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Institute for Hispano Studies

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Hispanic-Catholic Civilization
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Spanish is not the language of the conquest. It is the language of independence.

1821. Mexico breaks with Spain. But the story of Indigenous languages is far from over.

Behind the flags and founding heroes lies another history: classrooms, language policy, and the pressure to become a nation that speaks with one voice.

This video turns the spotlight toward the republic—and asks why our arguments about language so often stop at the conquest.

You can love Mexico and question the history told in its name.

Share this with someone who cares about the whole inheritance.

#MexicanHistory #IndigenousLanguages #decolonize #MexicanIndependence #hispanicheritage by @hispano_studies

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21 days ago

TOO AMERICAN FOR MEXICO. TOO MEXICAN FOR AMERICA.

The pocho is mocked in Mexico for becoming American, then reminded in America that he will never be American enough.

One side calls Spanish colonial. The other calls it backward. Different politics. Same surrender. Both convert cultural loss into a moral achievement.

The answer begins with the work neither side wants to do: learn the language, recover the history, and inherit a Hispanic civilization older than the border.

You can buy comfort. You cannot buy roots.

#MexicanAmerican #HispanicHistory #HispanicIdentity #latino #mexico by @hispano_studies

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a month ago

FRANCE CALLED SPAIN AFRICAN. SPAIN SAID YES.

France meant “African” as a verdict against Spain. Spain’s Africanists turned it into a claim about what Spain had always been.

In 1816, Dominique de Pradt declared that geography had wrongly assigned Spain to Europe. Emilio Castelar answered that Spain began at the Pyrenees and ended at the Atlas Mountains. Joaquín Costa located Africa in the Spanish body itself. Unamuno delivered the final reversal: “Europe begins at the Pyrenees.”

A republican, a conservative and a regenerationist reached the same conclusion: Spain cannot understand itself by treating Africa as foreign to its history.

That argument survives whenever Ceuta and Melilla are described as “colonies.”

#SpanishHistory #HispanicHistory #Spain #europeanhistory #africa by @hispano_studies

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2 months ago

“Varios estudios han roto con el mito de que el mexicano es el fruto de una violación. Los registros demuestran que muchos españoles llevaron a sus mujeres […] se casaron con indígenas y formaron familias. O sea, que no somos hijos de la chingada. Si un mexicano odia lo español, se está odiando a sí mismo.”
— Miguel León-Portilla, Historiador Mexicano
El mestizaje no es el borrado de nuestras raíces, es la honra viva de nuestro origen. A diferencia de los sistemas de verdadera segregación racial —como ocurrió en Estados Unidos, donde los matrimonios interraciales estuvieron prohibidos legalmente hasta 1967—, la Corona Española fomentó legalmente la integración. Desde el 14 de enero de 1514, mediante la Real Cédula del Rey Fernando el Católico, se garantizó el derecho al matrimonio entre españoles e indígenas, promoviendo la creación de familias legítimas.
Esta política de integración contradice la idea simplista de un “sistema de castas” rígido. Las famosas pinturas de castas del siglo XVIII no retrataban segregación, sino la aceptación visual del mestizaje en una sociedad con movilidad social, donde existían mujeres de la aristocracia indígena con gran riqueza y estatus, así como españoles en situaciones de pobreza.
Por eso, la visión hispanista bien entendida no se opone al indigenismo. Los verdaderos opuestos polares son el supremacismo blanco y el indigenismo radical, dos posturas que chocan por imponer una supuesta superioridad racial. El hispanismo legítimo trasciende la raza: celebra las similitudes civilizatorias y culturales que nos unen. El término “Hispano” suele confundirse con tener sangre exclusivamente española, cuando en realidad describe una identidad civilizatoria compartida. Ser hispano es haber heredado una historia, una lengua y un patrimonio cultural diverso, abrazando nuestro mestizaje sin distinción de raza o nacionalidad

Fuentes:
Recopilación de Leyes de los Reinos de las Indias, Libro VI, Título I, Ley II

World Factbook by the US Central Intelligence Agency by @hispano_studies

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18 hours ago

The truth about Spanish Law, Faith, and the Requerimiento 📜⚖️ ✝️

Most superficial summaries online paint the Spanish Empire as a monolith driven solely by “forced conversion at gunpoint.” But actual primary legal documents tell a completely different story.

