Pasa por Aquí

Pasa por Aquí is an initiative by the Council to present occasional columns by community members. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these blog posts/articles do not necessarily represent those of the the New Mexico Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Martinez family members of Los Reyes de Albuquerque L-R: Rob Martinez, founder Roberto Martinez, Larry Martinez and Lorenzo Martinez in Old Town Albuquerque in 1994..

From Mora to Mariachi: My Dad and his Magical Journey of Music

Mon, May 15, 2023, 5:11pm | By Rob Martinez

My dad wanted to be Pedro Infante when he grew up. His name was Roberto Martínez. As a young boy living in the Mora Valley during the Great Depression, hard work and scarcity were the norm....

Martinez family members of Los Reyes de Albuquerque L-R: Rob Martinez, founder Roberto Martinez, Larry Martinez and Lorenzo Martinez in Old Town Albuquerque in 1994..

New Mexico State Historian and blog contributor, Rob Martinez, con su guitarra.

From Mora to Mariachi: My Dad and his Magical Journey of Music

Mon, May 15, 2023, 5:11pm | By Rob Martinez

My dad wanted to be Pedro Infante when he grew up.

His name was Roberto Martínez. As a young boy living in the Mora Valley during the Great Depression, hard work and scarcity were the norm. When I asked what his middle name was, he would joke that his family was too poor to afford one for him. His dad was Maximiano Martínez, who also had no middle name. His mom was Prudencia Rosa Lovato, Gramma Rosa to us.

Dad told stories about growing up on a farm. It was a hard life in a harsh landscape -- taking care of animals, grazing livestock, butchering hogs, goats and sheep. It was bloody business. Grampo Maximiano was a hard worker and could also be a hard man. It was all he knew. Once, when dad was about 9 years old, his dad made him ride a horse across the valley from Chacon toward Guadalupita to tend to some cows. Dad was scared and cold. Perhaps today it would be considered child abuse. Back then, it was survival. There were stories of Grampo making money to feed the family by cutting down trees in the mountains and hauling logs down to the valley. It was hard work carried out by seemingly indestructible people. Dad was only 11. He helped, recalling to all of us the feeling of exhaustion. And the deep sleep that followed on a bed shared with his younger siblings. The cool pine filled mountains of green grass, alfalfa growing in fields, plums picked right off the tree in summertime, their sweet juice running down the chins of those taking a respite from the hard work of the day -- moments transformed into fond memories.

Dad’s Uncle Flavio broke away from the boundaries that surrounded the rural hamlets of Mora, Chacon, and Rito de Agua Negra, also known as Holman. Uncle Flavio sang and played guitar and saxophone! He was charming and looked like Omar Sharif. And he drank like a musician. He was a hero to my dad. Rare trips to Las Vegas, New Mexico, exposed the mountain family to English-speaking Americans. Spanish, after all, was all Dad heard spoken by his family. The lilting singsong of aspirated ‘s’ sounds and sweet comfort from his mom were also memories he shared.

Dad’s Uncle Flavio inspired him, but the revelation of what he could be came one summer afternoon when, in a small theater, young Roberto saw a Mexican movie that featured a swaggering, charro-suited Mexican singer named Pedro Infante. Dad was mesmerized! He ran home filled with joy and excitement! “Quiero cantar! Quiero una guitarra!

For centuries the mountain valleys of northern New Mexico were peppered with small, windowless adobe chapels called moradas. They housed an ancient brotherhood of local Catholic men called Los Hermanos Penitentes. The traditions of penance and chanting alabados during Semana Santa seemed as ancient as the mountains and trees, as old as the acequia that watered animals and fields for food and sustenance. My dad heard their laments in Spanish echo through the trees and mountains near Chacon and Holman in the Mora Valley. They were as much a part of his world as the carne seca de venado or the pungent odors from a freshly butchered hog for a matanza.

Dad loved and respected the Penitentes. But he wanted to be a mariachi! One day, his Tio Flavio surprised him with a guitar made from an old gas can. With a stick for a neck and cat-gut strings tightly spanning the make-shift neck, it was unplayable. Still, having his own guitarra made my dad smile for weeks. He strummed, pretending to be Pedro Infante singing to a beautiful senorita.

When World War II hit like a blast, young men from around the country were thrilled at the thought of thumping Nazis and demolishing fascism in Europe and Japanese imperialism in the Pacific. Dad wanted to go so badly but was too young. He watched as the older boys signed up and went off to fight America’s enemies. His Tio Roberto Lovato had served in the trenches in Europe in The Great War and another primo was sent to fight the Japanese in the Pacific, serving under the command of an actor named Henry Fonda. Dad was too young and too slight to sneak in. Once, he ate five pounds of bananas to try and trick the recruiters into letting him join. His plan unsurprisingly failed.

Dad graduated high school in 1947, then got a job as a clerk-typist in Las Vegas, New Mexico, to help his family in Mora. He had four younger siblings, and there was not a lot of money or food. Then he landed a job at the mental hospital in Las Vegas as an orderly. One day while eating in the commissary, he spied a beautiful, auburn-haired green-eyed young woman and was struck by an arrow of love. She was serving food. He asked her name, but she shyly declined to tell him. Later, he saw her sitting on a bench outside the hospital. He asked again. Ramona Elena Salazar, she said. They talked, went on a date, and eventually married in Las Vegas, New Mexico (not Nevada). They started a family, and as with so many Hispano New Mexicans in the years following the war, joined the diaspora leaving the mountain villages of New Mexico for Denver.

Dad got a job as a civil servant with the federal government. Mom introduced him to her uncle, Jesse Ulibarri, who sang and played guitar. He bought a used guitar and started singing Mexican rancheras, polkas, and waltzes with Uncle Jesse. Soon, they landed a gig at a local downtown bar, dubbing themselves Los Trovadores. Dad quickly bought his first charro suit!

