2023-10-06 08:42:46
Thrown into the water, decapitated, thrown to the ground, painted, covered, gagged… Sculptural sadism reached levels on the other side of the pond that would make vandals, Alans and Suebians blush. Today, one could fall into the joke that not as many statues are thrown down as yesterday because, simply, there are no more statues left standing, but it is not true. There are 149 monuments in the US alone in honor of Christopher Columbus, a number only surpassed by capital figures such as Abraham Lincoln y George Washington. And there were more. Since 2008, at least forty statues of the discoverer of America have been destroyed or removed, according to data collected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)in a fury against historical symbols that seems to have subsided or, at least, gone into the background.
«The radicals are already starting to stop because they have a better relationship with the administration, with those authorities who, out of fear that the statues will be pulled down, prefer to remove them with the excuse that they will not be damaged. The bad thing is that there is no turning back for what they did,” explains Alfonso Borrego, an American of Hispanic and indigenous blood, who is in charge of the Cultural Heritage Society Association of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, a group that claims the importance of the presence Spanish in the south of the country. The attacks against historical symbols experienced their peak coinciding with the death of George Floydan African American who died in the American city of Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 at the hands of the Police, when progressive currents took advantage of the event to attack all colonial monuments.
tell the truth
«In Spain what happened was not well understood and it became generalized. In reality, it was an internal political scandal that was used to erode Trump’s power. They threw down statues without having any idea who the characters were, they only told them that they were oppressors, racists, that they had to be torn down. Most don’t even know that Columbus is Spanish. “They are taught that he is Italian!” says Jorge García, a Spanish historian based in Texas, where he researches. the footprints of Saint Anthony.
If there are so many statues of Columbus in the country, it is not so much because of his Spanish identity as because the Italian-American community, very influential in many states, claims the navigator as its compatriot. Neither Chicago nor New York, two cities with an Italian imprint, have agreed to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Dayas President Jon Biden has proclaimed.
Statue of Christopher Columbus in New York. abc
Furthermore, the figure of the discoverer became popular in the 18th century as a representative of the entrepreneurial spirit of the Americans, a loose verse, a hero of modernity who had opposed, like them, monarchies. «The case of Columbus has been a heroic figure in the United States for centuries, unlike the conquistadors, but in a sense, as in the republics of Latin America, rather anti-Hispanic. It is still curious that the Spaniards are now irritated by throwing statues that were created at the time against them,” Jorge Cañizares Esguerra, professor at the University of Texas, recalls with a laugh.
If the history of Spain has been so punctuated by anti-colonial attacks, it is because, quite simply, it is more present in the identity of the United States than some want and can recognize. The country’s geography is full of names in Spanish and the emblems of its states, as in the case of the flags of Alabama, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Florida or Arkansas, filled with references to the empire that once explored and controlled three-quarters of North America. The same one who later contributed decisively to the Thirteen Colonies becoming independent from England. Not to mention the many crucial figures in the history of the stars and stripes who have Spanish origins, such as the man who laid the first stone of the White House, the Navarrese Pedro de Casanave, or the cartographer Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, which illuminated many unknown regions on the maps.
«No more, without insulting; “We tell something that you just have to open your eyes to know that it is true.”
The ties between Spain and the US are gigantic, impossible to ignore, and, at the same time, invisible to those who keep their eyes tightly closed. Borrego, descendant of Apache Chief Geronimo, considers that the only way to “correct what has been put into their heads for years” is not combat, but culture: “Our association is not in the fight of the black legend. We tell the historical truth of what happened. No more, without insulting; We tell something that it is enough to open your eyes to know that it is true.
García agrees with this, who working as a teacher at a school in San Antonio is well aware of the historical shortcomings of the average American: «They don’t know anything about Spanish history. At most, the students discover through their genealogy that their ancestors were Spanish and they start investigating. In the Texas city he works with other history lovers to ensure that Brother Antonio de Olivares have a statue there. The city council, of a Democratic nature, supports them in “an example of the political distortion that exists on this issue, since the Democrats in California are removing statues of the missionary Friar Junípero while, for example, in San Antonio this same party sees fit to put them up another missionary,” he comments.
