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Awesome Star Wars Art….
07 Monday May 2012
Posted Art, Books, Cool History, Entertainment, Funny Stuff, Life, Music
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Awesome Star Wars Art….
05 Saturday May 2012
Posted Art, Books, Cool History, Entertainment
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art, aztec, book, book review, conquest, conquista, conquistador, cortez, entertainment, espana, maya, mexico, montezuma, spain, spanish
Has there been anything in your life that you wanted to do, but kept putting it off? First, for fear of failure and second, for insecurities!! For me, it has been to be able to read a book in Spanish.
Growing up in the struggling neighborhoods of Los Angeles, with immigrant parents from Sinaloa, Mexico, all my family spoke Spanish, which by nature, made my first language Spanish. In one of the blocks I grew up in South Central, we were the only few Latinos in a block mainly made up of African Americans families. I learned English mainly from my older sister and the kids around me. I still speak Spanish pretty well, but never really ever learned how to write or read Spanish. I was always told, “You read it as it sounds” but it is not always as easy as it seems. Long story short, after years in school and college, my Spanish seemed to slowly lose its grip within me and started noticing the decline in my vocabulary.
So as a challenge, I said to myself…..”Self, I am going to learn how to read Spanish and make it my goal to read an entire book in Spanish, from beginning to end”. It was tough and took me about 3-4 months, but I finally did! So I decided to write about the book I read.
First advice, READ WHAT YOU ARE INTERESTED IN OR LIKE!! For me, I just love reading about history and military accounts. I like reading about things from the past and imagining what it was like being there. The book I read is called “La Conquista de México” (“The Conquest of Mexico”). I received this book as a gift from my parents after one of their visits to Mexico. The book sat on my shelf for years until this challenge.
The book is based off the “Verdadera Historia de la Conquista de la Nueva España” (The Truthful History of the Conquest of New Spain), a book written as a first person narrative by Captain Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who was there during the conquest of the Aztec Empire. It is said that this book was possibly completed around 1568, but that it sat lost in a Madrid library until 1632 when it was published. Bernal was a 16th century conquistador and settler who served three expedition to Yucatán. The last expedition was with Hernán Cortéz, which is most of what the book is about. Bernal was 23 years old during the Aztec expeditions, but didn’t complete the book until he was in his late 70’s or early 80’s. I don’t know about you, but after 50+ years of an event, its hard to remember what exactly happened, so I recommend to not take these personal accounts as hardcore facts.