Grad students organize Mesoamerican exhibit

About 10 years ago, a Mexican elder passed along a section of an 1847 map of what is today New Mexico to Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzales, now graduate students at UW–Madison.

The gift changed the course of their scholarly lives.

“A citation on the map indicated that the ancient homeland of the Aztecs lay somewhere north of the Hopi, today the state of New Mexico,” says Rodriguez, a doctoral candidate in UW–Madison’s Department of Life Sciences Communication (LSC). “We searched the country for older maps, codices and chronicles. Our research confirmed that from the 1500s to the 1800s, mapmakers and other chroniclers all pointed to the southwestern United States as the point of departure of the ancient Mexican migrations south.”

Rodriguez and Gonzales have organized an exhibit of maps and other documents, on display at the Wisconsin State Historical Society on Library Mall and the Memorial Library. The exhibit, “Aztlanahuac: Mesoamerica in North America Maps and Codices,” presents 16th through 19th century maps, chronicles, annals and interviews that suggest an ancient Mesoamerican presence and migrations south from the American Southwest. The exhibit opened on Thursday, April 7, and will remain on view through Sunday, June 19.

As part of their research — Rodriguez studies the role of maize in American migration patterns and Gonzales specializes in alternative and native healing — the two have produced a documentary film on their odyssey. They will screen “San Ce Tojuan: We Are One – Nosotros Somos Uno” in Natuatl, English and Spanish on Saturday, April 16.

“We want everyone to understand that there are no aliens anywhere . . . except maybe in Roswell,” Rodriguez says.

For more information about the exhibit or screening, both of which are free and open to the public, contact the Wisconsin State Historical Society, (608) 262-8066 or email Rodriguez at rgrodriguez@wisc.edu.