Pasa por Aquí

Pasa por Aqui is an initiative by the Council to present occasional columns by community members.

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

MOTHER’S DAY. 2019. ©2022

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...

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

Children's Book Table

MOTHER’S DAY. 2019. ©2022

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 handcart, struggling up the worn gray carpeted stairs to the second floor of a local hotel with boxes of books for children, young people, adults. The books were in Spanish, all genres, including books that brought hope: Bibles and dictionaries, all for weary travelers on the Great Road of Migration. Refugees moved through the system and found temporary shelter in my town, in this local motel. Theirs was a brief respite stop in that journey to their host families somewhere in the U.S.

Earlier I had checked in at the command post, a hotel room on the first floor that displayed a giant map of the U.S. Pushpins showed everyone where they were headed, to host families, relatives, loved ones.

I arrived with plenty of time and set up the books in our makeshift book area. The volunteer shift coordinator then called families and adults from their rooms. “The book lady is here and has books are for you, you can take them with you.”

The children’s books were displayed on the couch of the second-floor lounge, the adult books on the landing between the stairs. My husband and I knew the ritual as we had done it many times before. And yet, every time was different. Who would be waiting to leave the motel today and where were they headed? Would there be many children? Oftentimes there was only one parent with a child, and this was always disconcerting to see.

Today two sisters from Guatemala came out of their shared room to look at the books, the older one traveling with her teenage son. I don’t remember what books they were interested in, but I assured them that the books were theirs to keep. And as it was Mother’s Day, I showed them a poster board full of jewelry, earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. It was a day of gifts.

Bendito, Bendito, Bendito Sea Dios

My mother was born on December 24, and always felt that she was cheated out of her birthday gifts. She was right. My gifts to her were rare. As a child, I had no allowance and little expectation of money ever crossing my path. If my sister and I gave a gift to our mother, it came through the auspices of our father. My parents were divorced when I was ten and my father was unlikely to be visiting for Mother’s Day. I only recall two gifts he gave our mother: an electric skillet that became our favored pot roast pan, and a metal address book, the kind that flipped up when you moved a lever to the letter of the alphabet of the person you were looking for. He wrote on the back with a black Magic Marker: To Mother. From Ernest.” My father’s name wasn’t Ernest, but somehow over the years he’d adopted the name. It sounded better to him than Epifanio. Also, he was a Junior. Who ever wanted to be an Epifanio, Jr. in a small dusty town where nothing ever happened? Better to be an Ernest somewhere else.

One year my sister and I bought my mother a transistor radio from Valley Drug on Main Street that the owner, Mr. Jesús Gutiérrez, let us buy with the promise to make payments. Our school, Holy Cross, was across the street and we used to go in every day to get a cherry Coke. I am not sure we even made a down payment, but somehow, we took the radio home. Mother loved it and carried it with her back and forth to school, where she worked as a third-grade teacher.

Payment time came too quickly. We had no money and began to avoid entering the drug store, which was hard. The lure of the incomparable grilled cheese sandwiches and Mrs. Gutiérrez legendary potato salad were put on hold until the time we could pay off the radio. Eventually Mr. Gutiérrez called our mother and told her we were errant on our payments. It was embarrassing when mother paid off the bill, but what could we do? Mother listened to that little radio for years. It was taped, retaped, and still played music.

Bendito, Bendito, Bendito Sea Dios

The families began coming out of their rooms. Everyone was casually dressed, some of the children still wore pajamas. Shyly, and then more confidently people neared the books. I always made it a point to personally greet everyone, invite them over, and introduce myself. The children were always happy to see the books. The adults took their time and lingered near the stairs and by a table I set up near a storage room that housed motel supplies. I always brought a tablecloth and bookstands to display books.

The two Guatemalan sisters stayed together. I mentioned to the group that it was Mother’s Day and that we were going to gather in a circle and remember our Ancestors. We formed a circle, the adults in the front, the children behind or to the sides. I suggested we call out a relative that we wanted to remember and thank. Gratitude always brings people together and reinforces community. I thanked my mother, Delfina, for life. My husband, in the company of several boys who had gleefully latched onto him, called out Marthe, his mother.