Four kids later, the Martinez family moved south to Albuquerque. Settling in the Northeast Heights, Dad worked by day on the Air Force base, and by night as a mariachi musician. I came along in 1963, about the same time dad founded his band, Los Reyes de Albuquerque. Our home was filled with Mexican music, delicious Mexican food cooked lovingly by our mom, and my older siblings belting out Beatle songs. I remember my dad dressed in dark slacks, white shirt and a tie -- his outfit for his day job -- then he would change into his mariachi traje, black with silver plata down the side of the pants. He would smile, strum his vihuela, and light up the room. Then he was off to a gig! Dad’s dream of being Pedro Infante finally came true.

Rob Martinez is state historian of New Mexico. Before that he was deputy state historian for six years, and also taught high school history at Rio Rancho High School for ten years. Rob was also a research historian for the Sephardic Legacy Project of New Mexico and the Vargas Project at UNM, where he earned an M.A. in history in 1997.

Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this blog post/article does not necessarily represent those of the New Mexico Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Paul Ingles with his father John, in 2014.

A SOLDIER'S PASSAGE: A New Mexico-made Film Explores the Art of Saying "Goodbye" to Dad

Mon, May 15, 2023, 1:56pm | By Paul Ingles

Dec. 5, 2004, I was standing in the wings of Albuquerque’s historic (and some say haunted) KiMo Theater, watching the talented singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier close a fundraising concert I was...

Paul Ingles with his father John, in 2014.

A Soldier's Passage Movie Poster

Radio producer, filmmaker, reporter and blog contributor Paul Ingles.

A SOLDIER'S PASSAGE: A New Mexico-made Film Explores the Art of Saying "Goodbye" to Dad

Mon, May 15, 2023, 1:56pm | By Paul Ingles

Dec. 5, 2004, I was standing in the wings of Albuquerque’s historic (and some say haunted) KiMo Theater, watching the talented singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier close a fundraising concert I was emceeing. It was for the non-profit radio project I had co-founded in 2002, PEACE TALKS RADIO. Mary had followed Latina star Tish Hinojosa, and Native-American songster Bill Miller on the KiMo stage that night. All had volunteered their performances for the cause.

Mary had been applauded back on stage for an encore and chose to close the show with a new song of hers that she had yet to record. I was riveted from the first lines.

My father could use a little mercy now

The fruits of his labor fall and rot slowly on the ground

His work is almost over, it won't be long, he won't be around

I love my father, he could use some mercy now

(You can see a more recent performance of it here.)

Like probably everyone listening in that KiMo crowd, I was tossed suddenly into an introspective place of compassion for my own aging father. In 2004, both my mother and father were in their early 80s and, thankfully, in reasonably stable health. They were living in a retirement community in North Carolina. In fact, my father was still playing golf once or twice a week and was soon to be landing his first hole-in-one ever after 70 years of playing the game. (THAT was one great phone call I got to take!) My mother, never much for exercise, was active socially at the home and had become quite good at the new-at-the-time, no-sweat craze of computerized Wii-Bowling among the residents.

But despite their decent health status at that time, on my regular visits from Albuquerque to see them, I couldn’t avoid staring down the halls at the retirement complex that led to the assisted-living and hospital room units. There, “residents” turned into “patients”, moving ever more slowly in their last days, essentially waiting (some impatiently) to die. I imagined I would be standing vigil, relatively soon, at the bedside of both of my parents, watching them take their last breaths.

Flash forward not quite seven years from the benefit concert into the summer of 2011. My mom had been weakening through that year, but she was determined to make it to her 60^th wedding anniversary party with my dad and the whole family gathering from near and far toward the end of July. She’d dressed up pretty for it, looked thin, but elegant and happy in all the pictures. A couple of days later, as I was about to leave for the airport myself to return to Albuquerque, I had them release the big 6-0 helium balloons from their party into the sky and made a video for the family.

Eight days later, my mother quickly contracted an infection and landed in the local hospital. I’d talked to her on the phone on my 55^th birthday, Aug. 7, 2011. She seemed pretty spunky on the call, anxious to get home to their apartment. As she had many times before, it seemed that she would rebound from a health setback again. But the next night, I got the call from my older brother, John, who lived near them in South Carolina. He said she had taken a sudden turn to unresponsiveness. I wasn’t able even to book a plane from Albuquerque fast enough to get to her bedside, as she died a few hours after his call.

From that moment on, it was certainly my father who could use a little mercy now.

John, my younger sister Betsy, and I gathered in North Carolina to store or donate most of their apartment’s furniture to charity. My father, a World War II veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, retreated to the smallest assisted-living apartment in the complex. There was only room for the necessities – his bed, reading chair, desk, dresser, and television set. The Spartan surroundings suited his military training of needing just the basics to survive the battlefield march. The only luxury he insisted on was keeping his nice stereo equipment from the old apartment to listen to his cherished music collection from more than 70 years. He so loved the big bands, Dixieland jazz, and the best singers of the “American Songbook”.

By his 93^rd birthday in December of 2015, he had to give up his beloved golf, and he’d retired from driving his car -- just a bit before we three kids insisted on it. He’d watch the TV golf channel, listen to music, take slow walks around the grounds, and have meals with his small group of friends who made up his shrunken world. He had been diagnosed with slow-moving prostate cancer and mild Parkinson’s Disease. Thankfully he had no dementia, so he was still great to talk with. But physically he was basically outliving his parts’ warranties. He was also given to occasional fainting spells that, each time, sent him to the emergency room for evaluation and a night or two in that same small local hospital nearby where my mom had passed.

