In the sixteenth century, Spanish exploration of the New World set off a series of events that involved vicious conquests, religious domination, and ethnic discrimination of Native people. Following these conquests, what was left of the Native population was subjected to colonialism, where European superiority and exploitation lived on. Even after gaining independence, prejudice and belittlement of Native Americans continued throughout nineteenth century Latin America and onward. Each of the four films touch on a specific era of Native and European contact, but they differ in terms of portraying the effects of colonialism.
The Spanish conquest of the New World set the stage for the perpetual domination and discrimination of Native Americans. The film La Otra Conquista highlights this domination with the
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As seen in the film, the Spanish were implementing the idea of “cultural orphanage.” In order to fully dominate the Natives, it was necessary for the Spanish to destroy their entire identity and what they valued to replace it with their own. Having no family, home, language, history, or religion made it easier to subjugate the Natives (Carrasco, 167). This physical and spiritual domination is seen through the experiences of the Native scribe named Topiltzin. His family is killed, his history is destroyed, and he has to endure the trauma of trying to maintain his Aztec identity while resisting the forces of Christianity. However, instead of converting completely to Christianity, Topiltzin draws upon the parallels between the two faiths and the idea of transculturation occurs. The symbol of the Virgin Mary merged with the Aztec Mother Goddess created a brand new symbol: the Virgin of Guadalupe, who is still an extremely profound figure throughout Latin America. Through transculturation, Topiltzin’s faith was not diminished but creating something new and distinctive to save