 In the vein of Romanticism, she fuses her historical knowledge of Mexico with personal experience, identifying with Spanish conquistador Cortés in her first impression of the ancient Aztec city, Tenochtitlán (modern-day Mexico City), describing it as an “intact, bustling, unruinous city”.By romanticizing Cortés as the discoverer of Mexico and the destroyer of Aztec immorality (human sacrifice), Calderón participates in this initial “discovery” herself, ignoring Cortés’ brutalities of conquest, and mythicizing the Mexican landscape as a Paradise comparable to the Biblical Eden through its sublimity.In doing so, she highlights Mexico’s “unexploited” resources, which would become part of the motivation for the United States' invasion of Mexico.