One by one, we remembered mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, a tía or tío. When we got to the sisters, the older one began to weep. She told us of her journey, how hard it had been to leave home and travel so far. Against her mother’s wishes she had brought her son’s birth blanket. DHS officials confiscated it and they never saw it again. And when she contacted their other sister who was living in the U.S., the sister refused to become their sponsor and asked them never to call back. Both sisters wept. Everyone was touched. After the heart-wrenching story, the older sister began to sing a hymn I had never heard. It was beautiful to hear. It was reminiscent of the hymn that is familiar to us who live in the Southwest, a song that has touched many generations and brought solace:

Bendito, Bendito, Bendito Sea Dios

I have sung Bendito many times in church next to my mother, who always wept in Mass as she prayed for us and for our absent father. I have sung that song behind, in front of, and alongside many viejitas and viejitos, who sang out of tune, but with great devotion. One year I was consumed by a religiosity that convinced me for a short while I wanted to become a nun. I attended the daily 6:30 a.m. Mass with my mother and I sang it then.

And later, I sang the song onstage in the character of a woman like my mother, rushing home from work at noon to check to see if the alimony check had arrived, grabbing a can of cold peas to eat in haste. I have sung the song at night, praying in bed, alone and sad, full of unknowing. I have also hummed the song joyfully and with gratitude knowing who I was and where I was going.

When I heard the sisters sing that hauntingly beautiful song, I knew they would be fine. And despite their tears, I knew they were complete and whole. They were en route, headed to sponsors who would take them in and love them. Another pushpin signifying a journey completed.

The circle dissolved, children, families and the sisters retreated to their rooms. Many books were taken and yet there were still many on the stair landing and on the green plastic couch and on a nearby coffee table. The poster board was devoid of jewelry. My husband Daniel and I loaded up the remaining books.

Two young boys and a man offered to help us carry the books downstairs. Yes, thank you, I said. There was a soda machine on the first floor. A young blond shirtless boy asked the man if they could get a coke, but he was quieted with a stern look. I realized they had no money. Did I? I never have cash or any change and still struggle with money, but that day I found enough for three Cokes. Sodas in hand, our new friends climbed up the stairs, and headed back to their room, to await the call that meant their sponsor had sent money for that bus ticket to Los Angeles or Miami, and if they were lucky, a plane ticket to New York or some other place they knew nothing about, a pushpin showing where they were headed.

Bendito, Bendito, Bendito Sea Dios

I imagine my mother Delfina listening intently to her transistor radio wherever she is now, in the great Unknown humming Bendito surrounded by the Ancestors. I often think of the sisters as well, and the song they sang that day. Mother’s Day. 2019. I had never heard the song, but it sounded familiar, as known and loved as the song my mother sang so many years ago through her tears in the early morning light of that year. That holy year. That year that I imagined myself holy.

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

BACKGROUND: ¿Y POR QUÉ NO?

Bendito is a beloved hymn that has succored generations throughout the Southwest and beyond. It is sung during processions and is a mainstay in Spanish Masses. Nothing is known about the author or its background.

In 2018 a friend walked into my bookstore looking for dictionaries in Spanish. This led to my meeting Kari Lenander, Executive Director of the Border Servant Corps (BSC). What was this organization that helped migrants on the border? And how could I get involved? People arrived with little, everything taken from them. Once here, they were given clothing, toiletries, and a backpack. What else would be in that backpack that they clutched on that interminable bus ride going to New Jersey or the plane to Chicago? A book for the journey. And so began the program, Libros Para el Viaje. Since then, an ongoing program has gathered and distributed over 35,000 books, who knows for sure how many. For more information on Libros Para El Viaje visit: https://www.borderservantcorps.org/libros-para-el-viaje

BENDITO

Denise Chávez is a Fronteriza writer, bookseller, and activist for sentient life. She and her husband, Daniel Zolinsky, own Casa Camino Real Bookstore in Las Cruces. Chávez is the author of The King and Queen of Comezón, Loving Pedro Infante, A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture and Face of An Angel, among other works. She is the Co-Founder, with Kari Lenander, Executive Director of The Border Servant Corps of Libros Para El Viaje/Books for the Journey, an ongoing Refugee, Migrant, and Asylum-seeker book gathering and distribution initiative that delivers books to children and families on the U.S./Mexico border. Chavez is co-editing, with Dr. Enrique Lamadrid, former Head of Chicano/Latino programs at the University of New Mexico, an upcoming anthology WE ARE HERE TO REPRESENT. The book features the work of multigenerational writers and artists telling the story of their service to refugee and migrant families.