It was after one of these fainting spells that what we had dubbed ourselves as “Team Ingles” – my two sibs and I – and we mobilized to spend as much time as we collectively could with him. My brother and sister were both teachers with a little less scheduling flexibility than I (a freelance radio reporter and producer), so I came often and tried to stay long as I could. I’d have to fly back to New Mexico on occasion as I had recently added filmmaking to my suite of media projects. I was shooting and editing a short film that partially depicted the beginnings of our family’s efforts to offer my dad support in the lonely days after my mom’s death.

As his health challenges mounted for him in the months ahead, I couldn’t help but notice the profundity of every step in the process -- his emotional struggle entering these final months of life, and my emotional struggle with bearing close-up witness to it. It was hard to watch his independence melt away.

I was getting my support, in equal parts from Susan, my partner of nearly three years, and my longtime behavioral therapist, who I’ll call “Don.” Don had helped steer me through a 2004 divorce of my own and a couple of bumpy attempts at relationships in the years before I met Susan. As I continued to get valuable advice from Don about how to better help my father, I began to make mental notes on possibly scripting the experience into a film that might help others deal better with the passing of an elderly parent or friend.

With each visit, it seemed that my dad was able to do less and less on his own. Even with a walker, he wasn’t steady enough to safely go on his treasured walks around the grounds, or even go to meet his friends at the retirement home’s cafeteria for meals. The hospital evaluation after his most recent faint uncovered even more heart weakness, and the mounting need for home health care and possibly hospice care was becoming inevitable. All this put each of us keeping him company in a challenging position. We’d at times be trying to divert his attention from the discouraging disempowerment from his declining physical abilities, while at the same time needing to dish out the “tough love” conversations about bringing on the extended care help that those declining abilities would necessitate.

My dad was resistant to accepting the extra help. Everything about his life seemed guided by the principle of self-sufficiency. He grew up in a career military family and went to military school. His father rose to two-star general status in the Army and was in charge of the essential Signal Corps in World War II. My dad was 1^st Lt. Ingles in his active stint in his early 20s toward the end of the war in that crucial winter of the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 and ’45, earning the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

Unlike a lot of World War II veterans, who never spoke of their experiences on their return from war, my father finally crafted his experiences 40 years after the war by writing a detailed memoir in the 1980s.  He wrote a fair amount about his sometimes-strained relationship with his father, whose stoicism around the crafting of the strategy of war was a quality my dad, slogging with enlisted men on the front lines, couldn’t adopt.   My father wrote in his memoir, that he titled A Soldier’s Passage, that he could never be unemotional in combat.  He felt the fear and dread too deeply.   

That’s why my father didn't make the military his own career and worked instead in management for 35 years with the phone company. His upper-level post there only magnified his devotion to responsibility. And while he handed that trait down to each of us kids in a mostly benevolent way as we grew up, he could also flash a sternness that reminded us who was the boss in this family. It was a sternness that could at times push out fear-tears from the rest of us, even my mom.

As I spent more time with my father in his last months, he'd make occasional references to his own father, which left me wondering if my dad was troubled over whether or not he really measured up in his own father's eyes, or even in the grander scheme of things.

My dad was engaged in a deeply honest life review in these months. My therapy sessions with Don helped me make this time with my father rich and special. My memory of the advice he gave me at the end of one session just before I was headed back to the Carolinas for another visit showed up this way in the film drama I eventually scripted and produced. I borrowed the name of my dad’s memoir as its title: A Soldier’s Passage.

Don: When you’re with him, think about the harder stuff you’ve told me about in here over the years – between you and your dad.

Paul: What, that he blamed us kids for making my mom cry, when it was probably him making her cry? That he’s distant and remote from us sometimes. That he thought my politics was naïve and iill-conceived. That he didn’t always listen to me the way I wanted him to, like YOU do?

Don (smiling wryly): Right, stuff like that.

Paul (chuckles but shakes his head): Don, you know, he’s 93. I really don’t want to hit him up on stuff like that. He’s kind of earned his peace from me complaining about a few issues he left me with.

Don: No. Just keep that stuff in mind and listen to him. HE might have something to say about those things in these close-to-the-end times.

(WATCH: the scene from A SOLIDER’S PASSAGE)

It was good advice. The months that followed were emotionally hard on everyone but were often enriched by my dad volunteering his deepest feelings from his life review. Sometimes he’d confess troubling regrets like “I should have shown your mother more fun and been kinder to her,” or “I should have helped her more with you kids.” As Don had suggested, rather than try to rush in and say “There, there, THAT’S not true,” to try to make him feel better (especially if it was at least probably a little true), it was best to just listen, and let him talk himself out on it. Then, Don had told me, it was best to acknowledge his upset. Reflect back to him what he’d said, and even agree with him that it must be hard to feel that way, to make sure he knew that he’d been heard. THEN, it would better clear the way for me to suggest a different way to think about it.

For example, after reflecting back to my dad his regrets about his husbanding and parenting deficits, I gently suggested that he was only living up to the only model HE had, his own father, who was being a typical husband and father of the 1920s and 30s. Shared parenting and more equitable marriages weren’t happening back then and hadn’t advanced much in my dad’s era of the 1950s and 60s either. Pointing that out to him may have offered him some solace.

Other times, with only mild prompting, my father would unveil some story from his past that none of us had heard before. A lifelong baseball fan, I asked him when he went to his first major league game. It was 1932, he said, when he was 9 and the family was living in Washington, DC. With his own dad away at Officers Training School at the time, two African-American elevator operators in their apartment building offered to take him to a Memorial Day weekend game at Griffith Park. “They asked my mom if they could, and she said yes. She knew they’d take good care of me. I used to ride up and down in the elevator with them most days just talking to them. We saw the Yankees beat the Senators that day, and I’ve hated those Yankees ever since!”

