My name is Phoebe Suina. I am from Cochiti Pueblo and San Felipe Pueblo. I am a business owner and entrepreneur. I have a small consulting firm called High Water Mark.

[For this interview] We are at Cochiti Pueblo. We are on reservation lands. This is where our ancestors lived since time and memorial through our oral history, our languages, our stories, and lessons. I love Cochiti; my heart is here, I am rooted here. I was blessed to know my grandparents and have fond memories of growing up here with them and my father. I have many memories of my family going into the mountains into our ancestral lands and our ancestral domain to learn about how our environment has sustained us. How we interact with our environment, our resources, birds, plants, the mountains, the river, the land, and the farm fields. Being rooted in the symbiotic relationship that we have with our environment. I was taught all of this through the interactions I had with my family here in Cochiti Pueblo.

The Cochiti Lake Dam was an Army Corps of Engineers project. From my understanding and through research, it started as an idea of putting a dam along the middle Rio Grande in the 1940’s through The Flood Control Act. They looked at placing the dam a number of locations. To the south of us that’s Santo Domingo Pueblo, if they would of put the dam there they would of actually had to move the Pueblo of Santo Domingo. Through the evolution of finding project locations, they began to look here at Cochiti. From talking to my grandparents, parents, and my grandpa in particular; they would share with me the struggle and how they had to grapple with the decision of allowing the dam to be constructed here. The footprint of the lake where it is located is on historical agricultural fields. As a agricultural society, our fields are at the heart and root of carrying on our way of life. If we lose the corn, the mellons, the squash, the beans… back in those days it was way of survival, it sustained and fed our people. Those crops also have a significant cultural part of our life and they are essential resources that we use during certain ceremonies and activities.

The [dam] took approximately about half of our agricultural lands. When the Army Corps. Of Engineers came here to approach our leadership, the leadership did not want the dam here, they are significant cultural areas. It was hard to communicate that to the engineers and the Army Corps. They [Army Corps] kept saying, “This is the place!”

To fast-forward a bit, what I learned from the elders was that they accepted and agreed with the decision to put the dam here with certain constraints. Through the initial designs you can see that they had to touch certain areas that were significant. Some of the initial promises that were made by the Army Corps of Engineers to not touch certain areas could not be fulfilled  because of basic engineering concepts. Talking to the elders and my grandpa, I don’t think there was a visual realization of the impacts the dam would cause. It’s a 5 mile long dam and its impacts are eastern views from the village. The weight of the water of the lake on the upstream side of the dam pushed the water downstream side of the dam up. The water table in the entire region rose because of all of that water weight and that made the remaining agricultural fields wetlands conditions and we couldn’t farm.

There were a number of years where our communities could not farm and farming is essential to our way of life. We are agricultural people. We didn’t have the crops, we didn’t have certain traditions that we carried on, and some of the other local Rio Grande Pueblos still carry these out. With agriculture going away, the language went away. Our language is oral based, we don’t write it down; so if we don’t use it, we lose it. And without the traditions being carried out on year to year, there were small pieces that were being lost. And when we couldn’t farm that transference of language and knowledge to the next generation was being broken. The dam really impacted our way of life, our community, our language, our traditions, and overall our way of life.

I remember my father and grandfather talking about the activities that would happen down in the fields every year. One family would help another family. They would help one another maintain the farm fields and harvesting. They would trade and exchange foods. Each one of us in the Pueblo has our own gifts and our own assets. We all need each other and so we all helped each other. With the loss of that for a couple of decades, there’s a whole generational gap. That’s my generation that as young people we weren’t involved in the farming.

When we talk about the dam [and trauma]… it still hurts. My generation hurts. It’s something that is hard to describe, but you feel it. You feel that trauma. And we are still grappling with how do we move forward. It is also a lesson to my generation. What do we need to do? How can we be proactive? How can we steward our lands? How can we built up our toolbox and resources so similar impacts don’t happen during our generation or the next generation to come?

Growing up I loved science! I loved the environment and I loved math. I am one of those weird people that like math. It’s something that going to elementary school, middle school, and high school, I loved chemistry and physics. As I grew up, I knew I wanted to be in those fields. I didn’t know what type of engineer I wanted to be. Did I want to be a materials engineer, chemical engineer, systems engineer. It was coming back to Cochiti and learning the history of the dam and learning that we didn’t have someone on Cochiti’s side to look at the engineer drawings and being able to decipher them. That really helped me focus as an undergrad. It gave me purpose in what I was studying.

I love water. I think water is amazing! Learning a little bit of thermo engineering and systems engineering, all of them are encompassed in how water works and how water flows. When I was going through undergraduate and my Masters degree I was motivated to come back to Cochiti. At that point I knew, that Cochiti is where I wanted to come back to. I went many miles away for school for 6 years and it gave me a perspective not to take for granted what we have in Cochiti, San Felipe, and Santo Domingo. Because we have a lot of our culture, we have a lot of our core traditions, we still have our language, we have these lessons that can only be carried through our Keres language. To come and to continue as a resource for my communities. I love the work that I do, to be able to provide information so that our leadership can make the best decisions and understand some of these technical terms. We need this in all aspects. In the legal, chemistry, physics, biological, engineering, and water quality. How do we communicate this to the western part of the world?

One of the most pressing things is climate change. What we are seeing now is extremes. A few years ago they called it “global warming.” And I think the branding of that term is almost a misnomer. It was go back to systems engineering. A system at equilibrium goes up and down with a very defined range. What is happening with our environment is that these massive up’s and massive down’s. So if we talk about systems engineering, we have impacted through our own evolution of technology, the use of gas, oil, coal. It is this extreme overuse and extractions that have created an imbalance.

One of the things that we talk about in terms of resiliency is to keep the world in balance. With the dramatic changes in environment from very hot to very cold, our environment is like “what’s going on?!” It goes back to our core values and principles of keeping things in balance. Our environment and world is so out of balance that sometimes we will be cold but for super long periods of time. Our birds, our trees, and our land are trying to adjust. Mother earth is trying to adjust. And she will adjust [laughter]… but at that point the question is, “what is she going to have to do to adjust and to bring it back into balance?”

The concern of extraction and exploitation is another big concern. Through our elders we learn that we are suppose to take care of land and to use up everything. There is that phrase, “our world has enough for our need, bot for our greed.” It is very congruent with what we’ve [Pueblo people] have been taught and how we’ve lasted and been resilient in this landscape for thousands of years. I ask people ask me, “how did you all do that?” It was this respect for everything around us. But also the understanding that we got to be part of the solution and part of the balance.

I believe that for this part of the Hemisphere we are the first scientists. We are the first architects, hydrologists, astronomers, engineers, and biologists. What is science? The observation of how things react, act, and what are the consequences. It is the trial and error. I think that because we don’t write things down, the western world thought our knowledge was illegitimate. Our theories could not be written down or peer reviewed. But we were always testing theories.

I believe that as we move forward, there is still a lot of knowledge within our elders and our language that can only accessed by the speakers of the language. What is really important is to keep carrying that on. As we move forward, we need to remember that there is validity in what our ancestors observed for thousands of years. We make decisions based on the western world which is only maybe the last couple hundred years, but within our language and stories we have knowledge for thousands of years.

So are we going to base it on this little segment of time? Great, it’s written down, but we have this whole encyclopedia that goes way beyond that amount of time. Why can’t we incorporate that knowledge into good decision making in the current time?

High Water Mark came out of my former business partner and my desire to continue work for the community of Cochiti. Back in 2011 there was the Las Conchas Fire and there was a good deal of flooding, specifically here in the Peralta Watershed where the main Cochiti Village sits. We were working for the Pueblo under another company to do post-fire mitigation efforts. In that work, we focused a lot of our time trying to get resources for the Pueblo. Half an inch in the upper watershed, which is an annual or bi-annual rain event, and we would hear the big boulders coming down. The Peralta Watershed is like a funnel and Cochiti sits at the bottom of that funnel.

My former business partner and I spend a great deal of time getting people to realize that this was a big issue in Cochiti. In 2013 those resources finally started rolling in and we were starting to implement some big infrastructure projects. During this time, my previous company had been awarded a Master Task Agreement for work up at the labs and they wanted me to run one of the points of the contract, but we still had work to do here in Cochiti.

I asked my former business partner if he still wanted to do work in Cochiti and he answered, “absolutely!” We had made agreements with the Pueblo, to the people here, so we decided to start High Water Mark. We stood it up in a week! We gave our resignations and we told the leadership at Cochiti Pueblo.

Through our work with Cochiti we learned a great deal of how to navigate the federal resources. 2 days after we gave our resignations, the whole middle Rio Grande flooded, so all the communities needed somebody to help them navigate and we would share the information with them whether we were on contract or not. We just wanted the communities to be resilient and have the resources they need to protect their people. And 2 months later the whole state flooded. In a sense, we were lucky that we were fully billable when we started High Water Mark. It just came out of a need to help communities.

We don’t control mother nature. It is not within our understanding that we can control mother nature. If we build a dam, in essence that is trying to control mother nature. That’s what happened with the Cochiti Lake Dam, it’s a control.

The advice I would give them [someone from a minority group pursuing a degree in the sciences] is to pursue their interest and their gifts. To pursue what makes their heart happy. If it is indeed in the sciences, to know that there is going to be those hard times. If you really want something, you work hard for it, and then you don’t take it for granted.

I talk a lot with the youth of Cochiti and the Pueblos and I always tell them, “We need you! Your our next generation of warriors.” Back in the day, our warriors had to carry bow-and-arrows and in essence we are stewarding and protecting our lands through education. Through knowledge of legal aspects, through engineering, knowledge of biology, and knowledge of all of these things within our environment to be able to speak that language to the outside, to western America. I think we need those individuals and I encourage them to learn that language but also be rooted and participate in our traditions here at Cochiti.

My grandma from San Felipe says, “It’s hard to be a Pueblo Indian, because we have so many commitments here within the Pueblo.” It among the participation in your community that you maintain strength.

I want to give thanks to my grandma’s and grandpa’s and ancestors because if they didn’t face these challenges of their times and have been strong, we wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be here. They sacrificed and they worked hard. They went through a lot for me to still be a Cochiti Pueblo woman. I hope that whatever I do in my time here on earth that I can contribute to that legacy of providing an environment and a community for the youth that comes from that essence of our grandma’s and grandpa’s. My hope is that we are a strong community and that we also recognize this long history of knowledge and it’s validity. That we consider our traditions in our decision making process. The only way that we can access this encyclopedia is through language and the lessons that are contained through our language. I have this dream that when I am in my 70s or 80s that I am fluent [in the Keres language]. That I will be speaking 99% Keres and I wish that for my kids too. I hope that our leadership can make that a priority.

When your a child it is so much easier to learn languages. You’re a sponge! There is that sensitive period from birth to 5 years old where language really gets into your brain. The consciousness of consistently speaking to our children and amongst ourselves in Keres. English [language] is all around us and it is strong, but we have to be just as strong to maintain our Keres language. For our community to be whole and to be strong.