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Chábáh Davis Watson of the Tl'aashchi'i Clan, Red Bottom People, from Wheatfields, AZ. Photo Courtesy of Ninabah Davis.

Teacher Warrior

Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:40pm | By Ninabah Davis

Just recently I watched a movie on Netflix called Te Ata, the story of Mary Thompson Fisher, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, an actress and storyteller who called herself Te Ata (which is thought...

Chábáh Davis Watson of the Tl'aashchi'i Clan, Red Bottom People, from Wheatfields, AZ. Photo Courtesy of Ninabah Davis.

Teacher Warrior

Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:40pm | By Ninabah Davis

Just recently I watched a movie on Netflix called Te Ata, the story of Mary Thompson Fisher, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, an actress and storyteller who called herself Te Ata (which is thought to be a Maori word meaning "the morning"). Fisher traversed cultural barriers to achieve fame as an American storyteller, and I found her story particularly inspiring to me. Watching the film brought back memories and a vision of my Father's late paternal Aunt.

In the month of May we celebrate Mother's Day to honor our mothers, grandmothers and aunts, and for this Mother's Day I would like to share a story about my late paternal Grandmother who was named Chábáh Davis Watson of the Tl'aashchi'i Clan, Red Bottom People, from Wheatfields, Ariz.

Not everyone knows or reads about her, but she is included in the Official Navajo biography, and hers is a very interesting story. She retired as a Navajo teacher and principal on the Navajo reservation, where she had a great variety of duties. Chábáh met and overcame many challenges and difficult assignments for a young woman with no formal training in the methods and techniques of teaching, and, of course, had constant problems during her entire teaching career. But always managed to overcome them. With 100 beginning students under her supervision and one assistant, it was a twenty four hour a day job because she slept in the dormitory with the children. She retired from the service of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on June 30, 1966, and was honored with the Continuous Service Award for 30 years of dedicated work for the Navajos. And she made a trip to Washington, D.C., in connection with her work, after spending 36 years in all as an employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Writing this is very emotional for me because it brings back memories of her and my late paternal Grandfather, who she always called Brother when they visited each other in their homes and always maintained a close relationship with each other. Oh, how I miss them both dearly!

I hope some day she will be recognized for all her achievements as the greatest teacher for Navajo children and will be honored and entered into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Ninabah Davis is originally from the Navajo lands from Lukachukai Arizona, grew up in Tsaile Arizona. She is Zun/water edge clan.

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My friend La Llorona, 2018 Credit: Photo by Rica Maestas

Loving La Llorona

Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:38pm | By Rica Maestas

My friend La Llorona, 2018 Credit: Photo by Rica Maestas

My Friend, La Llorona 2018. Credit: Rica Maestas

Rica Maestas

Loving La Llorona

Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:38pm | By Rica Maestas

It has always been easy to see myself in the infamous “crying woman,” La Llorona. Like her, I am brown and femme, a survivor of abuse and mental illness, a child forced into adulthood too soon. A consummate Sad Girl™, I carry immense rage with me always and cry often. But rather than dragging me down, my feeling of kinship with La Llorona serves as a daily source of inspiration. A nostalgic tie to childhood, La Llorona was one of the first stories I remember hearing, sitting under the tree in my grandmother’s yard. The tale always fascinated rather than frightened me, and I could not be stopped from retelling it to anyone who would listen. No matter how many parents, friends, and teachers I disturbed with my blithe recounting of the woman who drowned her children, I soldiered on undeterred and unflinching. Clearly, even now I haven’t stopped.

Though many see La Llorona as a monster, a hungry ghost, a killer of children, I saw her as another brown girl, as young as 12 in some tellings, who followed her heart toward the possibility of love and a family of her own construction. Though admittedly, she did not handle it well when her relationship began to crumble, she nevertheless became a misunderstood protectress after death, scaring children away from dangerous bodies of water. It never felt right to me that someone who made poor decisions in the heat of the moment—without the wisdom of age or support of her community—would forever be remembered as a villain. But as I spent more time with her story and its historical context, I began to understand the hatred directed toward her as a kind of large-scale trauma-response rooted in histories of colonization.

