Song: The Battle for the Yucatan Peninsula
A 17-year-old St. Xavier High School Senior from the Louisville Kentucky area won a $16,000 academic and “travel adventure” scholarship for a project that included a musical composition, played on violin, about the Yucatan Peninsula.
The application process included creating a project related to this year’s expedition. William wrote a musical piece called “The Battle for the Yucatan Peninsula,” or “La Batalla por Peninsula Yucatan.”
Achiever: William Thompson-Arjona | St. X student wins travel scholarship to Spain
His travel scholarship includes a trip to Spain and then to Yucatan to follow the path of the Conquistadors. In the online Courier-Journal.com newspaper article, William Thompson-Arjona describes the three attempts the Spanish made to conquer the Yucatan.
In the Yucatan Travel Movie, we go to Valladolid, a delightful colonial town that tourists seldom visit. Today it is a peaceful place but in the 1800s, it was the place where the Caste War began. In the Caste War, the Yucatecans tried to throw off the yoke of the Spanish conquerers . . . and almost succeeded.