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...

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...

My friend La Llorona, 2018 Credit: Photo by 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...

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
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-...

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](https://nmhumanities.org/imgdo.php?imgqual=90&imgdo=pixblog/NMHC-Blog-EllaF.jpg&imgfloat=N&imgview=N&imgcrop=N&imgalign=C&imgdimw=125)
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...

Nasario and Prieto Credit: Nasario © Nasario Garcia, age 6, on horst Prieto in Ojo del Padre, NM.
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.
Recent Columns
MOTHER’S DAY. 2019. ©2022
Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:42pm
By Denise Chavez
Teacher Warrior
Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:40pm
By Ninabah Davis
Loving La Llorona
Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:38pm
By Rica Maestas
Shikataganai - It Can't Be Helped
Sun, May 1, 2022, 11:36pm
By Shelley Takeuchi
Carlos, Prieto, and Ramiro Come to Hoe the Milpa
Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 12:40pm
By Levi Romero