¡viva! Mexico's Independence

I'm Rosalba Ojeda, Consul General of Mexico in Austin, Texas. The year 2010 is a landmark, it is a very important year because we are celebrating 200 years of the bicentennial of Independence, and 100 years or the centennial of the Revolution. These are two very important anniversaries and they just happen to coincide, so it's a very interesting moment for Mexico to celebrate two big events like this. When you look at a document like the original letter where the king of Spain names Hernan Cortes the Governor of New Spain, Mexico as it was known then, you feel you're touching history. I had the opportunity to look at the pictures of the Revolution and to pick out one and to be able to see Madero. And looking at another picture and looking at Venustiano Carranza. And taking another one and seeing Emiliano Zapata. It's a very, very, moving, moving moment. It is very important to study and review the chapters of Mexican history of this time, the centennial and the bicentennial, because you put those issues into perspective. You gain new knowledge from re-studying and reevaluating the events from the time. Letters for example, the letters exchanged between Maximillion and Carlotta in their original form, and you see the handwriting, and the paper they use, and the monogram. They talk about the love between each other. After those initial paragraphs which are usually a couple of pages, then come four, five, or six more where there's an in-depth analysis of the social, economic situation of Mexico, the political atmosphere. All that gives you a historic sense that is very difficult to have if you don't look at those original documents. I think that if people gain a little bit of knowledge, and anybody that will come to see the exhibit will, about Mexico, they will have a better understanding of who we are as a nation and where we come from. That is the great value of an exhibit like this. Commemoration is remembering, and remembering is understanding, and understanding helps us to know who we are and how we can become better, every day.