Look at Tomo I, Book III, Title IV, Law 9 of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias:

“We establish and command that war may NOT be made against the Indians of any province in order that they receive the Holy Catholic Faith, or yield obedience to us...”

Here is the context modern commentators keep missing:

📍Forced Conversion Was Explicitly Illegal: Spanish jurisprudence strictly prohibited waging war to force conversion or political submission. The Requerimiento (drafted by jurists after the Laws of Burgos in 1512) operated as an official legal warning/ultimatum. El requerimiento was legally restricted to cases of DEFENSE against prior armed aggression toward pacified towns or vassals “si fueren agresores con mano armada contra nuestros vasallos, se les hagan los requerimientos necesarios una, dos, y tres veces”

📍Hyper-Legalism & Self-Scrutiny: Spain was the only early modern empire that brought its own conquests to a grinding halt to debate the moral legitimacy of its actions (the famous School of Salamanca and Valladolid Debates). Every expedition was legally required to include notaries (escribanos) to document and curb abuses by overreaching conquistadors.

📍Faith as a Society’s Pillar: Religion in the 16th century was inseparable from political and social order across all global civilizations. Viewing Spanish Catholicism through a modern secular lens while romanticizing or giving a pass to indigenous religious and social impositions—such as mandatory imperial cults, tribute systems, or human sacrifices🩸☠️—is a blatant double standard.

History isn’t a monochrome caricature. If we evaluate pre-modern indigenous societies within their own cultural and spiritual frameworks, fairness demands we afford the exact same historical nuance to the legal and religious institutions of the Spanish Empire.

#History #SpanishEmpire #LeyDeIndias #requerimiento taken in Valladolid, España by @hispano_studies

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9 days ago

You Were Given a History With 300 Years Cut Out of It

The version of Mexican history taught across America is not a record of facts. It is a political mythology engineered the morning after the execution of Emperor Maximilian in Querétaro, June 19, 1867.

That day, the victorious liberal state codified a mandatory national narrative: Spain was the executioner, three viceregal centuries were erased, and modern Mexicans were declared the exclusive descendants of the Aztec Empire.

The men who built that mythology held deeply racist views toward the living indigenous populations of their own era. They glorified dead Aztecs while crushing living Indians.

Three hundred years of universities, hospitals, legal codes, and transpacific trade were not an interruption in our history. They are the foundation of it.

We are not the resurrected victims of a destroyed empire. We are the heirs of a global civilization.

#HispanicHistory #MexicanHistory #decolonize #decolonizeyourmind #LatinoHistory by @hispano_studies

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10 days ago

History shows that a rigid, legally mandated “Spanish Caste System” (sistema de castas) simply did not exist in the Americas. Recognizing this historical reality does not deny the existence of racism—prejudice has existed across all human societies and ages. However, the idea of an institutional, inescapable color line is a myth.
As early as 1514, King Fernando el Católico issued a royal decree granting complete freedom of marriage between Indigenous peoples and Spaniards. This law was not an anomaly; it was foundational policy. Unlike genuinely segregationist regimes designed to prevent racial mixing—such as Jim Crow laws in the United States or the anti-Semitic laws of Nazi Germany—the Spanish Empire legally protected and encouraged intermarriage (mestizaje).
The famous 18th-century casta paintings offer a clear glimpse into this reality. Far from depicting a rigid hierarchy, these artworks show well-dressed, wealthy people of color alongside impoverished Spaniards. They demonstrate that social status was tied to wealth and class rather than strictly skin color. Furthermore, these paintings were an Enlightenment-era attempt to record and comprehend a newly diverse, complex society through a tax-and-taxonomic lens, not a legally binding racial code.
Real history is nuanced, and moving past historical myths allows us to understand our true heritage.
“Various studies have broken with the myth that the Mexican is ‘the product of a rape.’ The records demonstrate that many Spaniards brought their wives, […] married Indigenous women, and formed families. In other words, we are not ‘sons of the violated woman.’ If a Mexican hates what is Spanish, he is hating himself.”
— Miguel León-Portilla
#History #SpanishEmpire #LeyesDeIndias #HistoryBuff #Mestizaje HistoricalTruth taken in Valladolid, España by @hispano_studies

