Nothing teaches the message of Hispanic/Latino Heritage month and Colombus Day for children quite like a book I came across the other day. The Angry Aztecs is part of a larger Scholastic Book series titled Horrible Histories , which attempt to teach elementary age children about different historical ethnic groups and nationalities using stereotypical humor. Because of the fact that the series contains such titles as The Terrible Tudors and the The Cut-throat Celts some will say the series is not racist and is just trying to appeal to children’s natural love of the gross.

But maybe it’s the fact that I found the book in the hands of a fourth grade Latino boy, a student in the New York City public school system, at a time when Latinos, especially Mexicans are being stereotyped as criminal, among other things that disturbed me. This was not a book that the child’s parent’s chose for him. It was a book taken from his classroom library. Still not upset? The cover of the book features the cartoon drawing of an Aztec pyramid with its steps covered in blood and corpses. The back of the books says:

The Angry Aztecs fills you in on the foulest facts Motecuhzoma, Cuahtemoc and other people with unpronounceable names, whose idea of fun was ripping out human hearts. Want to know: Why the Aztecs liked to eat scum?

As a parent, this is certainly not the kind of book I want my daughter to read. Not because I am pro-censorship but because it offers the stereotypical Latinos/Indigenous people as violent stereotype which can be used to justify the conquest and all the atrocities that followed. I already called out the local school that carries this book. There are other ways to make history fun without resorting to stereotypes.