The second installment of "The Yawp Barbaric" introduces "[Malinche]" by Carmen Gimenez Smith. My historical account is, of course, much compressed and simplified. La Malinche was placed in a difficult situation--abandoned, disinherited, and enslaved. Her rapid climb from slave to power broker led some feminists in the 80s to reevaluate her legacy, but it's a difficult legacy to approve, given the consequences. Gimenez Smith's poem looks primarily at the role of language in the conquest: The Yawp Barbaric.