There was much more of this over the ensuing months of his decline. As often as possible, I’d surreptitiously record his stories and late-life ruminations on my phone to share with the family later. They also wound up being the transcribed source material for my film.

Largely bed-ridden by the start of the summer of 2016 and dependent on 24/7 home health assistance in his apartment, my dad was growing impatient with his body’s failings and told me he wasn’t afraid of dying and “wanted to be with Audrey (his wife/our mom) again.”

As something of an agnostic myself, I told him, “Well, dad, wherever mom is right now, you’ll be going to the same place.”

My dad, never outwardly religious, responded to my somewhat open-ended statement with “I truly believe I will.”

On my commutes back and forth to see my dad, I’d been listening, often in tears, to one particular song from my own collection of music repeatedly. It was Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams.”

Grab your ticket and your suitcase

Thunder's rolling down this track

Well, you don't know where you're going now

But you know you won't be back

Well, darling if you're weary

Lay your head upon my chest

We'll take what we can carry

Yeah, and we'll leave the rest

Well, big wheels roll through fields where sunlight streams

Meet me in a land of hope and dreams (FULL LYRICS HERE) (PERFORMANCE HERE)

I’d even suggested to my dad that his impatience with getting to move on must feel like having his bags all packed and waiting on the platform at the station for a train. “You wait. You’re ready,” I said to him, “but you just don’t know when it’s scheduled to arrive.”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s a good way of putting it.”

My father drew his last breath at 5:23 in the afternoon of July 5, 2016, with my sister and I sitting on either side of his bed. My brother had been there earlier in the day too. We were softly playing some of my dad’s favorite music off my iPod. Close to the end, his favorite, Ella Fitzgerald, was singing near his ear “These Foolish Things Remind Me of You.” Its lyrics sounded almost like a playback of a Greatest Generation life.

The sigh of midnight trains in empty stations

Silk stockings thrown aside dance invitations

Oh, how the ghost of you clings!

These foolish things remind me of you (FULL LYRICS HERE) (PERFORMANCE HERE)

Again, with the midnight train in an empty station, I remember thinking.

Weeks later in Albuquerque, I reviewed the whole experience with my therapist, Don.

"Seeing my father take his last breath was probably the most profound thing I've ever witnessed. I keep playing it over and over in my head. And you know what? I don't think I WANT to forget it."       

"You never will," Don said assuredly.

I’ve been treasuring every breath ever since.

Paul Ingles’ feature film adaptation about his father’s passing, A Soldier’s Passage, will screen at THE GUILD THEATRE in Albuquerque, Saturday, Nov. 11 (Veterans’ Day) at 12:30 pm.

SEE TRAILER TO A SOLDIER’S PASSAGE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=facT3ZJgFIE

SEE FULL MOVIE A SOLDIER’S PASSAGE IN COLOR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMrd0jQ9zCk

SEE FULL MOVIE A SOLDIER’S PASSAGE IN BLACK & WHITE (with Fitzgerald and Springsteen songs included): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6filS6XMwVc&t=2757s

SEE FILM CLIP OF PAUL’S REAL DAD FROM THE CREDITS ROLL OF A SOLDIER’S PASSAGE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l5fzETWmh8

Paul Ingles is an independent radio producer and occasional filmmaker whose career in radio, television, newspapers, and film dates back to 1975. After an 8 year stint as Production Director at KUNM at the University of New Mexico (1994-2002), his last 21 years have largely been spent doing freelance reporting and consulting for NPR, producing music history documentaries for public radio, as well as the talk series PEACE TALKS RADIO about peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution, and making 3 films. His film A SOLDIER'S PASSAGE was an official selection or award-winner at 18 film festivals around the globe. It will screen on Veterans Day, November 11, 2023 at Albuquerque's GUILD CINEMA at 12:30 pm.

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Esther Martinez, Native American storyteller, from Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico. Photo Courtesy of Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico.

Esther Martinez (P’oe Tsáwä/Blue Water): A Matriarch of Pueblo Language Preservation

Tue, Apr 18, 2023, 9:52am | By Kim Suina Melwani

We come from a tradition that values the music of language, its poetry, and its ability to conjure images. There is a love for the sound of the language, a love for the beauty of a phrase. —Tessie...

Esther Martinez, Native American storyteller, from Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico. Photo Courtesy of Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico.

Author and blog contributor, Kim Suina Melwani of the Keresan-speaking village of Cochiti Pueblo.

Esther Martinez (P’oe Tsáwä/Blue Water): A Matriarch of Pueblo Language Preservation

Tue, Apr 18, 2023, 9:52am | By Kim Suina Melwani

We come from a tradition that values the music of language, its poetry, and its ability to conjure images. There is a love for the sound of the language, a love for the beauty of a phrase.
—Tessie Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo)

The mother tongue, or native language learned from birth, transmits not only conceptual meaning, but culturally specific social and inferred meaning which make language feel like “home”— like the intonation of a grandmother’s words as she sips her morning coffee and chats with her comadre (Spanish word meaning “godmother” or “friend,” which in Pueblo culture refers to a co-mother responsibility for a child) about village happenings while her young grandchild plays nearby, or the rhythm of a grandfather’s songs as he later sings that same child to sleep in his arms for an afternoon nap. These elements that are embedded in culture are transmitted to that child whether they eventually learn to speak that language fluently themselves. Childhood memories are made from these words; childhood memories are made from these songs.