There are La Llorona-esque stories nearly everywhere the Spanish colonized, though the myth is most commonly associated with the Americas and the Caribbean. In its most basic form, a woman falls in love with someone who is destined to hurt her because of his high class, Europeanness, or both. Ignoring advice to stay away, she begins a relationship with him and is happy for a time, mothering several of his children. But this man does eventually betray her, either by leaving, discarding her for a wealthier, whiter woman, or in some cases, murdering her and her children. In her sorrow, La Llorona drowns herself and her children, and returns as a ghost to haunt waterways searching for her family. Expressing a deep-rooted anxiety about the fragile nature of love, life, and family, La Llorona’s tale warns of the dangers inherent in crossing race or class boundaries in colonial contexts.

Though some might say the moral of the La Llorona story is to listen to the advice of your community, to me the story has always said more about the lack of accountability for her partner, and more broadly, for people in power. While La Llorona loses everything in her attempt to build a family with someone she loved, her former lover is insulated by his wealth, whiteness, and masculinity, and remains unaffected by their breakup. Though his actions directly precipitate the violent deaths of his own children, he slips effortlessly out of the story and is not held responsible for leaving La Llorona and her children vulnerable. The blame instead falls on La Llorona alone, whose rejection by her lover and community is compounded by that of contemporary storytellers.

This ongoing storied rejection is one of the many features that ties La Llorona’s narrative to that of the real historical figure of La Malinche, the Nahua translator for Hernán Cortés. Mother of some of the first mestizos, La Malinche is remembered as a traitor, evidenced by the term malinchismo, which describes a feminine form of treachery[1] or a preference for European over pre-Columbian people or culture.[2] However, her fuller history complicates this oversimplification. Sold into slavery by her family, La Malinche was not yet a teenager when she was given to Cortés as a sex slave, and barely an adult when he forced her to marry another conquistador. Rejected by her family, then Cortés, then her people, she fled to Spain with her children, where she converted to Christianity to survive. While she undoubtedly bears some responsibility for Spanish conquest in Latin America, what La Malinche (and La Llorona by extension) actually betrays is our collective failure to protect our most vulnerable from exploitation.

Given this reading, I think the hatred directed toward La Llorona more likely comes from what Audre Lorde describes as the “unrelenting sharpness reserved only for each other.”[3] In other words, when we see ourselves reflected in the vulnerability or imperfection of another, we often to reject them out of a misguided attempt to protect ourselves. La Llorona and La Malinche’s tales highlight cultural anxieties over where we—members of the mestizaje—come from, who will love us, and how we will live with the violence in our family trees. We do not hate La Llorona and La Malinche because they are evil, we fear them because we feel their pain.

Earlier in this essay, I said I was inspired by La Llorona and it’s true. Despite the heaviness, sorrow, and injustice of her story and those that inform it, her enduring presence in the cultural zeitgeist underscores how necessary chaotic brown femininity is to the formation of the Latinx identity. Think about it: Despite centuries of murderous campaigns to center European worldviews in the Americas, our traviesa foremothers remain at center stage. Hell, even la Virgen de Guadalupe comes from Our Lady of the Apocalypse, hinting at la raza’s uncanny ability to survive rejection, isolation, and genocide. So, what if we embraced the scrappy complexity of figures like La Llorona instead of rejecting them? Perhaps then we could find love for the unpredictability she reflects in ourselves and others. Perhaps then we could overthrow the generational curses that haunt us.

[1] Ramírez Catherine S. “A Genealogy of Vendidas.” The Woman in the Zoot Suit Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory, Duke University Press, Durham, 2010, p. 23.

[2] González Díaz, Marcos. “‘El Malinchismo Es Una Enfermedad Social De Los Mexicanos Ligada a Un Complejo De Inferioridad Hacia Lo Extranjero.’” BBC News Mundo, BBC, 3 Sept. 2021, https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-58095298#:~:text=El%20malinchismo%20es%20la%20tendencia,desde%20que%20M%C3%A9xico%20es%20M%C3%A9xico.

