MLO 3: Literary and Cultural Knowledge
As part of my fulfillment of Major Learning Outcome 3 (MLO 3) as a student I have developed a reasonable understanding of the ways of thinking, behavioral practices , and the cultural products of Hispanic societies. The work I have assembled to illustrate the development of MLO 3 is from the following course: Spanish 336: LGBTQ Hispanic Experience. A project that particularly helped my fulfillment of this MLO was an assignment related to the Muxes community for which I completed a final project (in the form of a zine) and an essay about the community. I have selected this specific assignment because it is so closely related to MLO 3. As a student I was able to select a topic of interest to me and understand the ways of thinking of the Zapotec community where a third gender known as the Muxes has been normalized. Historically speaking, before the conquest of MesoAmerica by the Spanish conquistadors, there were plenty of indigenous communities spread throughout MesoAmerica. Many of these communities practiced “two spirits,” which is a person who identifies as having both a masculine and a feminine spirit. Sometimes indigenous people used the term “two spirits” to refer to sexual, gender and/or spiritual identity. After the conquest, the Spaniards noticed this practice within the indigenous community. They believed that being two spirit was against the Catholic church’s beliefs; therefore, the Spaniards educated the indigenous people accordingly, and converted them into straight and monogamist people. Nowadays there are few people who practice “two spirits,” among them the Muxes, who are constantly harassed or discriminated against.