Photo Credits: Jim Holbrook

Photo Credits: Jim Holbrook

My name is Eileen Shaughnessy and I helped found the Nuclear Issue Study Group (NISG). The pronouns that I use for myself, that I prefer, are she/her/they/them, which are gender neutral.

In our group we really try to be intersectional as far as acknowledging that we all have multiple identities that we are made up and that we have a choice in terms of what gender pronouns we are using for ourselves. That’s how we begin our meetings, we go around and we share our pronouns.

The first thing that we do when we travel with my music band or with this group [NISG] is that we acknowledge and we educate ourselves about who’s land we are on, because we know on Turtle Island we are on stolen land. My ancestors are not from this area. My ancestors are predominantly from Ireland and I am very aware of that in doing this work. Nuclearism is a very persistent form of colonialism. It’s very important that we begin with this very intentional act of acknowledging who’s land we are on.

Recently we traveled as a group to Las Vegas [Nevada]. Just outside of Las Vegas there are 2 very large military installations. All along the way we were trying to be aware and acknowledge who’s land we were on along our road trip. There is a really good web source to know who’s land you are on, especially when you are traveling, it’s called: www.native-land.ca A group out of Canada put this together as an interactive map. You can punch in the name of the colonial [city] name of where you are on and learn about it.

I want to acknowledge here [University of New Mexico], we are on Pueblo land.

We founded in 2016 officially [NISG] and we are entirely volunteer based. Which means we are making millions of dollars doing this work. It is very lucrative to fight the nuclear industry [laughter]. If you need a reason to join us, right there is your reason. Our membership comes from local New Mexico communities including organizers, young people, Indigenous peoples, people of color, queer communities, students, artists, etc.

When we are talking about this issue [nuclearism] in the context of New Mexico, I like to call it “The Nuclear Beast.” As being in “the belly of the nuclear beast.”

The Trinity site happened in 1945… first of all, that site is opened twice a year because it is on an active missile range. It’s still radioactive some 70 plus years later. But it’s open to tourists. Tourists come, thousands and thousands of people from around the world actually on those two days. What the official version of that site will not share with you if you are on the site, it’s the fact that when that explosion happened there were 40,000 people in the surrounding areas that were impacted by that explosion and by the fall out. 70 plus years we are seeing immense cases of cancer clusters, birth defects, and auto immune disorders in these communities, which are mostly historically communities of color, Chicana and Chicano communities, Mexican communities, and also Indigenous communities.

There is a really awesome group called the Tula Rosa Down Winders, who have put together the very first ever health impact assessment study, where they were compiling data, they did surveys, it was very laborious work to gather that information to give us a full picture of the impact of that one test was. For context, that was just one test that was done in New Mexico in 1945, there have been thousands of tests worldwide that have spewed actual radioactive materials into the atmosphere. However, it is important to note that currently in the trillion dollar boost of the nuclear infrastructure there is talk of resuming testing.

We [NISG] were really concerned that in the anti-nuclear movement it didn’t seem to be a very welcoming space for young people and people of color and queer people. We wanted to create a space that was intergenerational and was foreground some of those things.We also wanted a space to address the entire nuclear field chain; beginning with uranium mining, moving to testing and development, and waste.

As far as New Mexico [goes], we have the designation of having almost every step of the nuclear field chain represented in our state.You will see this theme over and over again when we are talking about nuclear issues in New Mexico, that we are the over represented and over burdened by these horrific industries, by the negative results. And we have to ask questions about why? We have come to conclusions that it has to do with environmental racism and environmental injustice.

The other thing that we try to do in our group [NISG] is that we try to make this information as accessible as possible. When we are talking about nuclear issues it can get very technical, overwhelming, there is a lot of jargon, and so we are both educating ourselves and we are trying very hard to offer this information in a way that people can understand it.

One of the other components that we also try to incorporate is art, music, creativity into what we are doing [NISG]. As long as I have been doing this work, I have found it’s very important to really ground it in something dare I say hopeful or positive. I myself, I’m an artist and a musician, and that’s one way that I process the apocalypse [laughter] or some of the darker aspects of nuclear war.

We as a group [NISG] have 4 areas of focus: uranium mining, weapons, mixed waste land fill is a local dump that impacts all of us, and consolidated storage.

In Los Alamos, over 70% of their budget is dedicated to weapons. Even though you will often hear messages about green research or medical research, if you actually look at the budget by in large it’s all about weapons. With this trillion dollar boost in terms of the weapons program nationwide over the next 30 years that’s just going to expand.

I use this term nuclear colonialism and I am going to quote someone I admire very much – Leona Morgan – who said that “New Mexico is the birth place of nuclear colonialism.” The academic definition is: modern technology, U.S. empire, environmental racism, working in tandem to continue the historical displacement and genocide of Indigenous peoples. The fact that worldwide 70% of the uranium that these industries take and use is on Indigenous lands. We know over-and-over again that the peoples who are most impacted who are on the frontlines of this industry are Indigenous peoples and people of color. This bares out over and over again. That’s why we have to understand this as a form of colonialism.

When you are looking at a system like nuclearism and the ways in which nuclear weapons are created and nuclear energy is created… it all begins the same. It all starts with uranium. It ends with very dangerous and radioactive waste that we don’t have an answer for. When you are talking about energy, you are talking about high level radioactive waste.

If we are embarking on a path of creating nuclear weapons or creating nuclear energy it involves nuclear colonialism.

There is 4 tenants in nuclearism: secrecy, mass numbing, othering, and nuclear colonialism.

Speech delivered by Arturo Sandoval

April 19, 2018

At the Humans of New Mexico Exhibit

National Hispanic Cultural Center

Photo Credits: Jim Holbrook

New Mexico is our homeland. Whether by birth or by choice, we have made New Mexico our place.

I was born and raised in the Española Valley, which is myTierra Sagrada. I did not realize it then, except perhaps intuitively, but looking back over more than six decades, I realize now that I was raised as much by “place” as I was by family and by community.

Our toys were “palitos de leña” that we turned into horses that we raced across the llano. In winter, we built our own sleds out of wood, and covered the runners with thin strips of tin before propelling ourselves down the nearby hills.  More than anything else, we used our imaginations and the place in which we lived to entertain and educate ourselves.

My home was located a few hundred yards from the boundary with Santa Clara Pueblo. The greatest part of neighboring Pueblo land was that it was open and undeveloped. I had a playground bigger than as far as I could walk in 8 hours or even 10 hours. This playground was filled with piñon and cedar, crisscrossed with arroyos, singing with breezes that dried the sweat from my brow as I played with my brothers and my friends over the hills and in the arroyos.

Every day, I saw rabbits, lizards, coyotes, rattlesnakes, owls, bluebirds, sparrows, worms. I saw and heard birds I still don’t know the names of, but whose songs echo in my dreams each night.

I learned to swim in the Rio Grande, where we built our own crude diving board above a quiet pool. There, we kept from drowning by dog-paddling our way furiously from one end of the pool to the other. We played Tarzan in the Bosque, where it was eternally cool and dark throughout the hot summer days.

I was raised by my parents, by my older siblings, by my tios y tias, by my teachers, by my vecinos. But I was raised as well by my “place”—my Tierra Sagrada. I was hugged each night by the huge red-faced sun—embarrassed because he tired before I did–setting over my playground in the West. I was greeted each morning by the cu-cu-ru-cu-coofrom the gallinero. Western breezes tickled me. Birds talked to me. Trees danced with me. Brujosprowled through my neighborhood at night, disguised as snakes and owls. “Place” dirtied my clothes, wrung sweat out of my boy’s body, made me late for supper, waited up all night for me, and made me whole.

We know that Native-Americans worshiped “place” in everything they did. For them, “Place” is not only about food and shelter. It is even more about soul and spirit.

In his book titled “God is Red,” Vine Deloria, Jr writes: “American Indians hold their lands—places—as having the highest possible meaning, and all their statements are made with this reference point in mind.”

Many Native-Americans still worship the land, water, forests and sky. For them in particular, the land is alive. What does “alive” mean in this context? Perhaps it means that the land is more than just breathing. It means that the land, the water, the forests and the sky are conscious and aware. Where these natural elements are still worshiped, they are still alive.

The Greek philosopher Archytas said, “Place is the first of all beings, since everything that exists is in a place and cannot exist without a place.”

In his book on the Western Apache, titled “Wisdom Sits in Places,” anthropologist Keith Basso writes: “What do people make of places? The question is as old as people and places themselves, as old as human attachments to portions of the earth…As normally experienced, sense of place quite simply IS, as natural and straightforward as our fondness for certain colors and culinary tastes, and the thought that it might be complicated, or even very interesting, seldom crosses our minds. Until, as sometimes happens, we are deprived of these attachments and find ourselves adrift, literally dislocated, in unfamiliar surroundings we do not comprehend and care for even less…It is then we come to see that attachments to places may be nothing less than profound, and that when these attachments are threatened we may feel threatened as well. Places, we realize, are as much a part of us as we are a part of them, and senses of places—yours, mine and everyone else’s—partake complexly of both.

That is why New Mexico has a spiritual power emanating from the landscape—its rios, mesas, llanos, sierras—that inform our traditional cultures.

But where Native-Americans have ceased worshiping places in New Mexico, place is dead. The Rio Puerco, for example, is a dead watershed. Once a vibrant river, nurturing both Native-American and Nuevo Mexicano villagers, the Rio Puerco died because Native-Americans were driven out of the area and no one was left to worship that particular rio. More mundane explanations tell us that the watershed was heavily overgrazed in the late 1880s by huge herds of cattle shipped in from Texas for fattening before shipping them to markets in Chicago and elsewhere.

I believe both explanations are true. Even more, I believe overgrazing that destroyed the watershed was caused by the reality that no one was worshipping the place called Rio Puerco and it was thus vulnerable to dying.

So how does place influence current events? It’s one thing to talk about place as a living, conscious, aware concept, but how can we even begin to think that this type of belief and practice can change what we see happening around us today?

For example, the current American regime has built and solidified its political base by xenophobic attacks on Mexicans. The current regime is sending National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border in New Mexico and continues to insist it will build a massive wall to keep Mexicans and other so-called undesirables out of the US.

Here in New Mexico, we know these efforts are futile and will never succeed.

Why?

Simply put, there has existed in the Southwestern United States a deep imprint of knowledge and trade and human interaction that has tied us to the peoples and cultures of Mexico and Latin America since time immemorial along a north-south axis.

For thousands of years, Native-Americans took to the trails in the name of their spirituality, or of the harvest, the hunt, trade and celebration. They may have helped forge trails at least as far back as eight or nine millennia ago. They forged thousands of miles of trails from central México to Ohkay Owingeh, in the Española Valley. All of these trails were along a north-south axis and all of these trails linked Central America, Mexico and North America together.

At least three well documented major north-to-south arteries or connected segments of trails began in the central valley of México and ended in what we now know as the United States.

With the emergence of settled villages of Native-American farmers, traders likely became the primary authors of the trails of the Southwest.

In his book, “Traders of the Western Morning,” John Upton Terrell itemized nearly 250 trade items which fueled the commerce of the first Native-American trails and markets of the Southwest.

