Step 3: Secondary Source Analysis (A.K.A. Irina Word Vomits For the Length of Three Posts)

Time to respond to some of the awesome (and hard!) things Jane posited in her reply to my last post about the very strange Haniel Long.  She said:

“Your observation about Long’s inability to represent Malinche as an entity distinct from Cortes is terrific. Perhaps you could explore these ideas in your next post? What’s so weird about the way Long imagines Malinche?”

I’ve been reading a lot about views of Malinche in myth and literature this week (more work for Professor Ewing!)  I actually was in the research library on 5th Ave today feeling very studious (and sick) while thinking a lot about Malinche and the Chicana feminist movement.  I have a feeling my next few posts will talk about the Chicano/a movement a lot, so I will explain it briefly.

Step 2: Primary Source Analysis.

So Professor Ewing keeps assigning work that matches up perfectly with what Jane and I are trying to accomplish in our tutorial.  How fascinating!  My next step, after the bibliography from my last post, was to analyze one of my primary source documents.  I actually went a little wild and crazy and decided that Haniel Long's 1939 La Malinche (Dona Marina) totally counted as a primary source:

"Both parts of La Malinche speak to the main goal of my research paper, to analyze the historical exile of Malintzin: Long is at once an interpreter of history and a literary writer and therefore supplies an important view of Malintzin in two seemingly separate scholarly spheres.  Long’s opinions on Malintzin certainly must be viewed as historical evidence and not as a secondary source: They illustrate a view of Malintzin not during her own time, but in a time when she was being remembered by history for very specific reasons."

(A quote from the paper I handed in.)

I'm currently having a lot of issues with Long, and I think that is because I can't seem to separate the feeling of weirdness about the book from my analysis of it.  I found it during one of those preliminary searches in the Bard Library catalog.  "Malinche" being in the title brought me to a hidden section somewhere on the second or third floor of the library where I pulled out a very tiny, old book.  I was pulling a lot of books off the shelf, so I payed little mind to it as I continued my search.  I figured it might be a short analysis of Malintzin in history, considering how little I knew about her.  When I finally got to sit down with the book - in Jane's presence, actually - I realizes that it was a short novel.  It astounded me.  I didn't really know what to do with it.  What was this novel doing in the library and why had it been written?  I started to explore Malintzin's role in fields outside of history, and realized how much more prominent she is in literature and art.  This somewhat led me to my current endeavor to explore her place in literature and myth.  But that's kind of a different story for my secondary source paper.

The main thing I got from Long's book is his apparent inability to seperate Malintzin from Cortes.  I'm very interested in the connection he makes between women and men and what that means to the myth of Malinche.  

Step 1: Bibliography.

(So I am very behind on posts.  And I decided to dedicate my spring break to catching up...and archives!  And of course the moment I get home, I get sick!  But I am going to soldier on!)

Below I'm posting my working bibliography for the paper I've been working on this semester for Tabetha Ewing's "Fugitives, Exile, and Extradition" class.  La Malinche has pretty much taken over my life.  My last blog post was written during the process of putting together the bibliography below.  I essentially devoted five days (about 2-3 hours a day, I do have other classes,) to digging through the Bard Library and online catalogs.  I used a lot of different search methods, starting from the most basic (which actually helped me not only have a jumping off point but also gave me one of my most valuable primary sources.)  Professor Ewing wanted each of us in the class to physically enter the library and search through reference sources.  I did this after I already started my basic research, but the process still was helpful in confirming who the specialists were in the field I was researching.  The process of creating a bibliography was actually really exciting for me (see: why I should be a librarian.)  It might be my favorite part of the whole process so far.  But don't tell Haniel Long that.  And here it is: