Dominique Polanco uses fellowship to highlight Indigenous voices

One manuscript at a time, Dominique Polanco has spent much of her academic and professional career uncovering the realities of Indigenous life in Colonial Mexico, a period when the country was under Spanish rule.

Now, Polanco, assistant professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Religion and Culture, has the opportunity to publish those findings in a manuscript of her own.

This year, the Huntington Library, a collections-based educational and research institution, named Polanco a Barbara Thom Postdoctoral Fellow for the 2024-25 academic year. Through the fellowship, she will complete her first book.

The fellowship is awarded to recent postdoctoral scholars who are revising their dissertations for publication. It includes a $50,000 grant in addition to a nine-month residency at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. There, Polanco will have access to the library’s vast resources and opportunities to connect with renowned scholars.

The project

Polanco’s book will focus on the ways that Indigenous people who lived in 16th century New Spain — present-day Mexico — recorded their lives. She will study a 39-page manuscript that contains testimonies by an Indigenous group of artists and scribes called the Nahua. It recounts abuse that they endured from Spaniards and elite members of their own community.

This manuscript, recorded between 1555 and 1564, showcases a combination of recordkeeping styles, including translated oral testimonies, painted texts and images, and Spanish and Latin letters. It was later collected and reproduced by the Spanish and Mexican government.

Polanco’s research has led her to various libraries, archives, and museums across Mexico, Spain, and the U.S. By studying handmade Mesoamerican and European paper, pigments, and bindings, Polanco said she has gained the visual and cultural framework necessary to understand the ways Indigenous people were able record their own narratives during a “tumultuous time of great change and uncertainty.”

Why it matters

For Polanco, the project is personal.

“My largest inspiration for my research is my family, our history, and my own experiences as a Mexican American woman of color,” she said. “Unfortunately, that means that I was not raised in the same places and cultures as previous generations of my family.”

Additionally, Polanco said she was removed from her family’s Indigenous ancestry due to the lingering impacts of colonialism. Polanco said she considers it her “privilege and responsibility” to tell the stories of people who experienced colonialism in present-day Mexico and the way it dispersed citizens from their homeland.

Significance of humanities research

“I humbly admit that this is a competitive fellowship,” Polanco said. “It shows the significant work our university is doing in the humanities, particularly in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. The opportunities I will have to meet with other scholars, attend presentations, and conduct research at the Huntington Library will likely result in further projects and collaborations. I look forward to bringing these partnerships to Virginia Tech in the coming years.”