After Spanish conquest of the Americas, the Spaniards used existing Native-American trails as the basis of the Caminos Reales—the Royal Roads—that emanated from Mexico City throughout Mexico and what is now the southwestern United States.

This deeply-rooted human connection—these ancient trails—are still in use today. Building a wall and placing border guards will never stop this human interaction—all tied to place.

Climate change and global warming are real and we are suffering greatly here in New Mexico from its effects. We are now in an extended drought, with little hope of relief anytime soon.

We are entering what author James Howard Kunstler calls “The Long Emergency.” Basically, he argues that world oil production is peaking and that the remaining oil left to be exploited is geometrically more difficult to find and extract. Another negative impact of modernity is that the excesses of capitalism are creating the conditions leading to global warming and serious climate change.

He argues that this long emergency into an oil-depleted economy will change forever everything about how we live.

Kunstler presents a bleak future for all of us. He does, however, offer one ray of hope:

“The Long Emergency is going to be a tremendous trauma for the human race. We will not believe that this is happening to us, that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees by a world-wide power shortage. The survivors will have to cultivate a religion of hope—that is, a deep and comprehensive belief that humanity is worth carrying on. If there is any positive side to stark changes coming our way, it may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an enterprise that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social enactments instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom…”

There are many ways in which the worship of place by Native Americans and the concept of querencia by Nuevo Mexicanos is having many positive impacts on current events and offering hope for a sustainable future here in New Mexico.

Here in Albuquerque, the city has pretty much run out of places to continue its historical practice of sprawl development. The only sprawl development areas still in play are Mesa del Sol and Santolina. Developers have already sprawled as far as they can to the West and East, north and south. On the west, the city cannot sprawl any further, because both Laguna Pueblo and Zia Pueblo lands block their way. Nor is there any indication that these Pueblo people will sell or lease their lands for any more sprawl development.

To the south and southeast, sprawl is blocked by Isleta Pueblo lands, and to the north, Sandia Pueblo lands hinder sprawl development in that direction. This is good news for those of us worried about long-term sustainability in the face of water shortages, gas shortages and the implosion of capitalism as we currently know it. The Pueblos are acting as an overall planning department for the City of Albuquerque and doing a mighty fine job of it.

If both modernity and capitalism come crashing down sooner than we thought because of the high impact of global warming and climate change, then humans face severe survival challenges.

What will need to happen to give us a chance at survival?

Well, for one thing, let’s talk about food. We will no longer be able to purchase cheap foods at Walmart or Smith’s because there will not be a way to transport them from China or Mexico or Latin America. We will have to grow our own food locally.

Fortunately, land-based Nuevo Mexicano communities and Puebloans have mostly held on to their arable lands. They have always used water conservation models to grow food, even during droughts. We already have the land and limited water still available to us to feed ourselves when the crash hits.

There are other examples, but you get the idea, I’m sure.

We need to look to our pueblo communities for models for the best way to live in the future. We need to study our acequiasand our land grant communities to see how people find a livable future with the most effective power source available—local communal vision and hands-on work.

Which is why at the Center of Southwest Culture, we are laser-focused on creating sustainable organic food coops in land-based Nuevo Mexicano and Puebloan communities. I invite you to visit our web site and send us any questions you many have about our work. But fundamentally, we see the severity of what the future may bring and we want our gente to be ready for it.

We are blessed to have living among us a native son, our Chicano poet laureate, Jimmy Santiago Baca.  For him, just like for so many others here in New Mexico, the Rio Grande is sacred.  I want to end with a piece from his work, entitled:

“WinterPoems Along the Rio Grande”:

“Sometimes I stand on the river bank
and feel the water take my pain,
allow my nostalgic brooding
a reprieve.
The water flows south,
constantly redrafting its story
which is my story,
rising and lowering with glimmering meanings—
here nations drown their stupid babbling,
bragging senators are mere geese droppings in the mud,
radicals and conservatives are stands of island grass,
and the water flows on,
cleansing, baptizing Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.

I yearn to move past these days of hate and racism.

That is why this Rio Grande,
these trees and sage bushes
the geese, horses, dogs and river stones
are so important to me—
with them
I go on altering my reptilian self,
reaching higher notes of being
on my trombone heart,
pulsing out into the universe, my music
according to the leaf’s music sheet,
working, with a vague indulgence toward a song
called
we the people.”

My name is Rebecca Ganter and I live here in Gallup. I have lived here quite a long time. My mom was from Roswell and my dad was from here [Gallup]. I grew up here [Gallup].

Growing up in Gallup

There’s been a lot of changes here [Gallup]. When I was young it wasn’t like this, it was a lot different.

We use to play kick ball [growing up] and all kinds of stuff, I don’t see the kids doing that anymore. I guess because they are not raised like that. There wasn’t much stuff for us to do, so we would do what we could. Do what we could or find what we could.

Growing up in Gallup was good. I grew up and went to grade school, junior high, and high school, and I went to Catholic school. From Catholic school I went to a public school. It has all changed now, it’s way different then it was then. There is probably more crime, more drugs; now there is more crime and drugs than there was before. Maybe because it’s a small town.

Experiencing Recovery

I got sober 2002. I’ve been sober for 15 years. That’s part of my thing… I love homeless people. I help them anyway I can. I feed them; I give them water, whatever. My son is out there too. God is telling me to do this. When I got sober, I stayed sober. I had a hard time at first, than I got it. I started doing the steps, I started getting involved. Part of that is helping people understand not to drink and drug. So that’s what I used to do; I did it for a long time.

I got sick. I use to drink a lot. After my mom died, I got really bad and I didn’t have anything else to do, so I started drinking. And I drank a lot. One day I went into this bar and I only had one beer, that’s all I had, and all of a sudden I just fell to the floor. It was crazy. I got alcohol poisoning. From there on I told myself that I gotta quit. And I didn’t know how to do it at first. When I did it, I talked to this guy and he told me why I didn’t go to AA with them. They are gone, those guys, already. I started going to AA and I liked it. I didn’t care what nobody said about me or whatever. I see people drunk… and I can’t smell it no more (laughter). It’s crazy because if I get next to somebody I get real weird.

I went to 15 years, maybe 16, to AA… now I have cooled down a little bit. I am not going as much as I was. But I stay sober. As long as I pray & ask God to help me.

I was in my 40s [when I got sober]. I said to myself, “I can’t live like this.” And then my dad has alzheimers. It was sad. I had to change. I was homeless myself. When I was homeless, I lived in the streets too. Not all the time, but there was a place up there where we use to live. We would sleep in the day and come out in the night. I mean… sleep in the night and come out in the day. It was alright… we had a good time… I met a lot of people. I tried to help a lot of people there too, when I got sober. I got my own place and then I moved over here. I like it, but they are changing all the rules now.

I just stay sober myself and do it myself.

I have it in my heart already that I won’t go back [to drinking]. But you never know… I could be tempted. There’s always temptation out there. There’s always somebody saying, “hey let’s go have a drink.” I may say, “yes,” or “no.” I always say to myself, “no, no!” It’s already in my mind that I can’t do it. Thank god! It’s always a battle to fight. You never know when you are going to go out. I have fifteen years, I ain’t going to erase them! I don’t want to start all over again.

I live on top and I pay $400 a month [rent]. But I got income. I get social security. At the beginning it was kind of hard for me. I do it by doing odd stuff. I use to make rosaries. I use to make blankets. I would sell them. I use to do a lot of things to make money. That’s how I use to do it. Till I got ASSI. I am disabled. I just had a hip replacement.

Healing by Helping

It’s through AA [Alcoholics Anonymous]. I do help a lot of people out. A lot of people come and ask me questions. “How can I get sober?” And I help them.

If you get a DWI, they make you go to AA. They have that already here. But they have to be stronger about it. Stronger rules about it [alcohol]. I use to sign papers when I was doing AA, but it’s really up to you if you want to sign their paper. If they didn’t come to the meetings, I didn’t sign them. They use to get mad at me. A lot of them do though. I use to tell them, “don’t sign their papers.” They have to learn someway.

Last week they had the Cinco de Mayo and it started raining and pouring. I have friend who told me to go into the bar to get out of the rain. And we went in and I felt funny, funny, funny. I don’t know what it was. I said, “we can’t stay in here. Let’s just go!” We went to the house and I kept her there for a while. Her family is not good with her. I just felt sorry for her.

There’s a lot of people who need help. We tried to help this guy that lived with us… my friend Jennifer and me… we use to talk to him and he wouldn’t listen to us. I would tell him to just be careful. And one day they threw him out and I don’t know what happened after that. I guess he got a place or whatever… and a car hit him. And I felt so, so bad that we didn’t help him. It makes me sad that I couldn’t help him more. That he couldn’t understand what we were telling him. I try to express myself as much as I can. I try to help people that I could help. I help a lot of people. I help a lot of people in my community.

I do help the homeless. We need more people to do it. A lot of people just think of themselves they don’t think of all the other people. Sometimes too it’s a lot of drama, as they say. So they don’t do it. I get on Facebook and I hear all this stuff. Before I didn’t like Facebook… 1st time I got on it, it was like that [drama]. It’s still like that. I got a bunch of people that I could talk to. I do talk to a lot of people on Facebook too. All over the place.

Gallup and Beyond

I want to move to Albuquerque. That’s one of my goals pretty soon. I just want to get away from here [Gallup]. I got a friend over there. Something different.

I lived in Albuquerque when I was about 23. I have a friend, but he used to drink a lot. I had to try to get away from him and I couldn’t. It was hard. It was hard for me because he brought me his kids and I couldn’t just let them go. I couldn’t let them go. I had a child from him too so… mine was the last one. Now I go there… and I talk to them. I still talk to them. I have no fear against them or nothing like that. I know he will help me in different ways. I use to talk to him… oh my god! You have no idea how much I use to talk to him to get sober! And finally he did. On his own. He did it on his own.

Gallup is a nice town. A lot of people do come from different places that are homeless. Most of the time they don’t help them. I wish there was something for them to help them like that [mental health]. That’s what they need the most in Gallup. I know there’s places you can go… but I have never tried to help them out like that. You never know, they may turn on you.

There is a lot of drunk people… sorry to tell you, but there is. I use to go talk to them, especially the girls. And I would show them my strength and experience and what I went through. I went through a lot… being in New Mexico… being in Gallup. I like Gallup, there is nothing wrong with Gallup. I think I needed change. I would like to go help Albuquerque too, because there is a lot… I met a lot of good people that are around. I don’t hang around junks. I don’t hang around people that drink. I can’t. I changed my life a lot. I changed everything around me.