[3] Lorde, Audre. “Eye to Eye: Back Women, Hatred, and Anger.” Sister Outsider, Penguin Books, New York, NY, 2020, p. 156.

Rica Maestas is a burqueña artist, author, and cultural worker interested in vulnerability, whimsical connections, folklore, mutuality, and ritual. She has received numerous grants for her creative work, curated independent, experimental exhibitions as well as institutional projects, published writing in diverse forums, and exhibited visual art and performance pieces nationwide. A 2022 Labor Resident artist at the Santa Fe Art Institute, she holds a MA in public humanities from Brown University, manages digital storytelling and membership engagement at SITE Santa Fe, lives in an adobe with her family of fire signs.

Tags 3 lallorona lamalinche mestizaje

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Shozo, Goro, Mamoru and Keigo Takeuchi taken in Alvarado, CA in 1939. Credit: Photo courtesy of Shelley Takeuchi.

Shikataganai - It Can't Be Helped

Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:36pm | By Shelley Takeuchi

Shozo, Goro, Mamoru and Keigo Takeuchi taken in Alvarado, CA in 1939. Credit: Photo courtesy of Shelley Takeuchi.

Shelley Takeuchi

Shikataganai - It Can't Be Helped

Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:36pm | By Shelley Takeuchi

80 years ago, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 that began an irreversible tidal wave of racial prejudice towards Asians, particularly those who were Japanese. Issei and Nissei were first- and second-generation Japanese and Japanese Americans living in the U.S. Their leaders, scholars, priests andfishermen were rounded up immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. They were forced into relocation centers because they were deemed a threat to national security. Soon after, their families were transported to other camps, never knowing the whereabouts of the men who were arrested. My relatives ended up in Santa Fe, Lordsburg (NM), Poston (AZ), Tule Lake (CA), Topaz (UT) and Crystal City (TX), to name a few.
The four boys shown in the photograph watched as their father was taken away to a Department of Justice (DOJ) camp in Santa Fe. Their three older siblings (not shown) were sent to three different camps, mostly due to the fact that they were born in Japan. The youngest boy shown, Mamoru, is my father-in-law. The mother of this family and these boys were sent to Topaz, Utah, and then to Crystal City, Texas, the family camp.

Kiwa, the mother, took care of the boys as best she could, but finally succumbed to diabetes due to poor health facilities and inadequate medicine. The government, in its ultimate wisdom, decided to release the boys’ father, Jingo, from the Santa Fe camp so he could be sent to Crystal City to care for the boys, who were now motherless.

About a year after the war ended, those who were forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned in the internment camps were finally released without ever being charged with any crimes. My family reunited in California, but their lives were changed forever.

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which officially apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government and authorized reparation to each former internee who was still alive. Jingo and Kiwa had passed away long before this act went into effect, as did many of those who suffered during their imprisonment.

May is now designated as Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. What began in 1978 as a seven-day tribute, was expanded into a month-long observance in 1990 and into Public Law 102-450 in 1992. This month was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. Many immigrants sweated to make this coast-to-coast railway a reality.

The United States of America, like many other countries, has made grievous errors throughout its history, but generally admits its mistakes and strives for justice and freedom for its people. It is often recognized as a welcoming country where people come to make a new start in life; a place for fulfilling new hopes and new dreams. The class system lines of other countries become blurred as new workers come to fill a need for workers and strive for success.

Lady Liberty still stands tall in New York harbor welcoming people immigrating to America as they enter through Ellis Island. On the West Coast, Angel Island in San Francisco Harbor was the entry port where most of the early Asian/Pacific Islander people arrived and were registered after sailing across the Pacific Ocean.

Jingo brought his wife and three oldest children out of Japan to settle in Oakland, California, as he looked for a better, safer life for his family. After World War I, the people of Japan were suffering due to the Depression, food shortages and little chance for employment. America looked like a shining light, rich with new opportunities. Jingo taught school and the family grew in this new land.

After the war, He left behind the memories of the Santa Fe Internment Camp, the Lordsburg Camp, and his unjust arrest. He lost everything during World War II, except his desire to provide a better life for his children. His ancestors learned to carry on despite prejudices and still strive to make the world better by telling their stories, one tale at a time.