For numerous Pueblo children, these formative years were disrupted by U.S. federal policies aimed at systematically extinguishing Native languages and cultures through assimilation to American culture by schooling. Despite its intimate familiarity, the native language has remained out of grasp for many who have not realized fluency as previous generations had done so without much effort due to historical events that disturbed family and community. Schooling, relocation to urban areas for economic gain, and cultural and social changes such as the introduction of television are among these events that have disrupted fluency. However, these language memories could never be erased. And for some, actual language proficiency has become reality thanks to those who defied historical circumstances refusing to let these languages die, including Esther Martinez (P’oe Tsáwä/Blue Water).

In 1912, the year that Martinez was born, New Mexico Pueblos lived with the U.S. government policy that required them to send some of their youngest community members to off-reservation boarding schools. Perhaps, the most well-known of these schools was Carlise Indian Industrial School whose founder’s words echo the initial aim of these schools, “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” Some Pueblo children went to the faraway school in Pennsylvania; and many more attended local boarding schools: Santa Fe Indian School and St. Catherine’s Indian School, both in Santa Fe, and Albuquerque Indian School.

Removed from family, community and everything she had known up until that point —language, food, music, dance, stories — Martinez, like many other Pueblo children, was expected to receive a mainstream education which meant leaving her native language at home. By age 7, Martinez no longer had her elders, their stories, or her grandmother’s cooking to ease the transition as she reoriented herself to boarding school life about 20 miles south of her village of Ohkay Owingeh (formerly known as San Juan Pueblo).

The regimented boarding school curriculum was in complete contrast to the way that teaching occurred in the Pueblo world. Martinez elaborated on the Pueblo approach to education, “We were taught the values of the Tewa world. And it was not a place where we sit down and have to listen. They modeled what they were teaching us. That was a nice way to learn.” So homesick were Martinez and her peers that they hid under blankets to hide their tears or risk being labeled “crybabies.” In boarding school, children were reprimanded for speaking what up until that point flowed naturally, and without shame, from their mouths: their mother tongue.

Martinez, who graduated from Albuquerque Indian School, eventually returned to her home community, perhaps more determined to hold on to those aspects of her culture that the government tried to remove. Upon returning home, she supported her family by working numerous service jobs, as well as carving birds from driftwood found at the nearby river bank (a place she frequented with her 10 children) to sell to tourists, and later became a bilingual language teacher.

While working at San Juan Day School, she and others compiled the first Tewa language dictionary, curriculum guides, and storybooks. Although she spoke Tewa fluently from childhood, she did not learn to read and write the language until she was in her 50s. Pueblo languages had always been transmitted orally until cultural and social disruptions from the outside caused communities to turn to written words as a new way of transferring this knowledge. Martinez’s recognition of this shift resulted in the creation of valuable written resources beneficial not only to her own village, but to other Tewa-speaking Pueblos.

She traveled throughout New Mexico and to other states, essentially acting as an ambassador, telling stories and teaching others about her Pueblo culture. She credited her grandfather with teaching her these stories, which she listened to on long winter nights as she snacked on roasted piñons. Martinez’s daughter, Josephine Binford, described the experience of hearing her mother tell a story: “Every time my mother tells stories to us or to others, she makes the story come alive. She speaks in a low tone, with each word carefully and very gently spoken. When her words are spoken the words are treated like gold.”

With each telling of a story, she demonstrated that the connection to the traditions of her ancestors continued despite attempts from outside forces to sever these bonds. In addition to teaching lessons about life, her stories illustrated the many aspects that make Pueblo life unique including a profound belief in multigenerational community and kinship ties; a value system focused on respect for self and others; and how oral tradition is woven into language, stories, music, songs and dance.

Martinez’s publications embody her work as a linguist, storyteller, and a historian, including the San Juan Pueblo Tewa Dictionary (1982), the children’s book, The Naughty Little Rabbit and Old Man Coyote (1992), and My Life in San Juan Pueblo: Stories of Esther Martinez (2004). On the national level, her passion for language preservation and revitalization was recognized in 2006 when she was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts, and further with the signing of the Esther Martinez Languages Preservation Act, a measure which worked to fund programs that promote Native language preservation.

When receiving the State of New Mexico’s Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1998, Martinez commented on how she was the first Native storyteller to receive the recognition, comparing herself to painters who had received the award, “I never went anywhere with my ‘paintings’; my paintings are all done in the minds of my audience, my artwork lives in the heart of people.”

Martinez’s storytelling demonstrated her love of language — more specifically her love for her Tewa language — her love for the traditions that shaped her, and her deep commitment to assuring that these loves remain in the hearts of future generations.

Sources Used:

Mainor, Peggy and Evie Freeman, “Esther Martinez: Protecting the Intangible Heritage of the Tewa People.” National Trust for Historic Preservation. Aug. 18, 2020.

https://savingplaces.org/stories/esther-martinez-protecting-the-intangible-heritage-of-the-tewa-people

Martinez, Esther, and Sue-Ellen Jacobs and Josephine Binford, eds. My Life in San Juan Pueblo: Stories of Esther Martinez. Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004.

Martinez, Matthew. “Esther Martinez” in Voices from the Gaps. University of Minnesota. April 5, 2005.

https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/166267/Martinez%2c%20Esther.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Kim Suina Melwani is from the Keresan-speaking village of Cochiti Pueblo. She holds an MA in U.S. West history from the University of New Mexico, and currently researches and writes on topics related to Native history and culture.

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Author and blog contributor, Elaine Montague with her husband Gary Montague.

MUSINGS OF A LOCKED-OUT WIFE

Tue, Apr 18, 2023, 9:25am | By Elaine Montague

With thanks to Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Camus, Plato, Rousseau, Kafka and Saint-Exupery © Elaine Carson Montague 2023 How do we celebrate what it means to be human? Are we human when the Office...

