None of these articles are written by actual Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, or other latinxs (who are all underrepresented in media as it is).
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Mexico City is a metaphor and living example of the legacies of always-violent colonization. It's the logical conclusion of conquest.
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Mexico City used to be Lake Texcoco. People started settling near the lake several thousand years ago, building complex cities nearby.
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Prior to colonization, sophisticated aqueducts supplied freshwater from Lake Texcoco to people living in places like Tenochtitlán.
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Tenochtitlán was the capital of the vast Aztec empire; it was essentially an artificial-ish island in Lake Texcoco's shallow end.
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The Aztec empire, like any empire, was not without its faults. But it was built to either benefit or cause little damage to the environment.
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When the Spanish colonized the Aztec, the genocide wasn't only against people, but also culture -- which is synonymous with the environment.
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Keep in mind that colonization is fundamentally about destruction. Part of what the Spanish destroyed was Lake Texcoco itself.
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Because they didn't respect Aztec knowledge about how to control flooding, the Spanish DRAINED THE ENTIRE LAKE. Think about that hubris.
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Even though they were repeatedly warned against doing so by the Aztec, the Spanish built their own capital on what used to be Lake Texcoco.
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The story of how we got Mexico City is relatively recent history. It's the result of violent/foolish colonization, based on racist hatred.
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Look at the buildings that were destroyed in Mexico City *and* the buildings that weren't: Catholic churches damaged. Aztec pyramids intact.
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So many white writers are pointing out that Mexico City was built on soft soil. But they fail to mention that colonization made it that way.
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"Mexico City is like building on Jello!" they write. How did it get that way? Bc Europeans destroyed a lake like they destroyed a people.
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Writing about earthquakes/soft soil/Mexico City without explicitly writing about colonization is a second erasure, a legacy of colonization.
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When your subtext is that Mexicans are dumb/silly for building in Mexico City, you're reifying the violence of colonization.
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*Fellow writers, and white ones especially: please don't steal my thread to write a new article as if you knew this all along. Thank you.
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Thank you for sharing that knowledge! Are there any books that go into greater detail about Texcoco and Mexico City that you recommend?
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I would love to know as well if you don't mind.
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Just now seeing this! Cortéz's letters are really worth a read (I've read them in Spanish but I'm sure they're in English, too).
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Can't think of anything else in English at the moment. Some more in Spanish: Visión de los vencidos. Also, book simply called Tenochtitlán.
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Can't remember the author of that last one, but will get back to you both later

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That's the one! Also, there's a translation of Visión de los vencidos called The Broken Spears (can't speak to how good the translation is).
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