The New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe recently hosted a symposium discussing the Santa Fe Internment Camp (SFIC) where Jingo was detained, the controversy that arose when Japanese Americans sought to place an historical marker overlooking its location, to hopefully help heal the wrongs of the past and bring peace to the present through Tsuru for Solidarity and other reconciling projects. A pilgrimage to the SFIC marker followed the event. For more information please visit Stories, Memories and Legacies.

Shelley Takeuchi is a retired teacher, librarian and technology trainer from California. She volunteers with the New Mexico Japanese American Citizens League and is an avid reader, quilter and crafter.

Tags 4 aapi asianamerican japaneseamericans nissei

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New Mexico State Poet Laureate, Levi Romero

Carlos, Prieto, and Ramiro Come to Hoe the Milpa

Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 12:40pm | By Levi Romero

I have been unable to keep up with the gardening This year and have had to hire help. I have never hired help before, and I feel as if I Might be breaking a code-of-honor, An unstated rule...

Diana Velazco

SOY MAGDALENA…Y HE PECADO

Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 12:35pm | By Diana Velazco

Me han maltratado Me han herido Por dar lo que me exigen Me han perseguido. Mis ropajes me han desgarrado Tanto y aun mas mi moribundo Corazon y sin latidos. Tengo ojos, tengo oidos; Tengo manos...

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...

Gottlieb, W. P. (1947) Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown, Milt Milton Jackson, and Timmie Rosenkrantz, Downbeat, New York, N.Y., ca. Sept. United States, 1947. , Monographic. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https

International Jazz Day: Jazz and Democracy

Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 12:32pm | By Andy Kingston

In 2011, UNESCO teamed up with the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz to designate April 30th as International Jazz Day “in order to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners...

Credit: Image Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Accessed through the New Mexico Digital Repository

Sufragista y más: Adelina "Nina" Otero-Warren

Mon, Feb 28, 2022, 1:22pm | By Dr. Anna M Nogar

Nuevomexicana Adelina “Nina” Otero-Warren (1881-1965) is one of the outstanding early feminist figures in United States history and an actor for representation...

Credit: Ida B. Wells. Late 19th century Credit: From Wikimedia Commons

Ida B. Wells: The Power of the Pen

Mon, Feb 28, 2022, 12:24pm | By Ina Jane

"I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap.” (I.B. Wells) Ida B. Wells, a renowned American journalist and social activist from Holly Springs,...

Credit: graphic courtesy of Ariel Dougherty

COMMUNITY VISIONS – Cinematic Narratives by Women

Mon, Feb 28, 2022, 11:46am | By Ariel Dougherty

My friend Laura X, founder of the Women's History Library, sends me two and three notices a day about film screenings. A multitask-juggler of scores of feminist concerns, it is difficult for me to keep...

Credit: Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

Encountering New Mexico

Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 9:17pm | By Darryl Wellington

 This nation’s greatest commentator on race relations, James Baldwin, never visited New Mexico (as far as my research can tell).    But Baldwin published an...

Credit: Creative Commons photo of MLK

The Last MLK Day

Sat, Jan 1, 2022, 12:00am | By Hakim Bellamy

“On August 6th, 1965, the President’s Room of the Capitol could scarcely hold the multitude of of white and Negro leaders crowding it. President Lyndon Johnson’s high spirits were marked...

New Mexico's State Cookie: The Biscochito Credit: Photo Courtesy by Vanessa Baca

A Sweet and Spicy Memory: Biscochitos in New Mexico Culture

Wed, Dec 1, 2021, 6:52pm | By Vanessa Baca

In my memory, I am standing next to my grandmother, watching her roll out the dough, deliciously studded with tiny seeds of anise. I have the very important job of cutting the dough into the shapes of...

Credit: https://web.archive.org/web/20160112123725/http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2000-001138.html

Instrument of Change: A Brief Look at Photography in the United States

Wed, Dec 1, 2021, 6:34pm | By Mathew Contos

Some of the earliest photographs in history captured the brutality of war, a major departure from the heroic and romantic stylization of battle paintings that preceded them. Photographs of the Mexican-American...