Being Burqueño

Growing up in Albuquerque was rough, rugged, and beautiful all at the same time. I was in a band with a couple of my homies and I played trombone as well as swang. I was a ska kid growing up and there wasn’t many ska kids growing up. I also listened to Hip-Hop and Punk Rock, but I really found my voice through performance and being on stage. I saw that there was so much talent in these high schools; as graffiti writers, as rappers, and creative stylistic people. That’s why I loved growing up in Albuquerque… there is so much cultura! As Albino [La Plazita Institute] says, “La cultura cura.” I really believe that. I’ve had a lot of amazing mentors in my life, especially at UNM doing service learning and working with different programs. I worked in Martinez town for 5 years and working at UNM with other college students to do service based work. Ultimately as a planner in Community Regional Planning, I learned a lot about this idea that process must incorporate the Indigenous world view. For me, that’s when my Indigenization happened. To understand the essence of Indigenous scholarship is that scholarship is the Indigenous self. That was gifted to me by my mentor Ted Jojola. He got me into this idea that as planners, especially as educators, as Indigenous planners we have always done multigenerational planning. In Chaco Canyon it took up to 7 generations to build what they built. So this idea of long term planning, this idea of educating people, and this idea of intergenerational engagement has always been a part of my culture. I do that with my own type of engagement and education at the Native American Community Academy (NACA). I was senior capstone teacher for the past 2 years and now I work as their Substance Abuse Prevention Office, a.k.a. SAPO. It’s been awesome to work with the kids around suicide, alcohol, and drug prevention. I am really grateful for that opportunity for what I have been able to do at NACA and working with youth.

If I had to describe myself I would say I am a “Blessedtizo.” One hundred percent I am a blessedtizo. As a mixed person, we are blessed. We get to walk in multiple worlds. We get to be with multiple different people. Ultimately we grow to respect and love culture. As a mixed person, I was always searching for my own culture. I was so many different ones that I didn’t know what culture to choose. Growing up in Burque, a lot of my friends where Mexicanos, so I was able to understand that identity of la “Raza Cosmica.” That really spoke to me, growing up with no people around like me, with no family. In college I got to better understand my Indigenous identity. My Shawnee identity. My Filipino Indigenous identity. Ceremonies like this [points at tattoos], represent very important moments in our lives. It represents different kinds of levels of being. I got to understand all of these things by traveling around the world, but it was nothing compared to the journey that I went within.

Growing up in Albuquerque I looked up to the hustlers. I looked up to the drug dealers. I looked up to the kids who would drive up in $30,000 cars. And I would be like, ‘how do I get to do that?’ I saw a lot of violence in high school. I saw a lot of things that I wished I didn’t. Every single year of high school, I know of at least one student that got murdered. Growing up, I thought that was normal until I went to UNM and I saw other people didn’t have to live like that. Other people’s high school experiences wasn’t like that. So why was my high school experience like that? And that’s when that critical theory comes in and helps you understand those histories; historical trauma. Those histories of environmental racism and you get to articulate it more through praxis. Praxis is this idea of understanding epistemology, the idea of how we come to know. For me, I came to understand that there is more than one worldview, we don’t just have to go into the dominant worldview, the dominant culture; we can subvert it. And the best way to do it is through soft culture. Through what we dress, through what we ride, through how we speak to one another. I think that soft culture is the power that we have been blessed with. Especially as mixed people, going back to this notion of “blessedtizos.” We are blessed with this culture so we need to use it as our tool, as a weapon, in the 21st century. And do it as cool as possible to get those other young kids to look up to hopefully someone like me or other people. To show that they are unique and they are being themselves, and they are getting stuff done.

Poison into Medicine

The theme of turning poison into medicine has been a part of my life. My Dad was an alcoholic and I was going down that same path myself until he passed away from cirrhosis of the liver. When he passed away that’s when I started to get a critical understanding of asking myself, ‘why was my Dad an alcoholic? Why was his father an alcoholic?’ And I could trace it back through history; the history of colonization. And I could understand that I was going down that same path. But I chose to do something different. I chose to heal. I chose to stop drinking and I chose to get into my passions; bicycling, gardening, and art. And that transformed my life. And I needed to share it. I had a responsibility as an Indigenous person, to share it with as many people as possible. And that’s how I got involved with NACA. Being a teacher, taking kids on bike rides, having kids learn about their own culture. And learning about things that I only learned about until graduate school; praxis- connecting theory to practice. This idea that Indigenous languages are important because they are dynamic. They illustrate the inner dynamic of all things, instead of separating things like we do in academia today. NACA is all about holistic wellness and Indigenous education. I am blessed to be teaching there, because everyone there believes that education is a form of sovereignty. Education is a form of transformation. Education is revolutionary. And we get to do it every single day, to connect our culture and put into practice. We encourage young people to be their best selves. To be healthy, to be happy. To not do drugs and alcohol. Ultimately, we want them to connect back to their culture because a lot of us are disconnected.

The Karina Colectiva derived over 7 years from the understanding that for me to do my job well, I need a community. I need a collective. And I need a compassionate collective. A lot of the times, this type of work doesn’t pay too well. A lot of times it is done through love and service. Through our own hearts. I wanted to create a collective of people who felt the same way I did that can work together well and that could make an impact by creating events, products, educational activities. That’s how the Karina Colectiva came into fruition. For me, the Karina Colectiva a youth cooperative. Where youth can learn about cooperative economics. How to work amongst each other without exchanging money, but rather exchanging time and energy. And ultimately being able to learn and earn. To solve that root cause issue of poverty. We see it across the state. I am trying to figure out how I can get these students working and doing something they love.

Future of NM

What makes Albuquerque and New Mexico so unique is the history, the landscape, the deep sacredness. The sacredness is still here, I still feel it. I feel it here in Barelas. I still feel the bosque. I still feel the Rio Grande. I wish that is something that I wish more people could connect to. The nature and the natural history that we have in the state. Also, I feel like I belong here. Because where else would I fit in? A lot of us are misfits here. A lot of us are searching for something. There’s a lot of deep people here. There is a deep spiritual foundation here from all walks of life. From different nationalities and all places around the world. There is a lot of spirituality here and that is something that we need to embrace more as Humans of New Mexico.

The issues that I see in New Mexico are really broad. We have a lot of issues, but we also have a lot of strengths. For me, the most important issues is water. If you go to anywhere outside of New Mexico, you realize how dry it is out here. This is a desert and we have a finite amount of water. I think of water as being a crucial component of our future existence here. It’s something we should really take seriously. It’s something that we need to put more time and energy into thinking of how we are going to solve this issue. Before my lifetime ends, we are going to see issues around water. I also see a lot of health issues; preventable health challenges that we can easily fix by getting active, by playing handball, by riding your bike, by eating those organic foods and vegetables. We have so much agricultural heritage here, and we need to embrace that too. I am really passionate about farming. I am really passionate about hemp, that is something that I really want to go deeper into because I think that could be an industry that young people could start getting into. That we can start creating our own things. Most importantly, understand how we are going to take care of ourselves. I doubt anybody outside of New Mexico is giving New Mexico much thought; other than gas, petroleum, and fracking. And we don’t want that!

An idea I learned in college was liberation technologies. Technologies that harness the natural renewal qualities of life. To decrease our dependencies on oil and gas. It’s kind of hypocritical of me while on top of my scooter. But this scooter gets 93 miles to the gallon. This scooter can be converted using hydrogen gas. The technologies are here, we just have to do it. That’s really my passion, being able to create solutions using simple technologies that we can share with our brothers and sisters around the world. Asking ourselves how we can start generating our own energy. How can we start using technology to build a movement? Those passions of gardening, riding, and doing art always come back to everything that I do because we need to harmonize the artistic side with the spiritual side and the scientific side. And that’s the foundation of a peaceful society, people who honor art and spirituality. People who honor each other. That’s what I do every day, and I do it with a smile, and I try to inspire others to do the same. At the end of the day, all we have is our voice. All we have is our connection to each other. And that’s enough.

TedX

Style is important! Style is what gets the young people involved. Style is what makes a statement. Anything that we do we have to make a statement. I get a lot of inspiration from the east and from my Indigenous side and how I bridge that. I was born and raised Buddhist. For me the hippest thing right now is Buddhist Monks. How can I learn from them and bring that into the 21st century? I call it “Dharma Futurism wear.” That is the style we are creating, but at the end of the day anyone can create their own style. The same clothing that I am wearing today is the same clothing that I was wearing in high school- Dickies, PF Flyers, and white t-shirt. That was something that I wore every single day. That’s something that is still cool, and I like to understand that history to understand where this uniform came from. It came from the streets and it came from prison. This is a sport (handball) that helped people out in prison, it’s a therapy, and so there is value in it. I want to be able to bring that out to my style and my fashion to understand that deeper history.

TedX took the world by storm! There is so many ideas and it is a good way to understand performance art. I was honored to be asked to be a part of TedX and it made me think what I wanted to convey and what my message should be. I’ve come to understand that my message is that we all can connect back to our Indigenous roots. Some might have to go a bit farther than others, but we all have Indigenous roots. And we can use those Indigenous roots to inform our future by incorporating those roots and those worldviews and those ways of knowing into the 21st century. By using processes that our ancestors used, there’s numbers, there’s elements, that we can incorporate back into our life to help us organize our thoughts. To help us better speak to one another. To help us make money if we want. To help us make an impact in our communities. Indigenous ways of knowing and Indigenous research methodologies is the future. And that’s what I want to share in TedX! This is the coolest thing you could be doing right now and it’s coming out of Burque! It’s coming out of UNM! It’s coming out of our ancestors here in New Mexico! We have a wealth of knowledge, creativity, history, and culture. And that’s just what I want to illustrate in my TedX talk.

I want to encourage everyone to think of their own personal health, to think about their cycles in their lives. The cycles of birth, aging, and death. Ultimately those cycles connect us back to the earth and to each other. They make us understand that nothing is finite. That everything changes, and that every turn of the wheel is a revolution.

My name is Tanya and I have been a resident of Farmington for a long time. I have been a school teacher here in Farmington; I teach fourth grade. I just finished my sixteenth year. I had the opportunity to work at two different schools. Two very diverse populations. The ages of nine to eleven in fourth grade. I actually graduated high school here. I grew up in small town in Arizona, but I call Farmington home.

Choosing to Teach

I always knew I wanted to help. I wanted to help people. I wanted to make a difference. I originally started in school to be a physical therapist and I had two years to go in my clinicals. That’s all I needed. And I just knew my heart was not completely satisfied. I changed and went on to education. Once I finished my practicum and my student teaching, I just knew that’s what I needed to do. I have such a high love for children. I want to see them grow and be successful. I appreciate what they bring. It’s not just about me going into a classroom and trying to educate them, I want to be able to appreciate who they are. Because they are young people who have a mind who want to be heard. I think just fostering that at a young age and letting them know that they are important it’s something that has always been important to me. I just knew, once I got in there, my heart was right. I was happy and satisfied. I can honestly say that I love my job. I love doing the work. It’s a lot of work, commitment, and time, but I absolutely love what I do. I feel like I make a difference, it it’s not a huge amount, for maybe the one or two. There’s always a family that captures my heart. I am truly blessed, it’s more than just a job for me. It’s my life.

