiful and intelligent, she could speak Nahuatl and Maya. Without doña Marina, he says, the Spaniards could not have understood the... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Painting, Mexican Manuscript
“Cortés Greets Xicotencatl.” Mid-16th century. Detail from Lienzo de Tlaxcala. Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas, Austin.

A detail from a larger manuscript page in the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, this scene was created by an indigenous painter in central Mexico. Scenes from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, now just fragments from a larger set of images, draw upon preconquest painting techniques and conventions.... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Painting, Florentine Codex
Malinche Translating from Palace Roof Top. Pigment/ink on paper ca. 1570-1585. In Book 12, Chap. 18 of Florentine Codex, Bernardino de Sahagún et al., Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Italy.

This image was created by an indigenous painter in central Mexico and accompanies a written description of the conquest of Tenochtitlan, penned in both Spanish and Nahuatl in the Florentine Codex. The Florentine Codex is one of the fullest Nahuatl descriptions of the conquest.... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Nonfiction, Florentine Codex (Spanish)
Bernardino de Sahagún. “Of how the Spaniards entered Moteucçoma’s private home, and what happened there.” Book 12, Chap. 18, p.125 in Florentine Codex. ca. 1570-1585. In We People Here. Translated and edited by James Lockhart. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993.

This chapter from the Florentine Codex, a bilingual encyclopedia of central Mexican life and history was created by the Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún and indigenous advisors, painters and scribes. Nahuatl and Spanish texts appear side by side, and are accompanied by the image... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Nonfiction, Florentine Codex (Nahuatl)
Bernardino de Sahagún. “Of how the Spaniards entered Moteucçoma’s private home, and what happened there.” Book 12, Chap. 18, p.124, 126 in Florentine Codex. ca. 1570-1585. In We People Here. Translated and edited by James Lockhart. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993.

This chapter from the Florentine Codex, a bilingual encyclopedia of central Mexican life and history, was created by the Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún and indigenous advisors, painters and scribes. Nahuatl and Spanish texts appear side by side, and are accompanied by an image... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Painting, The Dream of Malinche
Ruíz, Antonio. El sueño de la Malinche [“The Dream of Malinche”]. Oil on canvas, 11 7/8 x 15 3/4”. Galería de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City, 1939.

This painting, by a Mexican artist engaged with the international movement of Surrealism, represents a slumbering Malinche; her body serves as the ground supporting an unnamed Mexican community and church. This image evokes certain female earth deities known to the Aztecs, and it sustains the... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Nonfiction, Octavio Paz
Paz, Octavio. “The Sons of Malinche.” Chap. 4 in The Labyrinth of Solitude and The Other Mexico. Translated by Lysander Kemp, et al. New York: Grove Press, 1985.

This essay, which seeks to explain modern Mexican sensibilities by examining the phrases “hijos de la chingada” and “malinchista,” presents La Malinche as violated woman—part victim, part traitor to her nation. In Paz’s words, the Mexican people (the sons of Malinche), “have... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Poem, La Malinche
Tafolla, Carmen. “La Malinche.” 1978. In Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature. Edited by Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana Rivero. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993. First published 1978 in Canto al Pueblo: Anthology of Experiences by Texas: Penca Books.

A well-known Chicana poem about Malinche. Tafolla took inspiration from the famous 1967 poem of the Chicano movement, “Yo Soy Joaquín,” but rewrites from an explicitly feminist perspective. The poem addresses the scene of European colonization, charting Malinche’s fate—as conquered... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Poem, Como Duele
Sosa-Riddell, Adaljiza. “Como Duele.” 1973. In Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature. Edited by Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana Rivero. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993. First published in El Grito, Berkeley, CA.

One of the earliest meditations on Malinche and her meaning published by a Chicana in the United States. This narrative explores Malinche’s fate and her abilities to negotiate difficult and competing cultural demands. It also grapples with the violence of colonization—in history, in Mexico and... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Painting, Santa Barraza
Barraza, Santa. “La Malinche.” Oil paint on metal, 8 x 9”. Private Collection (USA), 1991.

