The Time Has Come

Victor Hugo wrote, “There’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

Today, America finds itself at a critical moment where it’s finally reckoning with the contradictions and hypocrisies of its history in ways it hasn’t since the Civil War. Across the western world, in fact, the consequences of conquest, colonialism and slavery are being reexamined at a heightened pace, and the long-delayed process of reconciliation over these and other issues that have persisted into our modern age appears to be finally underway.

For Latinx Americans in particular, both in the United States and across Latin America, we are the living legacies of those consequences and all of their glories and tragedies. We see them in the mirror, in our children’s eyes, in our food, and in our language, religion and traditions. We also see them in the inequalities that plague our communities here and abroad. We, too, have long avoided confronting the traumatic episodes of our past that seeded our beautifully chaotic genetic and cultural mix – what Mexican philosopher Jose Vasconcelos named La Raza Cosmica, the Cosmic Race.

The seminal and most consequential of these episodes is the epic clash between the Spanish and Aztec empires that began 500 years ago – almost exactly to the year. As an American writer of Mexican descent, and a lifelong student of history, it has been the labor of a lifetime to write and create this story. Now is the moment to empower creative professionals to bring this story to life and present it to audiences around the world over the premier entertainment medium of our times. It is without a doubt an idea whose time has come.

—Peter Mellado, Writer / Creator

Birthplace

The Plaza of the Three Cultures today in modern-day Mexico City, just north of the Zocalo. Here we are looking southwest across the square toward the Spanish Colonial Church built with the stones of the destroyed temples of Tlatelolco, the ruins of which sit in front of the church.

Tlatelolco

This temple complex formed the core of the once vibrant independent city-state of Tlatelolco. It now sits silent in front of the Spanish Church built with its stones soon after the conquest, and modern concrete buildings, giving the Plaza of the Three Cultures its name. The camera here points northeast toward the church with the square to its left in this photo.

Massacre

This is monument dedicated to the victims of the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre, when the Mexican Army was sent in to clear the thousands of demonstrators out of the square and the surrounding area. They had gathered to protest the spending and the corruption around the upcoming 1968 Olympics that were set to open, and the cleared them out with machine guns. The government acknowledges only a few dozen deaths, but the total number of victims is believed to be in the hundreds.

Neither a Victory, or a Defeat

This is all that commemorates the epic conclusion of the clash between the Aztec and Spanish Empires: A concrete slap erected just feet from the spot where Emperor Cuauhtémoc surrendered to Cortés, ending the long Aztec resistance to the Spanish invaders. The English translation is:

"On August 13th, 1521, the City of Tlatelolco, so heroically defended by Cuauhtémoc, finally fell into the hands of Hernán Cortés. It was neither a victory nor a defeat, but the painful birth of Mexico and all Mestizo people.”