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12 days ago

Does the existence of abuse mean the legal system endorsed it? The historical record is far more complex than some narratives suggest. 📜✨
On December 19, 1593, King Philip II issued a decree ordering that Spaniards who mistreated Indigenous people be punished more severely than if the crime were committed against another Spaniard.
Here’s why this matters for history:
📍Justice, Greater Rigor: Mistreating Indigenous people wasn’t just frowned upon; it was made a delito público (public crime), allowing authorities to prosecute offenders directly without forcing victims to carry the burden of trial.
📍Acknowledging the Problem: The Spanish Crown explicitly called out local leniency toward Spanish offenders as a “pernicious practice” and legally declared Indigenous populations a protected class needing defense under the law.
📍Complicating the “Black Legend”: While widespread abuses unquestionably occurred, the legal framework itself was not designed to facilitate pure exploitation—it repeatedly legislated to restrict abuses, protect property, and enforce accountability.
The Leyes de Indias don’t erase the injustices that took place—they destroy the idea that those injustices were the whole story. taken in Madrid, España by @hispano_studies

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13 days ago

The Empire Ended. The Cross Stayed.

That red cross has an imperial past and a Bolivian present.

The Cross of Burgundy, carried by Spain’s armies, became the flag of Chuquisaca, the Bolivian department whose capital is Sucre.

Behind it lies a history of royal courts, religious devotion, and local people who made an inherited symbol their own.

Independence changed sovereignty. The history carried in a community’s symbols followed a more complicated path.

Look closely at the flag. There is more history here than a slogan can hold.

#Bolivia #decolonize #indigenous #landback #HispanicHistory

Save this and share it with someone who recognizes the cross but has never heard its Bolivian story. by @hispano_studies

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15 days ago

The Flag That Connected the World

Call it “Franco’s flag,” and you leave centuries out of the picture.

The Cross of Burgundy flew with Spanish armies across Europe and overseas. Its history reaches through the Tercios, the infantry formations of the Spanish monarchy, into an empire that connected distant shores.

The later political associations belong in that story. So do the centuries that came before them.

You need a world map to tell the story of Hispanic civilization.

Save this. Send it to someone who recognizes the flag but has never heard its name.

#catholic #SpanishEmpire #HispanicHistory #WorldHistory #History by @hispano_studies

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16 days ago

Hispanidad Is Not Washington’s Property

Trade a civilization for a demographic checkbox. Trade historical memory for a marketable stereotype. Then thank the people selling the replacement.

Reject Latino slop, embrace Hispanic civilization.

The Spanish language. The Catholic inheritance. Centuries of literature, law, art, and institutions connecting Spain and the Americas.

Hollywood has no authority to decide which parts of that inheritance deserve to survive. Washington has no right to make its electoral categories the boundaries of our imagination.

I reject the packaged “Latinidad” that demands amnesia as the price of recognition.

Hispanidad requires the courage to defend a tradition even when the empire’s cultural managers find it inconvenient.

Reclaim the vocabulary. Read the sources. Refuse the cultural surrender.

#Latino #HispanicHeritage #LatinAmericanHistory #hispanicheritagemonth #hispanic by @hispano_studies

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19 days ago

Your Ancestors Don’t Need an Acquittal

You curse Spain in Spanish. Then your grandmother calls you to Mass.

Apparently, your inheritance didn’t get the memo.

Spanish words. Indigenous names. Guadalupe candles. A family history that refuses to fit neatly into “conqueror” and “conquered.”

You can condemn cruelty and still recognize the civilization that shaped you. Pride becomes fragile when it depends on pretending your ancestors never met.

Who convinced you that loving Mexico required disowning part of its history?

#mexicanindependenceday #MexicanCulture #HispanicHeritage #vivamexico #Mexicanhistory by @hispano_studies

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22 days ago