Brooklyn Expedition | Latin America

Do you have a favorite piece of clothing that you wear because it says something about you?

The Nahua women of the Mexican village of Acatlan wear hand - woven skirts like these. They embroider the skirts with pictures of the plants and animals of their land, and sometimes people's names and dates.

Like Acatlan, many Central American villages have their own styles of traditional dress going back to the days of the Aztecs and Maya. Often, a woman's clothing shows where she is from, whether she is married, and her social status.

embroider means to decorate a piece of cloth with needle stitching.

Here's a map of
Central America:

Aztecs A Nahuatl-speaking northern Mexican tribe that founded Tenochtitlan in the Valley of Mexico. During the 15th and 16th centuries, they ruled an empire that reached across central and southern Mexico. Also called the Mexica.

Maya (pronounced, My-a): A Mesoamerican civilization that reached from southern Mexico, through Guatemala, and into Belize. The Maya kingdom emerged around 1000 B.C. and lasted until 1697.

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