I have seen a lot of dramatic changes, some unfortunate; the needs of students have changed. I think when I first started… and of course I was a lot younger… We can focus a lot on the academics. There is always a social and emotional need that students bring with them, and you do the best as a teacher to foster those things, but in the sixteen years I have seen how society has changed and the culture has changed. Technology has been advanced. I see that the children have been changed. They are fast paced, they need things right now, they need things kinesthetic, it has to be hands on, it has to be something that appeals to them. We might of started out with very simple stories that you and I might be familiar with, where today that doesn’t appeal to everybody. We are looking at graphic novels, we are looking at comics as opposed to just your traditional literature. Through state legislation we have come to a change in common core, which has changed state standards completely. We have had to change as educators, I as educator have had to change the way of teaching. Thinking differently. And that also affects the needs of students. You see students who have certain needs academically and of course that’s what you are there for. You have guidelines and things to follow or certain parameters that children have. The last sixteen years we have had to change. You see that children not only have academic needs, but they also have more emotional and social needs. They are missing a lot of interaction. It’s very complex. Teaching industry and the job, it’s so complex. It’s more than just opening up your book. It encompasses everything being a teacher. Being a counselor, a nurse, a parent. Everything you can possibly think of to meet a child’s needs so that they are safe, happy, and so that they can do what they need to do in a classroom.

I think that one of the biggest things we see is the student to teacher ratio. The school where I just completed my school year at, we just finished at 27 students. Sometimes having that many students is hard because you are trying to meet the needs of 27 different individuals. They all have different needs from social, emotional, and academic standards. That’s one of the biggest concerns as a teacher that I have, as well as just the need for resources. It’s out of our hands and the district’s hands when it comes to the resources because they try to get what we need.  We as teachers we spend our own personal money to do what we need. Between the student to teacher class sizes and the teacher resources, those are biggest challenges to meet the needs of the students. As educators, we do everything we can to provide for them. Pulling out of our own bank account a lot of times. Farmington is so diverse, you have different cultures, and you have different aspects to bring into the classroom. Even though we have those difficulties and struggles, it’s what the children bring that makes it satisfying.

Finding Community in Farmington

I come from a family of six children. I was raised in a small town in Arizona. It was a border town to the reservation. I feel like I grew up very fortunate to have my mom at home. I had one parent at home fostering what we needed and getting us through the morning. I feel like my foundation really started there, to have a strong foundation, to be healthy. I had older siblings. We were exposed to sports and extracurricular activities. We were involved in the church growing up. I felt like I was privileged or had the opportunity to experience things. A little bit of trouble here and there… I was brought to Farmington in 1991. It was a tough transition for me because I was in middle school. That’s a time when you are really socializing and making friends. I was brought to Farmington, to a new place, a lot bigger, it was kind of a culture shock at first. Like I said, I came from a really small reservation town, mostly Native Americans. Seeing the amount of diverse cultures [in Farmington], it was culture shock at first. I felt I needed to adjust and just do what I needed to do. I came to Farmington and I attended a local junior high. I wanted to get involved in sports because that was something I enjoyed. From there I made friends, I felt like I adjusted well. I adjusted well here in Farmington High School. I went to college in Arizona. I just knew there was a specific goal that I had to come back because of the population because of the need I felt. Being Native American, I wanted to make an impact with the Native American culture. I wanted to inspire. I wanted to give… not a sense of hope, but to encourage. Even if it’s only two people… I wanted to the young ladies or young boys… whether they are Native Americans or any other culture… I want to tell them that they can become somebody and that there is opportunity. That was my goal in coming back to Farmington, I wanted to just make an impact. I wanted to reach the cultures that are here. That’s one thing that I love about Farmington, it’s the diversity. You walk out one door and you have this culture and you turn and there’s another culture. I think in Farmington there is a good job in trying to appreciate those cultures with different events that they have going on. Trying to foster that and try to encourage the youth to be proud of who they are. I have been here ever since, and I love it. It’s a small enough town, not too big. I have some great friends and great community support in the occupation that I am in. I just learned to love the community and appreciate what the community has done for me as a school teacher.

Encouraging Growth

I hope that there is opportunity to grow and to become whatever it is they [children] want to inspire to become. Regardless of where it would be, that’s what I want for any child, any young person. I think that too often, especially in this area being located where it is, it’s a border town to the reservation. Young people are stunted or held back at a disadvantage because of poverty, lack of opportunity… whether it’s not visiting other places, not being exposed to our music, culture, and with the change in times, everybody has a cell phone and everybody is on social media, things are changing. I would want them to make an impact, to make a difference, in whatever they chose to do… if it’s like serving in their community center and giving back to the youth and encouraging one person, I would want them to do that. I know that college is not for everybody, and I understand that, but I want them to be successful to be independent. That’s what I want for any young person. And not just for the Native American culture, but for everyone to be successful. Find something that they love… sports, hobbies, music, whatever they like and just grow and expand. For them to feel like they don’t have to be held back.

I think that Farmington is a great place, a great place to raise a family. Come and visit. Another great thing I love about Farmington are the fishing opportunities, the boating, the hiking, the exploring that you can do. I am appreciative of this opportunity to be able to just come and share a little bit and to let people know that Farmington is a great place. We have a lot to offer. And there are great people here. And that’s what makes a difference, the kindness of people. What people can do for one another. A simple smile, holding the door for somebody, whatever it might be. Continue to be positive and encouraging and be satisfied with who you are.

I’ve been playing for 32 years, going on 33 now and I’ve played the whole 33 with one lung. So they (sons) grew up playing official rugby when they were four and five and they’ve been playing every year since then so it works out really nicely.  Now I’m coaching their team the Albuquerque Aardvarks, I’m coaching that team now too and it was my old team. I played with them until 2011 all the time, until I went to Vegas for a little while, so I have a lot of history in the game itself, so it works.

My name is Demetrio Cardiel, originally from Alamogordo, NM.  I started with soccer naturally, my dad and my uncles played in Guadalajara and so they brought that game into Alamogordo and they had a men’s team. And so we would help them when we were small and then I actually helped start the first high school soccer team in Alamogordo.  

Why Rugby

When I was 18 I died, my temperature started shooting up and everything so I was clinically dead, I was in the hospital I was out and then they rushed me through exploratory surgery, brought me back to life and when they closed me back up I got full blown double pneumonia and so I was in the hospital for 23 days.  When they brought me back to life I had pneumonia, one of my lungs cleared up and one of them didn’t. So before that I was a competitive body builder, so I worked really hard on being the best at whatever I did.  And I lost like 35 pounds and I only weighed 130 pounds so I was skinny and I couldn’t breathe, I was walking around with an oxygen tank and so it was frustrating for me because I was trying to go back to the sports that I knew, trying to play them.  I was kind of aggressive, I was playing softball and then I hit a guy that was in my baseline and kind of broke his face; and then I tried to play park football and I was just a little aggressive I guess trying to come back and hurting my friends so I didn’t know what to do.  Then the guy told me about rugby and so I started playing rugby and I’ve played the whole 33 years with one lung and that’s why rugby, rugby saved my life.  I mean it really did.

With my high school players we practice in Los Alamos 2-3 days per week and on the weekends are the games so we practice there on the school facility.  Its NMAA recognized so we do have to go through the NMAA rules but it is not school sponsored, it’s a club.  

Rugby is similar to life.  In Rugby the more you see the more you find out.  In Rugby you can’t be really good and have everyone else be bad and still be effective.  So in order to be really good you have to bring your team up instead of tear them down.  Like a lot of American sports tear them down so they can get tougher; in rugby if you do that, you are left with no team. So arrogance is not something that is very becoming in the game.  

They all start bonding with each other, they study together and in Los Alamos. I don’t have, as you can see, a lot of athletes, or a lot of size, but I call ’em my Geek Squad because that’s what I have: I have a lot of smart kids.   And so in that they learn to develop the game, and play the game within the rules as best they can, aggressively but intelligently, and it makes the game so much better.  And you’ll see that all the teams that we’ll be playing have a lot better athletes than we do, there’s no doubt about it.  Now my boys, I’ve had them now for six or seven years, and we won state last year for the first time and now, God-willing, we are going to win our second.  And it’s amazing to see these kids who in the normal environment would be picked on but you see them go on to pitch against better athletes, bigger kids, and not be intimidated any more.  You know they play the game together so well now that that’s the camaraderie that it brings.  But after the game they’re the first to go up to the next team, and bring them, and have them share our food or whatever we have and so that is the culture of rugby that most people don’t even see.  It’s almost impossible to be a great rugby player anywhere in the world and be a bad person.  You don’t find the rugby players in the newspaper, the plane that crashed in Pittsburgh on 9-11 you know that guy was a rugby player, and so those are the kinds of things that you see about rugby players in the news.  It’s amazing and I’m not trying to put down anybody else, but I am just saying that to play the game it takes so much discipline, self-discipline.  In order not to be cheap, you have thirty guys and one referee so you have every opportunity to be cheap if you want to be but if you do, you don’t last because you get paid back and there’s plenty of opportunity to get paid back… So that’s the realms of the game that are so beautiful and that’s what I like because, I tell you what, like I told them in the last practice on Wednesday, I told my kids, my seniors: “If you guys don’t play rugby ever again so be it, but everything that I taught you, take it now into your professional life.  And you know that when you are fighting for the job, or fighting for that grade in college, that nobody’s better than you. If you want something you better be willing to put in the effort the work and then go get it, don’t let anyone intimidate you”.  Making boys into men is exactly what we do.  Now coaching men, I make guys that think they’re men into real men.  If you come on the bench and you play for me, you should see the change in them.  They come in cocky, they come in saying “oh yeah I can do this and everything”, and then when you make them do the effort, and make them see what the game is all about, all of a sudden you see them develop into great citizens you know, so it’s really, really cool.  I have kids coming back to me all the time and saying “you know what coach, I did this and I did that, and thank you very much for what you did” so that is why I keep doing this. 

We’ve taken to thanking the crowd to another level in that most people don’t thank the crowd.  We started that, and we invite the other team to join us in that and now it’s spreading and a lot of teams do that now.  My men’s team actually started doing that and it shows that we leave animosity and everything on that side of the white line.  

Injuries and Protection

The thing about protective equipment is if you have an injury or if you have had concussions through other sports then you have to protect those certain areas.  You see the people that are protecting like concussions and wearing the strong caps use them differently than somebody just strapping it on and thinking they are covered.  The problem with American Football is that all the protective equipment became weapons and that’s why the concussions started happening.  It’s supposed to be protecting your head and you are leading with it. I mean how stupid is that, I mean seriously, and coaches teach it that way.  The shoulder pads, just because you got a pad on you’re going to hit harder, you know that’s not what it’s made for, it supposed to protect your shoulders.  And they started getting bigger because they became weapons and so in Rugby, body to body, you will survive forever. That’s the way fights are supposed to happen, fights are part of humanity you know, but if you can’t settle them one to one and weapons start coming into action that’s then all of a sudden you take everything out, because it doesn’t matter, in the right situation it doesn’t matter, size, shape form, the person that’s supposed to win is going to win.  In the right situation we all know that, that’s the way life is, right? If somebody is doing something that’s not right, they’re weak in the mind and whoever, I don’t care if they’re small, look at David and Goliath, and it goes back to history.  The guy that’s supposed to win will win.  You have everything God gives you, everything you need to play this game correctly and without having to add anything.

