Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This text by Gabriel García Márquez published in the weekly cultural supplement to the Cali-based newspaper El Pueblo is the prologue to the portfolio Graficario de la Lucha popular en Colombia (1977). In his critical analysis of ways of disguising [...]

In this letter, Christopher Columbus describes for the Court of Spain the islands and peoples encountered during his initial journey across the Atlantic Ocean to what is currently known as the Caribbean. Columbus reports taking possession of the [...]

In these texts, Edmundo O’Gorman analyzes the historiography of America, and, in the process, argues that the idea of America has been an invention of history. In “Part 1,” he traces the considerable efforts by historians to uphold Columbus as [...]

In these three extracts from the first chapter of his book Última Tule, Alfonso Reyes considers the history of conquest and how it has fostered mythic notions of the Americas. In the text “Colón y Américo Vespucio,” he corrects the historical [...]

In this essay, Peruvian artist Kukuli Velarde maintains that the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas is not cause for celebration but rather of mourning. Using an emphatic tone, Velarde contends that what people [...]

Elizam Escobar, artista puertorriqueño y antiguo prisionero político, sostiene que el quinto centenario de la llegada de Cristóbal Colón al Nuevo Mundo no es motivo de celebración, sino más bien una ocasión para reflexionar sobre la historia [...]

In this essay, Juan Sanchez, an artist and art professor of Puerto Rican descent, maintains that the Columbus Quincentennial is not a cause for celebration but rather an occasion for reflecting on the history of colonialism and slavery in the [...]