Luz Jiménez: Google doodle celebrates 126th birthday of la mujer más pintada de México

Luz Jiménez is on today’s google doodle. She is known as la mujer más pintada de México (the most painted woman of Mexico).

Google honors Luz Jiménez with a beautiful doodle on her 126th birthday on January 28, 2023. Luz Jiménez is an indigenous Mexican model and Nahuatl-language storyteller and linguistic informant from Milpa Alta, D.F.

Luz Jiménez is depicted in countless works by Mexican artists of the early 20th century. On this day in 1897, Luz was born to a Nahua family in Milpa Alta as Julia Jiménez González. As a young woman, she witnessed the Mexican Revolution and was present when Emiliano Zapata and his revolutionary army entered Milpa Alta in 1911. Her eyewitness account is one of the only testimonies of Emiliano Zapata speaking Nahuatl. In 1916 most of her male relatives were killed in a massacre by the Carrancistas.

Luz Jiménez began to get involved in the art scene in Mexico City as a model for photographers, painters, art students, and sculptors. Her image began to appear in murals and monuments across the city, but despite this visibility, Luz remained relatively unknown and lived in poverty.

In the 1930s Luz Jiménez served as a linguistic informant to linguists working to document the Nahuatl language. Among others, she worked with Benjamin Lee Whorf who credits her in his description of Milpa Alta Nahuatl. Luz left behind numerous writings including a children's book and firsthand documentation of the Mexican Revolution, but only two texts were officially signed by her, both in the Nahuatl newspaper Mexihkatl Itonalama.

In 1942 Luz Jiménez started work as a model at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" (National School of Painting, Sculpture and Printmaking) in Frida Kahlo's classes.

In her old age, Luz Jiménez told her life story to anthropologist Fernando Horcasitas who published it with the title "Life and Death in Milpa Alta".

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