Author and blog contributor, Elaine Montague with her husband Gary Montague.

MUSINGS OF A LOCKED-OUT WIFE

Tue, Apr 18, 2023, 9:25am | By Elaine Montague

With thanks to Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Camus, Plato, Rousseau, Kafka and Saint-Exupery

© Elaine Carson Montague 2023

How do we celebrate what it means to be human?

Are we human when the Office of the Medical Examiner says the body bag cannot be unzipped for a final goodbye? We stand in midnight’s blackness of sudden death at an assisted living facility, and I hear the explanation, “Sorry, we can’t do that: COVID rules!”

What does humanity mean in American society? How important to maintaining good quality of life are communication and the way we treat one another?

Philosophers suggest that we are human because we think or reason. Thus, I question.

Let us reflect upon our elderly, infirm and disabled. Must we act humanely to be called human? We say our republic is a democratic society. Democratic is a synonym for humane. Our actions affect what others think and do. Hindu actress Priya Mishra in The Times of India Readers’ Blog reminds us to understand and respect the positive value of every being, to learn from mistakes and improve, and to contribute to making the world better. What will we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic? To show compassion, be benevolent, act mercifully with kindness?

Is it ethical to do another’s thinking and issue mandates contrary to most people’s sense of right and wrong? Even when fear of the unknown forms the basis for such rules or when great debate ensues and haste encourages flight from the threat of collective danger, is it moral? Such regulations constrain the few and offer a dilemma over which they have no control. If the dilemma is likely to end in physical death or a surcease of communication and loss of all they love only to take more breaths, is it OK?

Who should have control and make decisions? What role does freedom of personal choice play? What is the role of the state vs. personal responsibility?

As we seek to interpret a new world amidst the onslaught of death and confusion such as during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2023, how do we make sense of an upturned society, impacting people nationally and worldwide? During the pandemic, voices rose around us in protest, both personal and societal, and expressed differing opinions, from obtuse and illiterate to knowledgeable but with differing assessments. The grieving and frightened populace could not discern truth in a time of unsureness.

A pandemic affects a substantial number of people. In the case of COVID-19, it resulted in great losses of life, global socioeconomic upheaval and widespread grief.

In my life, it tore apart a union of more than six decades and caused loss of personal and medical care for the human being I loved most during all that time. His heart pumped. His lungs brought life-giving breath. I felt his touch sweep love to every tiny nerve in my body. His laughter and infectious grin warmed me. His spirit sustained me. He was real.

The calls came. “You cannot come back. We are on lockdown. No visitors are allowed.”

“He must remain in his room and no longer see other residents.”

“His private nurse cannot come, nor his therapists. You are all locked out.”

My husband had little sight and lived in an assisted living facility that did not want him to leave for any reason for fear that he might bring back a dread disease. Medical treatment for a serious underlying condition and therapy to restore walking stopped. I was not there to read aloud and offer comfort. Employees were free to come and go, required only to say that they had not encountered anyone with COVID or experienced symptoms, but he was isolated from his caregiving family and fellow residents. Oxford Learner’s Dictionary says, “Contact with other people is a basic human need.”

For eight months, we celebrated holidays, birthdays, and a precious anniversary by phone and tablet and were far more than socially distanced. He had trouble managing a device with no tangible buttons or bright markings. Was it right side up or askew, as our world had become?

State ombudsmen were not allowed to enter facilities to ensure residents’ care, leaving families unable to monitor the care of loved ones. The state sent my husband to a COVID rehab center, where I felt that caregivers did not understand what low vision means, adding to his fear and frustration. He also encountered broken or disconnected plumbing, confusion about where his clothes were, lack of warm blankets, and poor communication. He was asymptomatic. He asked me to get him out of there alive. I did, but he lived only days longer.

There were moments when I felt powerless to affect our destinies. Mostly, I felt very alone in the struggle, begging God for help.

As I seek to forgive those responsible for what happened and walk in the unfamiliar territory of aloneness, how do I sort through conflicting personal feelings and chaos? How do I grieve physical and emotional loss and understand my obligation to our social contract? Do I rely only on my strong religious faith, or might I find societal threads to restore strength and resilience?

The state is a form of human association to establish order and security, as well as mental state. Plato taught that man reflects the character of the state he lives in. He said that safety and belongingness are among basic human needs that motivate us and we are here to help one another.

Nelson Mandela said, “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” Will we learn and improve from the darkness of COVID-19?

How important is informed citizenry when facing sudden onslaught by a threat of unknown origin with unpredictable outcomes? How do we retain habits, customs, and beliefs that protect our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? What do we believe about being human?

Indeed, I have more questions than answers. Hence, the need for brave leaders and journalists who value the importance of our being informed.

We have user-friendly tools for fast communication and the financial access to those tools. How do we use them to celebrate what it means to be human? Do we stimulate discontent to awaken understanding and relieve human suffering or stimulate discontent because we can? Are we free to ask questions without fear of excoriation by those with strong differences of opinion?

With all the noise around us, will we be an informed citizenry?

Elaine Carson Montague is a career educator, an award-winning author and poet who wrote “Victory from the Shadows, Growing Up in a New Mexico School for the Blind and Beyond” with her late husband, Gary Ted Montague. They set a goal that the book be read in teacher-training programs in the English-speaking world. Victory has won eight literary awards, including two international ones. Elaine (www.elainemontague.com) is a member of SouthWest Writers, New Mexico Press Women, and New Mexico State Poetry Society. She cherishes sunsets, open space, Bible study, and time with friends.

Tags 4 quarantine globalpandemic humanities loss

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Credit: Dr. Joe S. Sando. Photo Courtesy of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.

