The author sets out to show how ideology influences translational choices in subtle (and largely subconscious) ways by investigating the traces of systematic ideological shifts in the language used in a text about Mexican history and its translation. The text and its translation appeared in a bilingual format in the UNESCO Courier. The analysis reveals that the source and target texts express two very different world views and ideologies. The source text concedes that the Spanish Conquistadors were the official chroniclers of Mexican history but states that there were also indigenous voices that remain under-represented; these voices have preserved the ‘memory’ of the peoples of Mexico. The discourse is one of a nation striving to forge its own destiny by actively searching for its past and recording it. In the target text, the role of memory is downplayed and ‘the active search for the past and the task of recording it turn into a passive “view” of the past and a “desire” to interpret it’.