Inspired by the 500-year anniversary of the conquest of Mexico—and the political climate of the COVID-19 pandemic—Rutgers scholars and collaborators launched a project to re-examine the tumultuous years following the fall of Tenochtitlan.
The idea emerged in a conversation between Celso Mendoza (then a Rutgers PhD student, now Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago) and Josh Anthony (Rutgers doctoral candidate). Their advisor, Camilla Townsend, organized a CLAS-sponsored conference in 2022 that convened historians, Indigenous scholars, and activists from Mexico. That gathering shaped what would become the book After the Broken Spears: The Aztecs in the Wake of Conquest.
The volume highlights Indigenous perspectives on the first decades after the conquest of Mexico and the enduring ramifications of colonialism today. It is designed for both experts and newcomers, offering an introduction to Nahua studies, annotated translations of Nahuatl documents, and commentaries accessible to a broad audience.
Alongside the book, the team developed a companion website with additional materials from Indigenous contributors, including transcriptions and translations of Nahuatl passages, an interactive map, and abstracts in modern Nahuatl. This reflects the vision of Eduardo de la Cruz, a Nahua scholar who contributed an original poem and emphasized showcasing Nahuatl as a language of scholarship. The site was designed by Jeongeun Park, Associate Director of the Rutgers Oral History Archives, a digital humanist.
Contributors
- Sandra Acocal (Tlaxcala Nahua) – Doctorate in History and Ethnohistory (ENAH, Mexico); pursuing a second doctorate at Rutgers. Author of several works on Tlaxcala’s history, including Mitos, tratamientos y rituales mortuorios de infantes entre los nahuas de San Pablo del Monte Cuauhtotoatla (2014).
- Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil (Mixe) – Activist, linguist, translator, and writer; member of Colegio Mixe. Holds an MA in Linguistics (UNAM). Author of Ää: Manifiestos sobre la diversidad lingüística (2020) and other influential works.
- Josh Anthony – Doctoral candidate in History at Rutgers; former Curatorial Research Fellow at the Hispanic Society of America. His dissertation explores kinship and colonization in Chalco through Nahuatl annals. Currently preparing translations of the Codex Otlazpan and Tepexic.
- Abelardo de la Cruz (Chicontepec Nahua) – Assistant Professor, Religious Studies, UNC Chapel Hill. Collaborator with IDIEZ (Zacatecas) and author of monolingual Nahuatl publications.
- Eduardo de la Cruz (Chicontepec Nahua) – Director, Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas (IDIEZ); PhD candidate, University of Warsaw. Author of several monolingual Nahuatl books.
- Clio Isaacson – Doctoral candidate in History at Rutgers. Her dissertation examines women in the Nahuatl annals and the lives of Nahua women in early colonial Mexico.
- Travis Jeffres – History Programs Manager, Boise City Department of Arts & History. Author of The Forgotten Diaspora: Mesoamerican Migrations and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (2023).
- Selene Yuridia Galindo Cumplido (O’dam) – Activist, translator, anthropologist, and filmmaker from Durango, Mexico. Founder of the Circuito de Cine gio Arte Sierra O’dam; award-winning filmmaker with DocsMX and UNAM.
- Tara Malanga – Assistant Teaching Professor, Writing Program, Rutgers. Author of The Book of the Dead: Huexotzinco, Mexico, 1619–1649 (2024). Works on illness and death in early colonial Nahua worlds.
- Baruc Martínez Díaz (Tláhuac Nahua) – Historian, Museo Regional Tláhuac. Author of multiple works on the history and cosmovision of Tláhuac, including In Atl, in Tepetl (2019).
- Celso Mendoza – Postdoctoral Fellow in History, University of Illinois Chicago. Specialist in colonial Nahuatl writings; preparing a full English translation of the Anales de Juan Bautista.
- Barbara E. Mundy – Professor and Robertson Chair in Latin American Art, Tulane University. Author of The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City (2015), winner of the LASA Bryce Wood Award.
- Justyna Olko – Professor, University of Warsaw. Director of the Center for Research and Practice in Cultural Continuity. Specialist in Nahua culture, language revitalization, and multilingual histories.
- Peter Sorensen – Assistant Professor of History, Hong Kong Baptist University. Author of forthcoming translations of Nahuatl songs and research on memory and song in colonial Nahua communities.
- Camilla Townsend – Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History, Rutgers. Author of Malintzin’s Choices (2006) and Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (2019), winner of the 2020 Cundill History Prize.
More Information: Here