The other day I took a cab in Atocha and asked him to take me to the Museum of America.

-Where did you say," the cab driver, who must never have heard of such a place, asked me in alarm.

And not from the GPS either, I sighed to myself.

-Next to the Fundación Jiménez Díaz.

-Oh, yes.

One went to the exhibition about Miguel Cabrera, a very interesting painter from New Spain in the 18th century. It was very pleasant: the curators had carefully prepared an explanation of who was the most important representative of caste painting, in addition to having recovered some of his paintings. The exhibition was completed with a detailed reproduction of the techniques used by the artist that showed his good official document learned in the fascinating viceregal court. But my experience was also unique for another reason: accustomed to queuing and enduring the noise of temporary exhibitions, there I could so richly enjoy all the time in the world. There was no one there.

There must be some reason why the Museum of America is the least visited museum in Madrid. When the same Minister of Culture came up with the idea that museums should be decolonized, many laughs were had at his expense and more than one remarked on his ignorance of the Spanish museum heritage. But Urtasun was not alone in his ignorance, because the museum that could most clearly be in his sights is a huge unknown throughout Madrid. Even the cab drivers don't know where it is. Of course this is not the fault of such a hard-working guild. The anecdote I have told is a symptom of a real, daily disinterest, which is apparently deactivated only once a year at this time of the year.

And that the topic is exciting. What happens is that sometimes we expect History to be told at a level that we do not ask of Science. It is an evil that affects the Humanities in general. No one believes an individual who preaches the cure for cancer with soluble vitamin C pills, but we do believe those who tell us History in slogans like pills. "It was genocide!" many shout. "It was paradise!", reply the others. The decolonials and the empireophiles can dictate their sophistry, but the world in which the inhabitants of Spanish America moved was infinitely richer, more interesting and complex. To imagine it as a great concentration camp in which armored bearded men, women and children were murdered while galleons sailed away laden with gold is a grotesque caricature of the truth. Now, to think of a multitude of Indians going to college or being cured in modern hospitals, while a bunch of happy Indians were married by the church to rude but beautiful conquistadors, is the same caricature, but in reverse.

More than the confrontation between irreconcilable positions, a true feeling of Hispanicity should be based on a sincere interest in knowing everything that has been covered up (now I am talking about our Spanish case) by centuries of neglect. Not only in America, but right here in Spain. It's easy: You can try to get on Youtube and look for videos of the music of that period. You can start, for example, with the cachua serranita of Ensemble Elyma or the rescue that the group "Los temperamentos" makes of so many wonderful pieces. It is a very rich music, with a contagious joy and so special that it differs from the European elegance of Bach, Haendel and company. In fact, these European composers were inspired by rhythms and dances (the folia, the chacona or the sarabanda) imported from the Indies. Hispanic America thus influenced Spain and Europe as in so many other things. Even flamenco itself has its roots on the other side of the Atlantic, as has been demonstrated in recent years. Surely it is time for Spaniards to discover America and understand how much of what constitutes us as a nation is inconceivable without it. This can be seen both in the very Spanish tortilla de patatas (inconceivable without the American tuber) and in so many figures who are illustrious unknowns. No country like Spain in the 18th century had so much access to the planet's biodiversity. Hence the creation of the Museum of Natural Sciences, which was founded by a gentleman from Guayaquil, the businessman and patron of the arts Pedro Franco Dávila. I beg the reader's pardon for the test: but what do we know about Bernardino de Sahagún, Juan de Palafox, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Félix de Azara or José Celestino Mutis? All of them were artists, scientists, writers, and, in some cases, as in the case of Palafox, intellectuals, politicians and saints at the same time, which has its merit.

But that is why the reading of history cannot become a pretext for self-complacency. If the aforementioned Palafox, for example, became a saint, it was because he had to deal in America with the daily reality, unjust and corrupt, of the Spanish administration. A people, incapable of being impartial, that only lives on flattery, is condemned to repeat past mistakes. We may believe as Spaniards that all the blame for our defeats has been on others, but victimhood is a bad recipe for the life of people as well as for nations. Much sinister nationalism has been consumed, and is consumed today, with victimhood propaganda. Hence, the lessons of History that it gives us, do not serve to justify or legitimize anything, especially because our parameters are not the same as those of the people of five hundred years ago.

Some time ago, the great Octavio Paz, referring to the eternal controversies in his country about the figure of Hernán Cortés, wrote the following: "As soon as Cortés ceases to be an ahistorical myth and becomes what he really is -a historical character-, Mexicans will be able to see themselves with a clearer, more generous and serene look". This is also true for Spaniards when they refer to the American past from prejudices, negative or positive. Reality is gray. Even in a character as incredible as Cortés, whose lights and shadows are extraordinary, as one can see when reading the solid and documented biographies that exist about him (by the way, not all of them: those of Bennassar, Miralles, Martínez or Mira Caballos are among the best). It is not possible to ventilate his figure by saying that he was a genocide or a hero, just like that.

The richness is not in condemning, but in understanding. In an era like ours, so enthusiastic with its agendas of progress and its accusatory or idealized views of the historical past, it does not hurt to question the history of empires without falling into simplistic interpretations, neither black nor rose-colored. Spanish America from the 16th to the 18th centuries was the first realization of a great multiethnic and globalized civilization. This sounds very nice, but we must be aware that the contribution of cultures other than Spanish was decisive. To enter into the experiences of that precursor world of today's financial aid us to listen and better understand those who think and live differently from us. As opposed to condemnation or self-congratulation, we Spaniards should open ourselves to the plural reality that is America. This implies assuming in a real way that miscegenation is today an integral part of our past and our future. Only in this way will we be able to look at ourselves in a clear, generous and serene way.