A representation of Malinche painted by a renowned Chicana visual artist and teacher from Texas. It depicts the beautiful, life-giving Malintzin, is a tiny image, crafted on metal, and meant to evoke ex-voto and other devotional images from Mexico. Malinche appears as a beautiful young... [more]

Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Sculpture, Jimmie Durham
Durham, Jimmie. Malinche, Wood, cotton, snakeskin, watercolor, polyester, metal. approx. 66 x 22 x 35”. Museum van Hedenaagse Kunst, Ghent, 1988-1991.

A sculpted figure by an internationally-recognized Native American activist, writer and visual artist. The materials chosen by Jimmie Durham create an image of Malinche that seems emptied of life and perhaps not fully human. He stresses the darker underside of Malinche’s history. Her face is... [more]

Puerto Rican Labor Movement: Quantitative Evidence, 1940 Census
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth census of the United States taken in the year 1940. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941-1943.

This particular census table describes the types of jobs done by men and women. It illustrates how roles are assigned on a gendered basis. After the Great Depression of 1929, the world economy was in crisis. The United States promoted agriculture to improve the economy and the lives of its... [more]

Health in Latin America: Table, Life Histories (Chile)
Bosch, Anna E., “Popular Education, Work Training, and the Path to Women’s Empowerment in Chile.” Appendix in Comparative Education Review, 42/2 (May 1998): 163-182.

Women all over the world may undergo life-course transitions from daugtherhood to motherhood, a great similarity that shapes their lives due to what is perhaps the biological difference that most distinguishes women from men: their childbearing capacity. The circumstances under which... [more]

Gender and Race in Colonial Latin America: “‘The Most Vile Atrocities’: Accusations of Slander Against María Cofignie, Parda Libre (Louisiana, 1795)”
Hanger, Kimberly S. “‘The Most Vile Atrocities’: Accusations of Slander Against María Cofignie, Parda Libre (Louisiana, 1795),” in Richard Boyer and Geoffrey Spurling, eds., Colonial Lives: Documents in Latin American History, 1550-1850, (Oxford University Press, 2000), 269-278.

Gender and Race in Colonial Latin America: “Scandal at the Church: José de Alfaro Accuses Doña Theresa Bravo and Others of Insulting and Beating His Castiza Wife, Josefa Cadena (Mexico, 1782)”
Rivera, Sonya Lipsett. “Scandal at the Church: José de Alfaro Accuses Doña Theresa Bravo and Others of Insulting and Beating His Castiza Wife, Josefa Cadena (Mexico, 1782),” in Richard Boyer and Geoffrey Spurling, eds., Colonial Lives: Documents in Latin American History, 1550-1850, (Oxford University Press, 2000), 216-23.

Gender and Race in Colonial Latin America: “Don Manuel Valdivieso y Carrión Protests the marriage of His Daughter to Don Teodoro Jaramillo, a Person of Lower Social Standing (Quito, 1784-85)”
Büschges, Christian. “Don Manuel Valdivieso y Carrión Protests the marriage of His Daughter to Don Teodoro Jaramillo, a Person of Lower Social Standing (Quito, 1784-85),” in Richard Boyer and Geoffrey Spurling, eds., Colonial Lives: Documents in Latin American History, 1550-1850, (Oxford University Press, 2000), 224-235

Puerto Rican Labor Movement: Photograph, Needleworker
Martínez-Vergne, Teresita. Shaping the Discourse on Space: Charity and Its Wards in Nineteenth-Century San Juan, Puerto Rico. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1999.

This photograph illustrates a home needleworker in the streets of San Juan around 1903. At this time, and afterwards, almost all needlework was done at home. Working at home allowed women to negotiate their own contracts with agents, who commissioned certain types and styles of work. In the best... [more]

Puerto Rican Labor Movement: Official Document, Police Letter
"Re: Strikes." Memorandum to the Governor of Puerto Rico. July 15, 1936.

This letter documents the government's continued concern about women striking, as the Chief of Police for the Island reports new labor strike figures to the Governor. In this case, 638 women working as tobacco strippers went on strike. Also on strike were 300 sugarcane workers, most likely... [more]