Love for NM and Family

I love New Mexico, I made the US team in 89 and 90 and I got asked to play in Las Vegas and so I moved to Las Vegas for a year and half and I had an opportunity to play in Australia and my home club in Albuquerque was folding at the time so I decided to move back to Albuquerque and bring this team back.  But also being away from my family, I come from a family of 11 and both of my parents are still alive, I’m actually going to go see my mom tomorrow and so I am here coaching now or else I’d be there. My parents now are older in age and they’re tremendous people.  They had 11 kids and now 77 grandchildren and great grandchildren and so it’s amazing.  So New Mexico and being close to my family is everything.  

Funding

I think naturally we need to be real with the games.  See in rugby all you need is a ball, shorts and boots, so cutting funding is pretty simple, it’s not that expensive.  I think there are sports that need a lot of equipment especially in youth to middle [school], I think any school or government funded programs that require a lot of equipment, I think they can maybe move on to soccer and if they want contact move on to rugby.  You know move on to things that are going to teach them the development that a child needs.  Sports help keep people off the streets, you know, they help parents because; I mean I raised both of my boys by myself since they were 4 and 5; I got a divorce and got full custody.  So I know what keeping them involved does you know, I got great boys but it’s because they were always involved in their church and they were always involved in sports.  So cutting funding completely, just saying that an umbrella that we’re not going cut sports I think that is wrong.  They need to see where they can save money and figure that out. But cutting total sports I don’t think is right. 

Way’s we get funding is through registration, older parents of the kids that went on still donate because they believe in what we’re doing so just like that.  For the season everyone pays $125 and so we are trying to get some funding right now to get some new jerseys because we’ve had these for a while, so we do different things, car washes and stuff like that in the off season, for the regular season we don’t require much.

Future of Rugby in NM

New Mexico is going to be one of the Mecca’s no doubt about it.  Denver right now is rugby USA.  It started out really big in the east and on the west coast and I think it’s really centralizing right now and New Mexico is really becoming a Mecca of good rugby because of the spirit and the way families are here and how close families are and this is the game, that’s the way the game is.  It’s not about the superstar, it’s not about if you have a brother that became a movie star, not the whole family is focused around him, you know, he still has to go to the family functions you know.  And that’s the way New Mexico is, the spirit of family and God. 

I tell people all the time, you know the thing about it is everybody deserves to try it.  If you start getting older, it’s a really tough game to learn when you are old because of the learning curve.  In March I played in a tournament with both of my boy’s, it was an international tournament with international teams and there’s no other sport where a 52 year old is going to be playing with my 20 year old kids.  One of the teams we played was last year’s national champions so it’s huge but in order to be able to play at that level you have to learn the intricacies of the game you know, the little quirks, because it is a smart man’s game.  It’s amazing when they learn how to play when they’re young, it’s amazing the difference in their game, Mateo is 130 pounds soaking wet and he’ll take down a 300 pounder without a problem and so that’s the way it is.  So I tell people, everybody should try it but it’s a beautiful and hard game to watch, but if you try to see the spirit of the game, it’s a fun game watch.  

Red or Green?

Mostly green but sometimes red, you know I like red on my enchiladas you know (laughing).  Green chile is good, you got to love it, but sometimes christmas too (laughing).  

My name is Leona Menard and I live here in Gallup. I live in two places actually; I live in Coyote Canyon and I live near Gallup here. I am the president for the First Navajo Voter’s Rights Coalition. I advocate for voter’s rights. I work with people that have brain injuries. I help people who need help in our community. I was raised here in Gallup, off the reservation and on the reservation in Coyote Canyon. I go back-and-forth, but home is Coyote Canyon.

I was born in the hospital in Indian Health Services in 1961. I was one of 5 babies that were first born there. My Dad was part Chicatawa from Minnesota and we moved here. My Dad worked at the coal mine here in Window Rock. He’s a coal miner. And we left 1977 to Minnesota and opened a store. My Mom and the family made jewelry. My Mom was a weaver. I finished high school there and then I went to Tucson, and then I went to Portland, Oregon. I lived in Portland, Oregon for 20 years. I moved back here in 2000.

We are a bordertown because of the Arizona border with New Mexico. Windrock is right here. On this side by Sanders, Arizona, so we are considered a bordertown. Flagstaff would be considered out of the reservation. That’s why we call it a bordertown, because it’s off the Navajo reservation. Zuni has their reservation right at the end. On Saturday and Sunday, especially at the end of the month, your population here in Gallup is probably 40,000 and in the weekends it’s 500,000. Because everybody comes into town on the weekends.

Voting Rights

I got involved with voter rights when there was a voting issue. One of our candidates who wanted to be the Navajo Nation’s President, there was language issues between Navajo and English. The laws stated that you have to talk fluent Navajo to be the president of the nation. In our case, there is many non-speaking Navajos in different generations. Like myself, I am Navajo, I understand Navajo, but I do not speak it fluently. It’s difficult to adopt the language later in life, but you can do it. When the election office said [the candidate] was disqualified, after people had voted for him, that’s when a lot of Navajo citizens got together and we protested. We ended up changing the law. Now the law has been changed because of the Navajo people that voted to change that law. Now, we can elect a Navajo Nation president that doesn’t speak fluent Navajo.

On top of it all, there was some corruption with one of our judges of the Navajo Nation, and we voted to get him out also. We petitioned for him to be removed. That’s how the First Navajo Voter’s Rights originally got started. It started with Arizona and New Mexico, and then we branched out here in New Mexico and they are still there. We are the 1st in Gallup serving this part of New Mexico and the reservation in the eastern agency and northern agencies.

It’s a complex voting situation. For example when voting comes up, we can vote in our chapter house, but we have to be registered in two different places under McKinley County. When you go to vote at the chapter house, they have a list and you need to be on that list, if you’re not on that list you cannot vote. A lot of people say that they are registered, but sometimes because of the lack of communication from state and the Navajo nation… the Navajo Nation system is old school. They are still paper trail, not computer, you can’t do things online, everything has to be done by paper. For a lot of people that’s how it is hard to get registered and get voting. The chapter house does have registration where you can get registered and they send people to McKinley County to get people registered to vote. The system in that way works. But like I said, there’s two different places you have to register. In between, it’s not an easy process. I know some people go to vote for the Navajo elections, but they might be missing with the state and they have to go refile.

Our goal is to coordinate something with the state, a new system. When you go to the MVD they ask you if you’re registered to vote, and you usually can just register right there. What I am thinking is that if you are Navajo and you have a CIB (Certificate of Indian Blood), maybe you can join the systems together, because you have all your documents. Especially the youth, they need all those documents to prove they live on the reservation. To me, that would cut this gap that we have between the state and the Navajo Nation to be able to vote. If we can get our Navajo Nation council delegates to give us some money to upgrade our election process, that’s what we need, that’s what the people want; to have a secured online registration that can be easier to send documents through a secured system. It’s a complex system. It’s sad that we have 250,000 people that are out there and only half are registered voters because of this complex system. It’s suppressing our voting, and we need our people to come forward. Now people have lost interest.

Generational Gap

Through the years, I believe the election cycle has been neglecting of the people to get to the poles. Lack of education. Lack of laws that are being passed. Lack of things that need to be voted on by the people. Just recently we did start a petition, wanting to change those laws where the people get their authority passed. Right now the council delegates have all the power to change the laws and do what they please, but sometimes it doesn’t fit the communities on the Navajo reservation. Our chapter houses are not accessible to our people to attend meetings. People have just lost interest because they see that our Navajo Nation government does their own thing instead of helping the people. The breakdown in communication I think is a really big issue, especially with our youth, our college students that are Navajo and have a census number. We are not keeping up with the times as far as the culture of our youth.

I believe in what I have experienced, and that is the intimidation of the language barrier. You go to a chapter meeting, and they present everything in Navajo…and when the youth go, they don’t accommodate to their language. So they are left behind, they are left out. And that’s a big issue. I think with the youth, especially college students, they want to get involved, but it seems like the Navajo Nation government and the delegates… they say they want to keep their language and traditions, but I don’t think they should shun those who are not fluent in the language. And this hurts our youth to get involved. In raising four children on my own, the biggest complaint, is that they feel unwanted by our own government and our own system. At the University of New Mexico (UNM), our students over there, we went around campus asking if they are registered Navajo voters and they said “no.” And I asked why, and they said, “because nothing will change.” But we are working on it because we can make a change. I am positive and I believe we will, in time.

The high schools have a culture class where you can learn the Navajo language. They are pushing elementary schools in our area to make sure they have the culture setting and the language studied. UNM has language courses, I have taken some myself. There is a lot out there to learn the language. I hope that my college students who are involved in the government that they go forward and they start learning. It’s a hard language, because a lot of it is in the throat and in the nasal.

Two Worlds

I grew up in Coyote Canyon which is about 30 miles from here on the reservation. As a child we had horses, and we entertained ourselves a lot as children. I had 4 other siblings, and we lived what I called “a rugged res life.” We herded sheep, we had horses, we had chickens, a little ranch. The good times was going up to the trading post and riding our horses up there. It’s what we called “the sand dunes.” It was kind of like a big ol’ pond. We would all dive and jump into the water. It was pretty cool. We went barefoot and ran around just being kids. That’s the best part I remember of living out there. I went to Chocasi High School. We all were involved in a lot of sports. My oldest brother was a guitar player. We would sit around and listen to him bang his guitar. My mother would sign in Navajo. She would teach us a lot of the ways. We would gather together with family. We would have all the cousins and we all use to play with the ball and get out and hit the baseball. It was really fun. We knew how to entertain ourselves without technology. We rarely even watched tv [laughter].

My mother was raised in a place called Winter Camp. She was a weaver and she would dye the different wool. She would make sand painted rugs. She has pieces in museums. She has one in Santa Fe. She has one in Milwuake, Wisconsin. She has one in Minneapolis. My Mom and Dad would go and do shows. That’s how we kind of traveled to Minnesota. She would get up on stage and sing in Navajo all the way up to New York for different museums. She would be invited to auditoriums. They use to call her “The Turquoise Lady.” Her name was Louise Henry. Her birth name meant “going away from the battle” [in Navajo]. We had a store in Rochester, Minnesota. We were raised between the White world, I always say, and in the Navajo world. I had both. I had both cultures I had to adopt to as a teenager. My three brothers are still silversmith’s. My sister and I are advocates for the people.

When we first went to Minnesota it was hard growing up in a whole different world. It was hard, there was a lot of racism. But once we adapted and got through it, it was just as much fun. We had precious times and memories of the people there. Here on Navajo, my brother’s and I, we also felt racism because we weren’t full Navajo. My Dad is a lighter Chipawa and English, a big tall blue eyed man. And my Mom a little small Navajo woman [laughter]. We had a lot of racism back in the 70s. Growing up there was a lot of differences when looking at the different cultures. We as a family adapt to it, because of what our parents taught us. As far as people toward us, there was a lot going on when growing up always. A lot of people see me and they don’t think I am Navajo, they say “look at that white girl.” I am Navajo in my heart and in my being. I was raised here. It’s still here today [racism]. I don’t see it much here on the White side, but in my Navajo side dealing what we have been dealing with in the last five years, I see a lot of that.