The crusade against statues and plaques of conquistadors and missionaries has hindered what is an open process to rediscover the Spanish legacy when, with the Hispanic population in unstoppable growth and the language spreading across its borders, it is more necessary than ever. “There are directly Cuban immigrants who live with pride that their parents or grandparents were Spanish, from Galicia or Asturias,” says the Hispanicist. Richard Kagan. This emeritus professor of History at John Hopkins University warns that certain groups have not lost the desire to throw the conquerors out the window: “What happens is that now the fury has subsided with the end of the pandemic, because people “He’s back at work and he doesn’t have time,” he jokes.
Unpublished painting by Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau of the Santa María where Columbus was embarked.
It can even be said that interest in Spanish roots has increased by removing the statues, since the past has been placed in the focus of the present. «We are realizing that there are more and more people interested in knowing and claiming the origin of Hispanic heritage and who see Hispanidad as an opportunity for encounter. We are facing a change in trend. “Hispanidad has stopped being a taboo concept,” he points out. Daniel Urena, director of the think tank The Hispanic Council, which works on both sides of the Atlantic coordinating activities in this regard. «Every year we receive different initiatives, from teachers who teach the Spanish heritage to students to Anglo-Saxon authors who publish a book claiming it. Day by day we see through the networks how in different areas of the United States more and more anonymous people investigate and want to know more,” he warns.
Latinos or Spanish?
States like California, New Mexico or Florida have huge Hispanic populations that claim an identity beyond the Anglo-Saxon culture taught in schools and universities. Michael Francis, a professor at the University of South Florida (USF), works in this area and, given the lack of knowledge he found among his students, promoted the LaFlorida.org project for learning about this period. “It’s about bringing the documents closer to the people of what was a border territory with an incredibly diverse population, a story that can change the impression they have about Florida’s past,” says Francis after ten years of work.
The project consists of collecting and uploading to the web all possible information about the life, profession and adventures of the inhabitants of what was this Spanish territory that had its heart in San Agustín, the oldest city in the entire country and also the more Spanish. “In San Agustín they are proud of the Spanish legacy and no one would dream of touching the statues of Menéndez de Avilés and Ponce de León, which decorate their squares,” he points out.
«Spain does not count to interpret the past beyond what Latinos claim, which is a poor, varied community, with little political power and almost always marginal»
For Cañizares Esguerra, the obstacle that prevents these local efforts from materializing into something bigger is the lack of political influence of Hispanics in the country: «Here Spain does not matter at all, what matters is the Latin past, where they do have a place. the missionaries of California or the conquistadors of New Mexico. Spain does not count to interpret the past beyond what Latinos claim, which is a poor, varied community, with little political power and almost always marginal. In a society monopolized by the duality of whites and blacks, the Hispanic is trapped between two fires. Their population does not correspond to their political weight and, in any case, it is not clear that they have any interest in ingratiating themselves with the Motherland.
On the other side of the ocean some words mean opposite things than in Europe. For many members of this community, Latin identity is linked exclusively to indigenous culture and not to the civilization that shaped the continent for three centuries. «The truth is that there is no particular interest in Spain. I tried to teach the course twice. ‘Spain in the Southwest’ and not a single student signed up, while the ‘Latinxs in the US’ class attracts all types of students. It is a question of image, that of Spain is invariably linked to the topics of the black legend: cruelty, abuse, genocide,” he says. Javier Torre Aguadoprofessor of Spanish Literature at the University of Denver.
Latinos may argue about their history or their roots, but inevitably they will always do so in Spanish. It is estimated that almost 60 million Spanish speakers live in the United States, and that of these around 45 million speak Spanish at home, according to the US Census Bureau «The Hispanic population is very complex, but all of them are hopelessly aware that the language they speak comes from Spanish. An issue to be resolved in the United States is how to treat that language that, let’s say, was already indigenous in the south of the country before the nation emerged. “Is it a language native to the country or is it a language that immigrants have recently brought?” Kagan asks. What united language, not even the falsification of history can separate.
#tear #statues #Spain