Credit: Private Augustus Walley Credit: National Museum of African American History and Culture, Ellen Dornan photographer

1867: A Snapshot of the Military Occupation of New Mexico

Mon, Nov 1, 2021, 3:54pm | By Ellen Dornan

The 1867 U.S. Topo Bureau map showing the Old Territory and Military Department of New Mexico, “compiled in the Bureau of Topographic Engineers of the War Department chiefly for military purposes under...

Credit: Unknown author; Public Domain; "Annie" daguerreotype of Poe circa 1849 jpg; originally from http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=39406

Beyond the Macabre: Edgar Allan Poe and the Psychology of Horror

Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 2:22pm | By Chrysta Wilson

Edgar Allan Poe’s status as the father of contemporary horror is so fully entrenched in the American psyche that his portrait is instantly recognizable to people who have never read his work.

The author’s personal altar with paper flowers, candles, autumn leaves and food items. In the center is a drawing of the author’s sister Christel Angélica Chávez, Captain U.S. Air Force. Drawing by Anthony Thielen (cousin). Credit: Photo Courtesy by Nicolasa Chávez

Celebrating the Dead: Día de los Muertos and All Hallowe’en

Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 2:05pm | By Nicolasa Chávez

Many people do not know the origins of this fun - and fright-filled night, nor of the similarities its’ origins share with Día de los Muertos

Scene at Signing of the Constitution of the United States." Credit: Howard Chandler Christy, 1940

America’s Constitution: A Machine That Does Not Run By Itself

Wed, Sep 1, 2021, 9:28am | By Christian Fritz

When the Founding Fathers drafted America’s frame of government in Philadelphia during the constitutional convention of 1787, they knew they had begun a journey and not completed a task. By creating...

Jack Loeffler on the San Juan River in 1971 Credit: Photo Courtesy by Terrence Moore

Invigorating Metamorphosis

Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 11:37pm | By Jack Loeffler

It’s tough to overcome inertia, especially when it is self-imposed by presumed limitations. I speak from experience as a mid-point octogenarian having survived the last eighteen months of pandemic...

Credit: Photo Courtesy Melissa Auh Krukar

Hispasian

Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 9:06am | By Melissa Auh Krukar

The questions are always the same: “Where are you from?” or worse, “Where are you really from?” or worse yet, “What are you?”

Credit: Pixabay photo by Bruce Tunget

Growing up “Coyota” in New Mexico

Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 3:49pm | By Nicolasa Chávez

Did being a coyote make me any less New Mexican? What exactly did it mean to be a “Coyota” in New Mexico?

Howe, Henry. Historical Collections of the Great West, Volume I. 1855. James A. Roberts. Greenville, TN.

Map of the Indian Territory, Northern Texas and New Mexico, Showing the Great Western Prairies

Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 11:56am | By Ellen Dornan

Josiah Gregg's 1844 map is ostensibly included in Commerce of the Prairies to help the gentle reader follow the “Wild West” adventure to an exotic, foreign destination, but that neutrality is quickly belied by a closer look.

Artist: Unnamed Youth in Immigration Detention Center Credit: Photo by: Justin Hamel

Art Cannot be Caged: Detained Migrant Youth Create an Exhibit

Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 12:07pm | By Kayla Myers

“Uncaged Art Tornillo Children’s Detention Center” is fundamentally about Central American children who came to our nation seeking security and safety and found themselves incarcerated within the walls of a sterile detention center built in the Chihuahuan Desert.

Credit: Photo curtesy of Samantha Bomkamp

How Has the Pandemic Affected Museums? Examples from the Blackwater Draw Museum at Eastern New Mexico University

Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 10:02am | By Samantha Bomkamp

The Blackwater Draw Museum (BWDM) was among the many museums in the country whose daily operations were disrupted during the pandemic.

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

Original 1776 design for the Great Seal by Pierre Eugene du Simitiere. The shields with 13 initials of the colonies surrounding symbols for the six origin nations England (rose), Scotland (thistle), Ireland (harp), Holland (lion), France (fleur-de-lis), a Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SealOfTheUS_Prototype.png

Mottos and Their Discontents

Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:15am | By Kenn Watt

mottos have intrinsic ability to both unite and divide us, and in powerfully affecting ways.

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”

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.

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

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