The Past as the Future

Published on: Wed Sep 10

Written by Victoria D. Rengel

“The past is in front of us and the future is behind us.”

This phrase, repeated by DRCLAS Mexico Student Coordinator Lorena Rodas many times across the two months I spent in Mexico, transcends time. Though it is rooted in Mesoamerican cosmologies, I find it to be incredibly applicable to the present, particularly in reckoning with the subject of historical memory.

In briefly reflecting on the phrase “historical memory,” it seems self-explanatory: how people remember events of the past. However, after visiting countless sites of memory—monuments, counter-monuments, museums and archives—I leave Mexico with more questions than answers.

I first engaged with “historical memory” in my internship. Through the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies’ Summer Internship Program (SIP), I got to work with Quinto Elemento Lab—an independent organization of investigative journalists—under the guidance of Marcela Turati—a journalist and former Harvard Nieman fellow specializing in documenting human rights abuses.