forgetting la leyenda negra March 31, 2012 § 3 Comments one of
Theodor de Bry’s illustrations for De las Casas’ “Brief
Relation” This post examines La Leyenda Negra’s origins, its
subsequent problems historically, and how echoes of the legend
continue to implicitly resurface through the contemporary
artistic practice of Teresa Margolles. The Black Legend isn’t
just a banal Hispanophobic stereotype to be reduced to a sound-
bite. If anything, the Black Legend is forgotten. The Mexican
artist Teresa Margolles has been selected to aesthetically
critique a view of marginalized people who are ignored by our
misunderstandings, and our over-insistent categorizations.
Hispanics in America are a people hated as much as their now
undervalued past is forgotten. We consistently accept the
ridiculous notion that the un-white person is not regarded as
from here and that the white man is unquestionably American. In
our overbearing bias we indirectly avoid seeing those people
whom we’re ignoring. We will not comprehend all th