Mexico has launched a government-led effort to vindicate the life and legacy of a woman known as ‘La Malinche’, who has long been branded a traitor for her role as interpreter to the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes during the conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521.
President Claudia Sheinbaum unveiled a program called “Mujeres del maiz” that will run from October through December 2025 and include public events, scholarly fora, and cultural presentations aimed at “revalorizing, recognizing, and vindicating” Malintzin, known variously as Marina to the Spanish and Malinche or Malintzin in Indigenous languages, officials said. According to a presidential statement, the program brings together the Secretariat of Culture, the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, and the Secretariat of Women to study and present new perspectives on Malinche and other Indigenous women, past and present.
“We are going to vindicate her differently, not only her but all Indigenous women of before, now and after,” Sheinbaum said in a morning press conference, the government statement said. According to that release, scheduled events include a public performance of the “Danza de la Malinche” at the Zocalo on Oct. 12, a forum titled “Who is Malintzin?” at the Zocalo book fair on Oct. 19, and a Nov. 27 international colloquium at Mexico’s Palace of Fine Arts.
Mexico’s decision to vindicate La Malinche shows a shift in how the country approaches historical figures
The move marks a high-profile shift in how Mexico is approaching one of its most divisive historical figures. For five centuries, La Malinche has borne the weight of a national myth, a woman at once central to the birth of modern Mexico and vilified as the archetypal traitor whose words helped topple the Aztec empire. The new initiative represents an official effort to replace that narrative with scholarship and cultural recognition that foregrounds context, coercion, and survival.
Scholars who study the conquest of Mexico say the historical record complicates the simple label of traitor. Born around 1500 in the Gulf coastal region, Malinche spoke Nahuatl and an Olmec language and later learned Maya dialects; she was sold into slavery to Maya captors and ultimately presented to the Spaniards after a military victory. Historian Camilla Townsend of Rutgers University told Spanish newspaper El Pais, “Malinche was at their mercy as a victim,” and that “she saved her own life really by choosing to translate.”
Those choices, historians say, placed her in impossible situations. She was a bridge between worlds while living under force. Spanish chroniclers recorded her role standing before Moctezuma in Tenochtitlan and helping to mediate communications between Cortes and Indigenous rulers. Some sources suggest she helped prevent bloodshed in particular instances, while other outcomes of the conquest were catastrophic for Indigenous peoples. According to El Pais, Townsend and others note that labeling her a traitor ignores the fractious political landscape of 16th-century Mesoamerica, where some Indigenous groups allied with the Spaniards against their local enemies.
La Malinche’s legacy has been widely misrepresented in modern times
The political and cultural baggage attached to Malinche has deepened in modern times. According to El Pais and literary historians cited in their coverage, an anonymously published 1826 novel recast her as a scheming seductress, and 20th-century intellectual Octavio Paz cemented the image in his influential book The Labyrinth of Solitude, calling her a symbol of betrayal. The adjective “malinchista,” derived from her name, remains a pejorative in Mexican Spanish for someone who favors foreign things over their own.
Yet Indigenous communities and some scholars have long maintained more complex memories. Many Indigenous traditions continued to honor Malinche as volcanoes and traditional dances bear her name, and girls in some towns are still named or selected to represent her in ritual performances. Aguilar has characterized Malinche as “a native woman who moved from being a slave to being respected and honored by society in her time.”
The government initiative also dovetails with new publishing efforts to reexamine historical villains. A new series by the publisher Critica includes a fresh biography of La Malinche by historian Ursula Camba Ludlow that situates her life in the context of slavery, regional warfare, and the social norms of her era. The project’s editors said they hoped to give readers fuller portraits of controversial historical figures, allowing for judgment informed by more historical detail.
For Sheinbaum’s administration, the reassessment is explicitly political and cultural. The presidential statement framed the program as part of a larger push to elevate Indigenous languages and rights: the morning presentation included the reading of a women’s rights booklet translated into 35 Indigenous tongues, the statement said.