THE SAGA OF HISTORY SEMINAR 569 (Spring 2001)

Ten hardworking Penn State graduate students and their honest and loyal professor.

"So why can't UTEP's various departments foster the same 'let's all work together,' atmosphere, too? (ha! ha! HA!)"

"Like even on the upper levels of undergraduate courses?"

"Oh, my! That would be truly revolutionary, grandiose or maybe outright delusional, or would it?"

Restal, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. Oxford: University Press, 2003

"A Revolutionary Student Role of Honor?" page 207:

Written for Pennsylvannia State University History Seminar 569 (Spring 2001)

Arndt, Bobbie L. "Destruction, Silence and Oblivion: The Mythic Aftermath of the Fall of Mexico," 2001.

Cesco, Valentina. "The Myth of the Invisible Conquistador: Account of an Eclipse," 2001.

Cowher, Iris. "'A Handful of Adventurers'? The Myth of the King's Army in the Conquest of the New World," 2001.

Frederick, Jason. "Colonizing Columbus: Mythmaking and the Admiral of the Ocean Sea," 2001.

Inclán, María de la Luz. "Plucking the Feathered Serpent: The Debunking of Cortés' Incarnation as the Returning Quetzacóatl," 2001.

Maldonado, Blanca. "Cultural Diversity, Contact, and Change: Debunking the Myths of Completion of the Conquest and Subsequent Native Anomie in the Americas," 2001.

Nelson, Zachary. "El Cid and the Mexica Reconquista," 2001.

Reese, Christine. "The Myth of Superiority in the Conquest of Mexico," 2001.

Smith, Michael. "'See Those Hideous Men That Rush Upon Us': Dramatic Interpretations of the Conquest of Peru," 2001.

Vincent, Leah. "'We Understood Them So little': The Use of Signs and Interpreters in the Conquest of Latin America, 1492-1520," 2001.

As Matthew Restal himself tells us in the acknowledgements section, page ix of his book, "My search for seven myths was not in vain, aided greatly the following spring (2001) by the experience of teaching a graduate seminar in the Pennsylvannia State University History Department titled Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. The idea was to write and teach on identical topics, allowing each process to stimulate and fertilize the other. It all worked out better than I could possibly have hoped. Without the contributions of the seminar members in class and on paper (their essays are included in a special section of the bibliography), this book would have taken twice as long to write and been a vastly inferior product[emphasis added]. I am most grateful to every one of them -- Bobbie Arndt, Valentina Cesco, Iris Cowher, Jason Frederick, Gerardo Gutiérrez, María Inclán, Amy Kovak, Blanca Maldonado, Zachary Nelson, Christine Reese, Michael Smith, and Leah Vincent[emphasis added]. I am also grateful to Gregg Roeber for encouraging and making possible my Seven Myths semester."

Nor does he stop there, as nearly everyone mentioned is cited in the footnotes covering each section.

Page 120 is as good an example as any of what we might call the "Restal Teams" trashing of much of the material we can assume is still being taught here at UTEP as though it was Sacred Writ, by those faculty members whose own ideological agenda seems to be either groveling for their hardcase anglo political handlers on the UT Systems Board of Regents back in Austin, or blustering at any student who dares to question them as to the so-called why of things.

Indeed, their aim seems to be that of inculcating their largely Hispanic students with the malicious and false notion of racial inferiority, which means that "we can't ever hope to catch up with our black and anglo classmates, as throughout all our history we've been victims of some terrible-ass baloney or the other, so of course, why even bother to try?"

Thus, the Revolutionary Restal Team smashes the notion, so prevalent in various classes in UTEP today, that the Spanish "walked all over the Native Americans," because the latter thought they were gods.

It is with a take no prisoners, no compromise attitude that the Revolutionary Restal Team goes after not only UTEPs vendido clowns, but all their fellow vendidos y lacayos on college and university faculties all across America:

"The Spaniards as gods myth evolved over the centuries to take on various forms, but all of them share a vision of Native Americans as so superstitious, credulous, and primitive in their reactions to the invaders as to be beneath reason or logic -- and Spaniards as so superior in their technology and its manipulation as to be psychologically overwhelming. In a sense, the juxtaposition is between the subhuman and superhuman. But despite superficial differences of appearance, Spaniards looked and acted like human beings, and there is overwhelming evidence of myriad ways in which natives treated the invaders as such. The Spaniards-as-gods myth makes sense only if natives are assumed to be primitive, childlike, or half-witted." [emphasis added]

"Think about it!"