In June 2022, ABC Historia reported that a Spanish photographer based in Miami named Fernando Sanchez he had found himself by chance at St Rose of Lima Catholic School in Miami Shores, an elementary classroom papered with paintings of Spanish conquistadors in the style of Old West’s most wanted posters. The images showed paintings of the Spaniards along with the alleged crimes committed, a description of their features, the last place they were seen, and the “reward” paid for their capture.
The complaint made by ABC against indoctrination in schools in the United States led the management of St Rose Of Lima to explain what happened and apologize for showing a “narrow view” of the facts. However, this story that goes beyond the anecdote or the isolated case remained, as usually happens in a society that moves like lightning, engulfed by the current train. Everything went unnoticed, except for the watchful eye of the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute, an organization based in New York founded to promote the Spanish language and culture of Spanish-speaking countries, which decided to do something to prevent further manipulation of the Spanish legacy in North America.
This institution, of which Queen Sofía is the patron of honor, launched an ambitious project at that time to create posters that told of Spain’s true contribution to the United States. «When we read the ABC news, it seemed like a scandalous simplification and, above all, a lack of respect, because the student must be exposed to history with all its nuances, it cannot be simplified. In any case, there is more ignorance than anything else and our job is to make known, in a rigorous and academic way, the contribution of Spain to the history and culture of the United States,” he says. begona santosExecutive Director of Queen Sofía Spanish Institute.
These murals have already been distributed in schools throughout the US and this Friday they have been presented at the headquarters of the Royal Academy of History in an act under the presidency of Doña Sofía. An event that has also served to stage the alliance of the Royal Academy, the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute and the Gilder Lehrman: Institute of American History, an organization specialized in promoting the study of the past in the US, to give the maximum diffusion to this didactic material. Thanks to this collaboration, it has been possible to design, print and send the first posters to 6150 classrooms with texts in English and Spanish.
Draft of one of the posters being distributed to schools in the US.
Gilder Lehrman has a huge distribution network made up of more than 33,000 schools and many decades of experience fostering awareness of American history among young people. The Queen Sofía Spanish Institute wants to join forces with them in a task that directly involves the history of Spain: “Our goal is to provide knowledge of Hispanic history, which is foundational, part of the creation of the United States,” recalls the director executive of Queen Sofía Spanish Institute. The idea is that the three institutions can provide more material to teachers and focus it on central milestones for the US that are in turn linked to Spain.
The murals distributed at the moment are three, ‘Diego de Gardoqui and George Washington’about the intense correspondence between the Spanish ambassador in Washington and the revolutionary leaders; ‘Bernardo de Galvez, honorary citizen of the USA.’which explains the circumstances that led this man from Malaga to receive honorary citizenship in 2014 from the United States Senate and House of Representatives, and ‘The Battle of Pensacola in the American Revolution’, about the Spanish campaign to seize Florida from the English. All of them episodes that value the decisive role of the Spain of Carlos III so that the 13 Colonies They managed to secede from England.
The initiative is also supported by SPAIN arts & culture, Iberdrola, and the Spain-USA Council Foundation. Each of the posters has a QR code that leads to an educational game sponsored by Iberdrola about the Spanish contribution to the War of Independence. In addition, all this is accompanied by a guide for the teacher to apply these contents. “It is addressed to the American teacher who is unaware of this part of his own history. We designed a very complete guide to support the educational application”, says Santos.
Queen Sofia Spanish Institute He has been working since May 18, 1954 to “stimulate interest in the culture, history, and customs” of the Spanish-speaking world in the United States. The non-profit institution organizes a wide variety of cultural activities such as conferences, exhibitions, concerts, awards and meetings to enrich the exchange of knowledge between the Hispanic world and the United States.