Who is La Malinche?
La Malinche (c.1496 – c.1529, some sources give 1551), known also as Malintzin and Doña Marina, was an Indigenous woman (almost certainly Nahua) from the Mexican Gulf Coast, who accompanied Hernán Cortés and played an active and powerful role in the Spanish conquest of Mexico, acting as interpreter, advisor and intermediary. She was also a mistress to Cortés and bore him a son, who is considered one of the first Mestizos (people of mixed European and indigenous American ancestry). In Mexico today, La Malinche remains iconically potent, seen in various and often conflicting aspects, including the embodiment of treachery, the quintessential victim, or simply as symbolic mother of the new Mexican people. She is often referred to by the pejorative term “La Chingada”. As cited by Wikipedia, for the rest of the story see included address.