I do ceremonies for my family. I was raised with it. We do prayers and bring the medicine man to look over us and protect us. We pray for each other, we burn our cedar. We do the traditional things that my mother taught me. The belief is there, we believe in our holy people that watch over us. I raised them [children] to treat the earth with respect.

A Future in  Gallup

We have a lot of people with traumatic brain injuries. They go from the ages of 16 on to elders that underdiagnosed. One individual that I work with and help, he got into a car accident four years ago. UNM just released him from the hospital. He had TBI, which is Traumatic Brain Injury. When he came home, his family started experiencing a lot of difficulty with him because they didn’t know how to live with his changes. We do outreach to those people who are underdiagnosed. We try to find them support groups. We have a support group that meets here every other Monday for those with issues of TBI. We still need a lot of support from one hospital to another. Hopefully we can find a way to transfer people and not let them get lost in the system. Before you know it, people are self-medicating which leads to high alcoholism and drug addiction in our town. We have a really huge problem with that in Gallup because we are highly underfunded for behavioral health.

I send people there [Gallup Cultural Center]. I go there to meet with people to kind of introduce them to Gallup. We have our coalition meetings there. If we need to get together for some function, we advocate for being there. When you walk in there you get a “gentle sense feeling.” I always feel like it’s home there. Maybe it’s all the little pictures [laughter]. It’s a really good place to go. It’s nice to know those little places in Gallup.

Economic development is what I hope for the future of Gallup. We have 47% unemployment. Our children, our new generation, they have to leave to find work. If not, they stay here and live in poverty. We have such talent here in this town, and we are kind of stuck in a hole that we can’t get out of unless we get people to start developing. The Navajo Nation, we need to build homes in what I call the bordertown. Build businesses so people can grow and build an economy here. Get people off poverty, and get people to be proud and work. Our suicide rate is the highest in the state!

Gallup is amazing! The art, the culture of all the different ethnicities there. It’s a small town but it’s quaint. You look into the art and you just say “wow, these people are so talented.” I wish we could get more out there in mainstream society. The positive part is that we have so many talented people here in town in one place. The downside of it is that we are not getting it out there. I think economically that would help out the people so much if we can just get the word out that this is just such a dynamite place to come to if you want hands-on-art.

Economic development is needed and that could help our youth in having hope. Our men, often from the Navajo Nation, plus here in Gallup in our border-town, they need jobs. We need homes. We need homes built. We need to give them opportunity. I told you earlier that I left for 20 years and moved back, I was surprised how non-growth of our community. I left for 20 years and it was exactly the same! No jobs, that’s why my Mom and Dad left to Minnesota for work.

We have so many graduates coming out of UNM, tech colleges, Crowne Point, everywhere… and they want to work. They don’t want to live the way their parents lived. We as a society, we need to offer them some opportunities. Our leaders need to find somehow, some way… and I believe that we can do that. I believe that with the funds that the Navajo Nation goes through; millions and millions of dollars, we should be building factories. We should be building things for our own people to live. Structural businesses, art businesses, arts and crafts businesses, resorts. There is so much things to do for young people! We just have that wall that we can’t break through it. I feel bad because our biggest concern is our youth with the suicide rate that we have within McKinley County and the Navajo reservation. It’s increasing no matter what programs we put in. We still have our 23 or 25 year olds committing suicide because they have no hope. If you don’t have opportunity or hope, what are they suppose to do? That’s the heartache of this town. I see it everyday with our youth. With kids I use to take to football practice, kids I use to go to their basketball games, they want to work! We need to change that! Part of that change is getting involved with the political agendas and vote. Vote! For change. I said my new campaign is going to be “Care to Vote.” Care and then vote.

Nuevo Comienzo en Nuevo Mexico 

*English translation below*

Mi nombre es Cecilia Piñón. Vivo aquí en Nuevo México. Crecí aquí en la mesa, es un pueblo pequeño que está cerca de aquí. “In between” las cruces y el Paso. Mi papá era un trabajador del campo, y ahora estoy trabajando aquí para esta organización que es “nonprofit,” La Casa. Ayudamos a víctimas de violencia doméstica. Agarré mi “bachelors” en “criminal justice” y en “Spanish” y mi “master’s” lo hice en “language and linguistics” pero con un “focus” en “Spanish literature.”

Crecí en la Mesa y luego allí trabajó mi papá por muchos años en lo que es la agricultura y ya después ya cuando ya crecimos, bueno es que tengo una larga historia. A los catorce años me muevo para acá para Anthony, pero que todavía viene siendo Nuevo México porque vivimos muy cercas de lo que es Anthony Nuevo México y Anthony, Tejas. So, me vengo a vivir para acá a los catorce, porque a esa edad me embarace. Este, so me vengo a vivir con lo que fue mi pareja en ese tiempo y sigo mi vida aquí en Nuevo México.

Encontrar la Pertenencia

Una cosa que me gusta aquí de Nuevo México es que hay, no he vivido lo que es discriminación por eso no me he querido mover de aquí. Fui a la universidad aquí de Nuevo México, hay mucha diversidad, pero hay mucho hispano. A la misma vez me ha gustado seguir con el grupo con el que crecí y con el que ahorita sigo adelante. Se habla mucho el español e inglés, ese ha sido mi experiencia aquí. No me gustaría moverme a otro lugar porque estoy cercas de lo que es México y los Estados Unidos, so va y viene uno.

Tengo dos niñas, bueno no niñas, ya están señoritas. Tengo dos mujeres, a una la tuve a los catorce años y a la otra a los 19 años. Se me hace que la experiencia que han tenido ellas para crecer se me ha sido diferente porque yo era “teen mom.” Mucho del tiempo tuve que estar hiendo a la escuela y tuve que estar trabajando. Mucha de la parte del tiempo cuando ellas tuvieron su niñez crecieron con mis papas. Pero, de todos modos, yo les inculque que tenían que ir a la escuela y ahorita las dos están hiendo a la universidad. Una tiene 18 años y la otra tiene 23. Una está estudiando “early childhood education” y la otra está estudiando “biology.” Eso sí les inculque, les dije “si no quieren trabajar en los fieles como trabaje yo pónganse a estudiar. Para mí ha sido un logro que estén en el colegio.

Yo fui víctima de violencia domestica también, yo creo que por eso al final termine aquí en una posición trabajando con víctimas de violencia doméstica, con el papa de mis hijas. A el yo le arreglé su estatus legal pero tuvimos problemas y a él lo deportaron por lo mismo, por la violencia doméstica. Y yo creo que por eso termine ayudándole a la gente, no sé. Y también educando a la gente pues que hay obstáculos en la vida pero que tienes que salir adelante.

La Casa

Siempre me ha gustado ayudar a la gente que no tiene los “resources” para seguir adelante. Ahorita en lo que trabajo aquí hay mucha gente que no tiene transportación, en lenguaje, es un problema. No saben leer o escribir. Aparte de eso están sufriendo en violencia doméstica, para mi es algo que me hace sentir fuerte y que les puedo ayudar a personas que sienten que no hay ayuda. Pero que aquí donde estoy les puedo ayudar, no a todas, pero, aunque sea ya una de un montoncito que saques y que puedas ayudar y que salga adelante ya es un logro.

Ahorita yo ya no tengo mucho con la agricultura, como ya estoy enfocada en trabajar en una oficina no sé qué pasa en el campo. Pero yo las Ahora que están pasando las redadas y todo eso, la gente le da miedo a pedir ayuda. Y mucha de la gente no saben que estamos aquí en Anthony, la organización, porque la oficina principal está en Las Cruces. En Las Cruces mucha gente conoce lo que es La Casa, pero aquí en Anthony, como somos un pueblo más pequeño casi la gente no sabe. Pero, la gente que si viene, aceptamos donaciones nos dan comida para la gente, porque abecés viene gente que no tiene nada que comer o cosas para “personal hygiene.” Pues nos acepta la comunidad, hemos estados aquí fácil unos 20 años aquí en Anthony. La cosa es que la gente no sabe.

Aquí el edificio le pertenece a La Casa, pero La Piñón, ayudan a víctimas de abuso sexual, ellos tienen una oficina aquí con nosotros, y las dos organizaciones están basadas en Las Cruces, pero trabajamos juntos aquí. Juntos en el mismo edificio. Nos tratamos de juntar con otras organizaciones para poder trabajar juntos porque si no, no se puede.

A veces la transportación es un problema para nosotros porque si pone una persona una “order of protection” tienen que ir a corte hasta Las Cruces. Entonces ese es un problema para poder ir hasta allá y aquí lo que les ofrecemos es que les damos “transportation,” si se puede les damos “transportation.” Ese es una barrera muy grande y el lenguaje porque no hablan para las personas.

Ni pedimos seguro social. Todo es confidencial aquí, y no les negamos la ayuda a nadie. Abecés viene gente que no son víctimas de violencia doméstica, pero necesitan mandados, se les quemó la casa, o lo que les haiga pasado. Nosotros si tenemos les ayudamos.

Desafíos

Yo de niña me acuerdo, porque yo llegué a trabajar con mis papas en lo que es la agricultura, en el “field,” recogiendo el chile y la cebolla, todo eso. Y me acuerdo que había inmigración en ese tiempo. llegaba inmigración y la gente se iba corriendo. Pasaron los años y ya no ha pasado eso. yo no vi eso en mi “teen years” ya no lo vi. Pero ahora que empezó con lo de Trump se ha vuelto a ver mucho lo que es las redadas. Puedes ver que la inmigración es más presente y detienen a la gente no importando, pues se fijan como se ven las personas, pero de todos modos hacen lo que es “checkpoints.” Eso ya tenía mucho que no lo veía, ya no lo veía desde que era una niña. Yo creo que lo deje de ver como a los diez años. Y ahora que tengo 38 años lo vuelvo a ver otra vez y me recuerdo de mi niñez porque mis papas, bueno mi mama no tenía un estatus legal, y en ese tiempo pues me recuerdo cuando una vez se llevaron a mi mama, pero ahora lo estoy volviendo a ver. Hubo un transcurso en mi vida que no lo vi, que ya no veía tanto lo que era inmigración, pero ahora se está volviendo a ver. Redadas las he visto como en la calle principal, entonces he visto cuando llegan bastantes personas que son de “border patrol” y las policías están incluidas. Y están aquí en la calle principal y allí se juntan y luego ya andan por las calles combinando.

Fui a un “job interview” a Las Cruces, cuando me estaban haciendo el interview me preguntaron en donde había nacido, ¿y yo me quede “que tiene que ver esa pregunta con el trabajo?” Se sub pone que si “I’m asking for a job I have a legal status. “What does it matter where I was born?” Ahora lo que e visto es que la gente ya no tiene problemas, antes era más “undercover, like” si había un “type” de “discrimination.” Y ahora no, ¿ahora “you’re like” te preguntan “donde naciste?” Yo me quede, “como.” Que tiene que ver donde yo nací con el trabajo. Y eso que yo les lleve mi currículo, y tengo un currículo como te dijo ya voy a tener una Maestría. Y si esa fue la pregunta que me hicieron. Y yo me quedé, como, que tiene que ver donde nací?

