La Malinche is thought to have evolved from the story of Dona Marina, or La Malinche¹ Dona Marina was the indigenous woman who was enslaved by the Mayas and given to Hernán Cortés during the Spanish Conquest of Mexico (1519–21). She served as his interpreter, and later bore his son, Martin, who is considered by many to be the first Mexican. Official Mexican narrative depicts Dona Marina as a traitor, and is blamed by many for the fall of the Aztecs and the success of the Spanish Conquest. Other Mexicans, however, consider her a brilliant woman who has been unjustly maligned for the purpose of nation-building by fabricating a false "Aztec identity". La Malinche's role in Chicana literature; Certain contemporary Chicana writers have taken on La Malinche, re-writing her story as one of a woman who had little choice in her role as Cortes' interpreter (she was sold to him as a slave), and who served as a "mediator between the Spanish and indigenous peoples." La Malinche was, however, not a slave of the Spaniards and ended up being one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in colonial Mexico. La Llorona The weeping woman: The folkloric legend of La Llorona is a story that has many variants. Generally, the story involves a woman who is scorned by a lover and in a fit of insanity or revenge, drowns her own children. Afterward, she is condemned to wander the earth, mourning her children. She is called La Llorona because she can be heard crying loudly in the night, lamenting her lost children. La Llorona's role in Chicana literature; Folklore scholar Jose Limon argues that "La Llorona [is] a symbol that speaks to the course of Greater Mexican [and Chicana/o] history and does so for women in particular, but through the idiom of women [it]also symbolizes the utopian longing [for equality and justice]'." Sandra Cisneros has used this modern La Llorona story that is "Woman Hollering Creek" to give a "voice to the violated Latina mother who ... struggles against domestic violence and economic and emotional dependency on men." Traditionally, La Llorona is a treacherous figure; she kills her own children in an act of ultimate betrayal. She is selfish; she would rather keep her lover than her children. She is insane, often depicted as a crazy woman, neglectful and abusive to her children. In some variants of the story, she