Tag Archives: New Mexico

Losing Our Land

“So my mom’s side of the family has lived in Española, New Mexico, since the 1600s. By the 20th century, my family owned nearly a third of the land in the entire state of New Mexico. They were really well-respected basically because of how long they had been there, and they benefitted financially from it. The twist comes in around 1960. Basically, due to some weird clerical error or something, my great-uncle Michael ended up in charge of managing all of the land my family had. Michael was kind of an ass to his family, so one day he decided to just sell almost all the land my family had, pack his things up, and move away to the East Coast. He screwed over a lot of people in the family, but they had a decent amount of money in the bank and were able to recover financially, but the land was lost forever.”

 

This one is from my friend here at USC from Texas, and his family has a deep history in the Americas, allegedly dating back to the time of Cortés’ conquest. He said that this is one of the stories his mom always alludes to in regular conversations among family. To him, it’s a bit strange since he’s never met his great-uncle, but he still loves to hear his mom’s stories because it gives him a sense of identity.

 

EL DORADO

EXAMPLE:

ANALYSIS:

This is such a fantastical story. I think it is amazing that these little tales that have kicked around this village in New Mexico that his cousins are from have now made it all the way to Los Angeles with my informant. It is mainly his cousins’ story as he is not entirely sold it nor has he actually seen this cave that the man has been to, the supposed El Dorado.

That said, just like any good legend, his cousins have shown him picture of some of the stuff they have found, my informant has done a little research, and now he is not necessarily denying that this is El Dorado. Of course this says a lot about the people there, this need to have this famous place there in their community which ties into the past and their identity. It is absurd. But like my informant says, “I kinda want to believe it.”

Red or Green

When you go into a restaurant, usually a New Mexican restaurant, but they do it at McDonalds too now. They ask “red or green?” which means red or green chilis.  You can also say Christmas which means both of them, and they add it to your meal.

The informant learned this from her uncle when she was about to move to Albuquerque.  He warned her saying, “They are going to ask you… It’s that big of a deal.”  The informant is a green chili person, and she says that it’s a huge battle.  “Are you a red person or a green person?  It’s like are you a Democrat or a Republican?”  The custom of adding chilis to food is very widespread in her area because of the influence of Mexican cuisine, though New Mexican cuisine is not quite the same.  The custom is also a way of weeding out the visitors from the natives, and learning it from her uncle essentially initiated her into the culture of New Mexico.