The Mexican interpreter La Malinche was also known as Marina or Malintzin. She was born on the Gulf Coast in 1500, and over the centuries has been depicted as many things—a temptress, a schemer, a duplicitous scoundrel, but also a victim and the mother of modern Mexico. She was a native of Tabasco, and during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire she was enslaved along with 20 other women. Thanks to her quick wit she soon became an advisor to Hernán Cortés, the enemy conquistador, and then his consort, giving birth to his son Martin, one of the first children of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry. This museum exhibition, the first dedicated La Malinche, covers her 500-year legacy. —Elena Clavarino

Travels to: the Albuquerque Museum (June 11 – September 4)