Malintzin/La Malinche/Doña Marina: re-reading the myth of the treacherous translator

Abstract

Who is La Malinche/Doña Marina/Malintzin? La Malinche has long symbolized the conquest of the Mexican Indians by Europeans: of invaluable service to the Spaniards, a traitor to her own people. Retracing the construction of her portrayal over time amounts to a paradigm of translation. Varying contexts and interpretations from different periods have assigned her attributes that are positive or negative, sometimes inflating, sometimes deflating her importance. In this article I undertake a re-reading of the myth of La Malinche in writings extending from those of Hernán Cortés to the works of Chicana authors such as Norma Alarcón, Sandra Messinger Cypess, Lucha Corpi, Carmen Tafolla and Gloria Anzaldúa. Through the reinterpretation of numerous texts written by both men and women and ranging from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries, the aim of the article is to recover a significant figure in the history of translation. The polyhedral portrayal that has built up around La Malinche reopens the debate about the implications of the various gender-related labels ascribed to her over time.