Telling our stories: Pueblo author and teacher, Dr. Joe S. Sando

Sat, Apr 1, 2023, 10:00am | By Jonna C. Paden

Credit: Dr. Joe S. Sando. Photo Courtesy of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.

Blog author and contributor Jonna C. Paden.

Telling our stories: Pueblo author and teacher, Dr. Joe S. Sando

Sat, Apr 1, 2023, 10:00am | By Jonna C. Paden

Despite the Pueblo’s long history in the Southwest, little has been written about Pueblo people and our contributions to history. What was written, especially for children, was not always complimentary and lacked accuracy. Dr. Joe S. Sando set out to change that, to correct misconceptions and misinformation. He became one of the first Pueblo people to research, write and talk about our history.

Sando was born on August 1, 1923 into the Sun Clan at Walatowa (Jemez Pueblo) and that was where he grew up. His childhood was typical of Pueblo boys in the 1930s and 40s. When not in school, he herded rams, tended to baby lambs and worked at sheep camp with his brother, Frank. He irrigated and hoed the garden and fields, cut wheat and fetched drinking water.

Joe graduated from Santa Fe Indian School in 1941 then enrolled at Highlands University for the 1942 fall semester. Rather than get drafted to the Army, he signed up for the Navy because the recruiting poster said he would learn a trade in the service. But, he writes, “neither I nor any of my boot camp mates went to any school.”

In 1944, Sando applied to be a yeoman striker (office clerk and typist). He had taken the time to learn to type while at boot camp Liberty in San Diego. He and boot camp mate Ricardo Otero from Tamaya(Santa Ana Pueblo) would go to the United Service Organization (USO), put a quarter in a typewriter and type for an hour. That skill certainly helped years later when he wrote an editorial column for the Albuquerque Tribune. Sando was honorably discharged in April 1946.

Military service gave Joe the opportunity to attend college on the G.I. Bill. He enrolled at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales in the fall of 1946. He graduated in 1949 with a degree in education. Over the next 10 years, Sando worked in various occupations at schools, met his dream girl, Louisa Barry Parker, married and started a family, and started graduate school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

In the 1960s, Joe served as consultant to the UNM Cultural Awareness Center, and with the Albuquerque and Bernalillo Public Schools. He gave lectures to the teachers on the problems Native children face in getting an education and on their socio-cultural background.

Sando started on the path of education with the All Indian Pueblo Council (AIPC) Education Community in 1969. He organized education conferences and worked to make Native students aware of higher education opportunities.

In 1970, Joe joined the Southwest Cooperative Education Laboratory (SWCEL) at UNM, where he developed curricula, spoke at workshops and taught Pueblo Indian and Southwest Indian history. In 1982, he began teaching ethno-history of North, Central and South America at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sando received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in 1978 to research and write. He states in his autobiography, Pueblo Recollections: The Life of Paa Péh – Joe S. Sando, that his writing career started in 1949, his senior year at Eastern New Mexico University. Dr. Thelma Mallory said, “Did you know you can write?” In typical Joe Sando fashion, he told her, “Why do you tell me this now? I could have relished this compliment a thousand times when I was in English 102.” Thus begin his research and writing of several books on Pueblo history and highlighted the stories of people that helped shape Pueblo life.

In 1985, Joe came to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center as a volunteer. He was assigned to the archives and the Institute for Pueblo Indian Studies (IPIS), which was established to be a library, to plan and direct educational programming and research projects. Here, he answered phone calls and email (those typing skills helped again!) from all over the world, from people wanting to know more about American Indians. Joe provided recommendation for books, was interviewed and filmed speaking on various topics, read transcripts and, sometimes, unexpectedly provided a Pueblo visitor their genealogy.

The IPCC Archives holds his research material, book drafts, speeches, correspondence and honors and awards. (I did the preliminary organization of his papers and can say there is some interesting material in here!) Of note, Joe received the Excellence in Humanities Awards from the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities on November 1, 2000.

Throughout his life, Joe served the Pueblo and Native communities. He was an interpreter, guidance counselor, adviser, audiometric screener, project director, curriculum developer, instructor, speaker, researcher, writer, lecturer, a historian and a subject specialist, and world traveler. He was on several boards and won awards for his books. In 2008, Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez, through an Executive Order, proclaimed October 25^th Joe Sando Day. The University of New Mexico awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in 2007. His enduring legacy is honored by the Joe Sando Symposium on Pueblo Indian Studies which brings together Indigenous scholars to highlight their work.

And so we go―Pueblo scholars and researchers alike―traveling in the footsteps made by Dr. Joe S. Sando to add our voices to history, to increase representation, to honor our ancestors.

Sources:

Hartranft, M. (1973) Joe Sando: Man of many talents deeply cares about Indian affairs. Pueblo News.

Sando, J. S. (2008). Pueblo Recollections: The life of Paa Péh – Joe S. Sando. Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishing.

Jonna C. Paden is from Acoma Pueblo and is the Librarian and Archivist at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center Library and Archives. She holds a Masters of Library and Information Science from San José State University.

Tags 4 joesando jemezpueblo newmexicohistory native american

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Credit: Tarot de Marseilles Justice card beside Dolores Huerta mural painted by Jodie Herrera. Credit: Photo by Bethany Tabor

The Fool's Journey

Tue, Jun 1, 2021, 8:00am | By Bethany Tabor

It’s impossible to travel through Albuquerque without encountering at least one beautiful, larger-than-life mural on the side of a building or wall. The practice of mural painting—which has...

Lágrimas: Poems of Joy and Sadness

Fri, May 28, 2021, 2:36pm | By Nasario Garcia

Beyond people, the landscape and animals were dear to my heart. “Me hablan/They Speak to Me” is a vivid manifestation of how I as a kid communicated with the peaks, valleys, ravines, and arroyos.

