Section: Metro State News
Castro Professorship: Harvard scholar to ‘inaugurate’ his book at Metro State
Apr 16, 2008

Davíd Carrasco is the Neil L. Rudenstine Professor for the Study of Latin America at Harvard Divinity School and director of the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project.

“It’s better than a Dead Sea scroll,” says Davíd Carrasco, about the maps detailed in his 2007 book Cave, City, and Eagle’s Nest.

Carrasco, a Neil L. Rudenstine Professor for the Study of Latin America at Harvard Divinity School and director of the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project, is Metro State’s 2008 Richard T. Castro Distinguished Visiting Professor.

In this role, he will participate in three days of community events, including two free public lectures on Monday, April 21, 2:30-3:45 p.m. and 6:30- 9 p.m. in the Tivoli Turnhalle. Carrasco will read from Cave, City, and Eagle’s Nest, the 479-page book he co-edited with Scott Sessions, who is managing editor of the African-American Religion Documentary History Project and research associate at Amherst College.

The book is the culmination of an international research project and a series of conferences organized by the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and focused on the 16th-century pictorial manuscript known as the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2. Over a five-year period 15 researchers studied the details of the map, which is painted on bark paper and measures 109 by 204 centimeters. This extraordinary document contains more than 700 images and symbols relating the story of the emergence of Native American ancestors at Chicomoztoc, their migration to the sacred city of Cholulua, their foundation and settlement of Cuauhtinchan, their community’s history and claim over the surrounding landscape, and many other occurrences along the way.

It’s the latest project from Carrasco, who has directed a series of research projects and symposia and has assisted in the organization of several major museum exhibitions including the Denver Museum of Natural History’s “Aztec: The World of Montezuma” (September 1992 – February 1993) visited by more than 800,000 people.

Carrasco received the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest honor the Mexican government gives to a foreign national, for his research work.

Castro’s legacy
Carrasco’s scholarly work builds on the legacy of Richard T. Castro (1946-1991), an educational and civil rights activist who was one of Colorado’s true champions of disenfranchised communities. A bust sits in the rotunda of the state capitol commemorating the Metro State alumnus and former member of the Colorado House of Representatives.

Initiated in Castro’s honor in 1997 to foster multiculturalism, diversity and academic excellence at Metro State, the professorship brings renowned Latina and Latino scholars, artists and leaders of distinction to Metro State to conduct classes, seminars, performances and lectures for students, faculty and the larger Denver community.

“This book makes Americana know Aztlan , the land, existed,” says Associate Professor Angelina De la Torre, who is chair of the Castro Distinguished Visiting Professorship Committee. “This is cutting-edge scholarly work in Chicano studies because it established our homeland in black and white and acknowledges our indigenous roots.”

In Chicano folklore, Aztlan is often appropriated as the name for that portion of Mexico that was taken over by the U.S. after the Mexican-American War of 1846, on the belief that this greater area represents the point of parting of the Aztec migrations.

“Metro State is inaugurating this publication and it has significance to the people of Colorado,” says Carrasco, a former professor at University of Colorado and Princeton University. “It’s an indigenous Mexican odyssey. Metro State is sharing it with the city of Denver.”

According to Carrasco, the book offers answers to those trying to understand where they fit in with the traditional history of the U.S. “They (Chicanos) are often excluded from the East-West national story, including historical moves as the Louisiana Purchase,” says Carrasco. “Colorado is part of the North-South story.”

The book helps to complete the story, says De La Torre. “It’s full circle for us – created as mythology – now a reality in the Western World.”

The experience of researching these maps also brought things full circle for Carrasco, who received the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest honor the Mexican government gives to a foreign national. While receiving the award, Carrasco says he was thinking about his grandmother who lived in the bottom of Copper Canyon in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.

“Here I was, now at Harvard University, thinking about my roots….though I was a foreign national.”

For more information about the Castro Professorship and Carrasco’s appearances, please visit http://www.mscd.edu/news/castro/ or call 303-556-4619.