Reckoning with History

History is learned from books, speeches, films, or passed down from generation to generation via spoken story. This exhibit features print media from and across the Latin American and Caribbean world pre-dating 1920. These historical narratives are often written by the “victors;” thus, they shape our understanding of how we, as researchers, understand their impact in building a cultural and political identity. The stories and events in the items selected in this thematic category of the exhibit provide a look into the implications of the historical writings of the 19th and early 20th-century Latin America and Caribbean, as they formed ideas of national identity and culture. These books provide readers with an inside gaze of how communities and nations of Latin America and the Caribbean used text as a vehicle to incite and fortify political communities and national sentiments. This, in turn, enables us to look at these texts in the context of national, political, religious, and community assemblages.

In this section you will read a broad range of topics all dealing with national identity and culture in their own way. We present analysis and photos of archived texts regarding the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés, religious texts recounting the lives of saints, and ethnographies of indigenous language and culture. Now, from here we welcome you to explore how political, religious, and cultural ethnographies shape identity.