National Parks Service; “Journey’s End” Artist Reynaldo “Sonny” Rivera, in collaboration with landscape architect Richard Borkovetz Credit: National Park Service

The Santa Fe Trail

Fri, May 28, 2021, 1:51pm | By Thomas Chavez

For much of its history New Mexico was an island in the wilderness, a unique European settlement among Native cultures in the middle of the continent distant from the so-called frontier lines of the United States and Mexico

Into the Beautiful North

Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:12am | By Ann Bentley

What do you think of when you hear “book club”? Middle aged women discussing the latest literary fiction or, maybe chick lit, novel, while drinking wine of course. Or maybe you think of retirees, discussing the latest John Grisham or C.J. Box novel. You probably don’t think of inmates discussing the plot line of any novel; much less bring up the plot device of “the hand of God” also known as “Deus ex machina”.

Credit: Credit: Ernest Hemingway at his home in Cuba, circa 1950s. Courtesy of AE Hotchner.

Hemingway

Wed, Apr 7, 2021, 9:29am | By Michael Privett

For me, the Hemingway work that stuck was The Old Man and The Sea. I was stunned at its raw emotion, specifically Hemingway’s ability to depict a man fiercely at war with the natural world. I struggled with the symbolism; was the fish really a fish, or a metaphor? Did the boy represent the hubris of youth and the Old Man, God?

Credit: Leonard Martinez (~1942, ~age 27) Credit: L. Torres

MANITO

Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 3:15pm | By Leeanna Teresa Martinez y Torres

Manito: Examining and Deconstructing New Mexico’s Tri-Cultural Myth; “Patterns of Migration”

Denise Chávez in front of "Lalo" Chávez's mural in the lobby of La Posta in Las Cruces, NM. Photo by Daniel Zolinsky.

Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:42pm | By Denise Chavez

Bendito, Bendito, Bendito Sea Dios Los ángeles cantan y alaban a Dios Yo creo Jesús mío que estás en el altar Oculto en la ostia te vengo a adorar I climbed one bumpy narrow step at a time with a rickety...

Vanessa Baca

Fish Not Flesh: Symbolism of the New Mexico Lenten Feast

Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 12:33pm | By Vanessa Baca

When I was growing up, my New Mexico Catholic family each year would enjoy what we call the Lenten meal. Though Catholics are asked to eschew eating meat on Fridays during Lent, it was the Good Friday...

Miguel Trujillo with his daughter Josephine. Credit: Photo Courtesy from the collection of Josephine Waconda.

Miguel Trujillo

Wed, Sep 1, 2021, 12:09am | By Gordon Bronitsky

For most Americans, Indians remain the backdrop to American history. Indian heroes are the warriors of the past. Miguel Trujillo was an Isleta Pueblo Indian living at Laguna who directly confronted the...

Credit: Mural near International Border Crossing as seen with AR viewer. (screengrab of the Augment El Paso app) Credit: Ellen Dornan, photographer

Why is El Paso in Texas?

Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 2:49pm | By Ellen Dornan

Today, Southern New Mexicans frequently cross the border to El Paso, Texas, to enjoy shopping and entertainment, perhaps appreciating the culture without understanding the long history of why El Paso...

George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart Credit: Retrieved from the Library of Congress

Washington’s Farewell Address: Timeless Wisdom

Wed, Feb 24, 2021, 9:38am | By Brandon Johnson

A lesson from Washington’s earlier life illustrates his deep understanding of how unchecked power and privilege can do violence to the fragile nature of liberty and self-government.

Recent Columns

Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these blog posts/articles do not necessarily represent those of the New Mexico Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

From Mora to Mariachi: My Dad and his Magical Journey of Music

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From Mora to Mariachi: My Dad and his Magical Journey of Music

From Mora to Mariachi: My Dad and his Magical Journey of Music

A SOLDIER'S PASSAGE: A New Mexico-made Film Explores the Art of Saying "Goodbye" to Dad

A SOLDIER'S PASSAGE: A New Mexico-made Film Explores the Art of Saying "Goodbye" to Dad

Esther Martinez (P’oe Tsáwä/Blue Water): A Matriarch of Pueblo Language Preservation

Esther Martinez (P’oe Tsáwä/Blue Water): A Matriarch of Pueblo Language Preservation

MUSINGS OF A LOCKED-OUT WIFE

MUSINGS OF A LOCKED-OUT WIFE

Telling our stories: Pueblo author and teacher, Dr. Joe S. Sando

Telling our stories: Pueblo author and teacher, Dr. Joe S. Sando

Meticulous Answer Inspired by artist Agnes Martin

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The Fool's Journey

Lágrimas: Poems of Joy and Sadness

The Santa Fe Trail

Into the Beautiful North

Hemingway

MANITO

MOTHER’S DAY. 2019. ©2022

Fish Not Flesh: Symbolism of the New Mexico Lenten Feast

Miguel Trujillo

Why is El Paso in Texas?

Washington’s Farewell Address: Timeless Wisdom

Recent Columns

From Mora to Mariachi: My Dad and his Magical Journey of Music

A SOLDIER'S PASSAGE: A New Mexico-made Film Explores the Art of Saying "Goodbye" to Dad

Esther Martinez (P’oe Tsáwä/Blue Water): A Matriarch of Pueblo Language Preservation

MUSINGS OF A LOCKED-OUT WIFE

Telling our stories: Pueblo author and teacher, Dr. Joe S. Sando

Seeking to understandwho we are,who we wereand who we aspire to be.

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Seeking to understand
who we are,
who we were
and who we aspire to be.