Who was "La Malinche"?

La Malinche, also known as Malintzin or Doña Marina, was a Nahua woman from the coastal region of the present-day state of Veracruz who became the interpreter, adviser, and intermediary of Hernán Cortés during the Conquest. Speaking both Nahuatl and Maya, and soon Spanish, she was key to the Spaniards’ negotiations and alliances with Indigenous peoples.

She had a son with Cortés, Martín, often cited among the first mestizos. Her name also gave rise to the term “malinchismo,” used in Mexico for a preference for the foreign over one’s own.