Cultura

Tenemos mucho de lo que es Nuevo México, Americano, que es mesclamos mucho el inglés con el español. A veces, yo en la universidad, lo que aprendí en el departamento de español siempre las personas quieren ver que tu hables un español estándar, pero no entienden que estamos en el “border” y hablas mucho el “border language.” Eso veo que es parte de la cultura. Si tu hables con cualesquiera personas con hables, aunque te digan vengo de México y hablo el español correcto, no es cierto, siempre mezclan lo que es el “Spanglish.” Eso es parte de la cultura. Lo típico mexicano, la comida, pero sin embargo de todo ahora nuestras nuevas generaciones ya que las “hamburgers” y todo eso. Entonces se han mesclado mucho las culturas.

Lo que yo he visto es que se ha perdido mucho el español. Ahora nuestras nuevas generaciones se enfocan más en el inglés. Y abecés piensan porque los papas dicen “bueno en estados unidos se habla más el inglés, y es cómo vas a salir adelante.” Poco a poco se ha ido perdiendo el español. Y ahora ves los chiquitos que les hablas en español y no hablan español. Eso es una cosa que yo e visto que ha cambiado.

En el tiempo que yo fui (a la escuela aquí), fui hasta el cuarto, desde el kínder a “fourth grade” y era todo en español. Y después me cambiaron a puro inglés, pa ellos eso era bilingüe. Ya después, bueno en la casa seguimos hablando el español, pero ya era puro inglés. Y yo metí a mis hijas, a la chiquita, a lo que es bilingüe, pero a ellas no más les ensenaban lo que es “house”-casa. Si me entiendes, lo mas básico, pero no era español. Eso es lo que e visto que para bilingüe ha cambiado. No más te ensenan lo más “basic” de lo que es Spanish and English.

Immigration and community in Anthony, New Mexico

Starting Over in New Mexico

My name is Cecilia Piñón. I live here in New Mexico and I grew up here in La Mesa. It’s a small town in between Las Cruces and El Paso. My dad was a farm worker, and now I’m working for a nonprofit organization, La Casa. We help victims of domestic violence. I got my bachelors in criminal justice and Spanish and for my masters I did language and linguistics with a focus in Spanish literature.

I grew up in La Mesa where my father worked for many years with agriculture…Well I have a long history.  At fourteen I moved here to Anthony, which is still New Mexico. We lived very close to what is Anthony, New Mexico and Anthony, Texas. So, I come to live here at fourteen, because at that age I got pregnant. I came to live with my partner at that time and continued my life here in New Mexico.

Finding Belonging

One thing I like about New Mexico is that I haven’t experienced discrimination, so I haven’t wanted to move away. I went to college here in New Mexico; there is a lot of diversity, but there are a lot of Hispanics. At the same time, I liked to be with the group with I grew up with and who I’ve continued with now. New Mexicans speak a lot of Spanish and English, that has been my experience here. I would not want to move to another place because I am surrounded by what is Mexico and the United States, so rarely have I wanted to leave. .

I have two girls, well not girls, they are already ladies. I have two women, one I had at 14 and the other at age 19. The experience they have had growing up has been different because I was a teen mom. Much of the time I had to be going to school and I had to be working. Most of the time during their childhood they grew up with my parents. But anyway, I indoctrinated them that they had to go to school and right now both are going to college. One is 18 years old and the other is 23. One is studying early childhood education and the other is studying biology. That I instilled in them, I told them, “If you do not want to work in the fields as I did…” they would need to study. For me, it has been an achievement that they are in higher education.

I was a victim of domestic violence too, I think that’s why I ended up here in a position working with victims of domestic violence, with the father of my daughters. I fixed his legal status but we had problems and he was deported for the same thing, domestic violence. I think that’s why I ended up in a job helping people, I do not know. And teaching people there are obstacles in life but you must get ahead.

La Casa

I have always liked to help people who do not have the resources to move forward. Right now, there are a lot of people who do not have transportation and who struggle with language barriers, it’s a problem. They cannot read or write. Apart from that they are suffering in domestic violence, for me it is something that makes me feel strong that I can help people who feel there is no help. Here where I am, I can help.  Not to all, but even one person that you take in and can help move forward is already an accomplishment.

Now that raids and everything are happening, people are afraid to ask for help. And a lot of the people don’t know we are here in Anthony, the organization, because the main office is in Las Cruces. In Las Cruces, many people know what La Casa is, but here in Anthony, as we are a smaller town, most people don’t know. But people come and we accept donations, they give us food for the people, because there are people who have nothing to eat, or things for personal hygiene. The community accepts us and we have been here for about 20 years, here in Anthony. But the thing is that people do not know.

This building belongs to La Casa, but La Piñón, an organization that helps victims of sexual abuse has an office here with us. Our two organizations are based in Las Cruces, but we work together here. We try to get together with other organizations so we can work together.

Sometimes transportation is a problem for us because if you put an “order of protection” for a person, they must go to court in Las Cruces. It is a problem to be able to go there; but if we are able to, we offer them transportation. That, and the language barrier and very big barriers.

We [La Casa] do not ask for social security.

Everything is confidential here, and we do not deny help to anyone. Sometimes people come who are not victims of domestic violence, but they need help with errands, or their house burned, or whatever happened to them. We provide help if we are able to.

Challenges

I remember as a child, because I got to work with my parents in the field, picking the chili and onion, all that, and I remember there was immigration at that time. When immigration came the people would run away. Years passed in which that has not happened. I didn’t see it [happen] in my teen years. But now with the Trump administration, there’s been a lot of raids again. You can see that immigration is more present and they stop people based on how people look, but they still the checkpoints. I have not seen this since I was a girl. Now that I’m 38, I see raids again and I remember my childhood because my parents, well my mom did not have a legal status, and at that time, I remember when they took my mom, once . There was a passage in my life that I did not see, that I no longer saw so much immigration; but now it is being seen again.

Raids, I have seen them in the main street. I have seen people arrive, the border patrol, and the police are included. They are here on the main street and they get together and walk the streets.

I went to a job interview at Las Cruces and when they were doing the interview they asked me where I was born, and I thought to myself, “what does that have to do with the job?” I have a legal status. Now what I’ve seen is that people no longer have problems with discriminatory practices, before it was more undercover, like if there was a type of discrimination. Not now, now they ask you “where were you born?” What does that have to do with the job?

Cultura

We have a lot of Mexican and American mixing, which is a lot of English and Spanish. What I learned in the Spanish department at the University is that people want to hear you speak a standard Spanish, but they do not understand that we are in the border and you speak a lot of “border language.” I see that is part of the culture. If you talk with people, even if they say they come from Mexico and speak the correct Spanish, it is not true, they always mix language and speak what is called “Spanglish.” That is part of the culture. We also have the typical Mexican food, but nevertheless now our new generations prefer hamburgers and all that. Then cultures have mixed a lot.

What I have seen is that Spanish has been lost a lot. Now our new generations are more focused on English. Sometimes I think because the parents say, “well in the United States English is spoken more, and that’s how you’re going to get ahead.” Little by little the Spanish has been lost. And now you see the little ones when you speak to them in Spanish and they do not speak Spanish. That is one thing that I have seen that has changed.

The time I went to (elementary) school, I went to the fourth grade, from kindergarten to fourth grade, and it was all in Spanish. And then they changed me to pure English, for them that was bilingual. In my house we continued speaking Spanish, but at school it was pure English. When I enrolled my daughters, for bilingualism they taught them things like, what is “casa” – house. The most basic instruction, but it was not Spanish. That’s what I’ve seen for school bilingual programs. They only teach you the most “basic” of what is Spanish and English.

A Start in Dance

My name is Raven Bright. Born and raised here in Gallup, New Mexico. I have been coming to this dance studio pretty much all of my life. It’s my connection to the world. That’s just me as a person.

Back when I first started, we had another dance studio, and that was farther down the block. It was called “Cool Street Pub.” My mom kind of forced me to start dancing, even though I really didn’t want to. I was real anxious, had social anxiety, and just didn’t want to be around people in general. As time went on, I started getting home schooled, so I realized the importance of social interactions. At that point I wanted to become part of society. I didn’t want to stay home and do nothing. I wanted to get out there and be a part of everything else.

Dancing is just a very small part of our art community [in Gallup]. If you come to our “Arts Crawl” or art events, I feel like they are huge. There is hundreds of people who come down here. There is all kinds of shows throughout the blocks. [There is] photography, regular painting, spray painting; in the middle of the streets. Everyone kind of branches out and does their own thing. Which I think is really cool. But at the same time we have so much room to grow. Not just in art in general, but more of the dance art form. We do dancing here, but I feel like we can still take it to another level. Kind of like Albuquerque’s dance community. It’s big; it huge!  And I want what they have. In a way, I feel like that’s going to take years and years to build up to get to that point.

Sometime we will go up to Albuquerque and perform at their events or battle with them. From that point of view we get drawn out more… more people get to see us dancing and all of a sudden they know about us like FOF wasn’t just a small crew from Gallup. I think that’s super cool to think about because we can be this lone circle all by itself within the city. There’s no other break dance crew here in Gallup. I feel like we have to be put on the map. It’s part of the job. We have to do that. Because if we don’t, we are not going to be remembered 20 years down the road. I want this to continue going. I’ll do that the best I can. I’ll just keep dancing everywhere. Always getting our name out. Always going to other places. Always working with other people to try to attain those goals.

Art as Community

I think we have another dance studio… I think it’s more like a cheer studio in my perspective. It’s a place called Starlet Studio. I think they are more focused on structure through dancing. With our crew we are focused on foundations like any other studio would have; but we are also freedom, foundations of freedom. Once you establish your foundation with everything, you branch out to have the freedom with whatever you want to do. I don’t hold my students back whenever I teach them. If they want to do something differently than I’ll say do it. You do your own thing. One day they are going to have their own style.

Whenever there is something [going on] outside of the studio… there is not much. If I ever see a really cool dancer outside of the studio, I always try to bring them in. I always try to teach them a little bit of something. There is nothing to keep you going here [Gallup]… honestly. Artistically, you have to find a group or you have to find it within yourself a lot of the times. When you are here [at the studio], you have a lot of individuals with you, so you have to push yourself in order to stay in the level of your peers. A lot of the times, they have to stay on your level as well. So you are constantly going back and forth.

Inspirations

Patrick Bernhard, he was my first teacher ever and the person that got me into break dancing. “Randy B,” is another Indigenous artist from our crew, he’s still going and makes all kinds of art pieces up in Albuquerque. “B-Boy Remind” from “Style Elements Crew.” I’m actually going to put B-Boy Remind as a stencil here (points at the wall of dance studio). He’s like the James Brown of break dancing. He’s the main influence within my dancing and my painting. Pretty much all art in general. He’s so vibrant. He approaches Hip-Hop as if it was some sort of religion. He talks about it like Gospel. I think that’s really cool.

Hip-Hop could be a religion. It doesn’t follow the path of faith where you have to believe in something, it’s more Indigenous where it’s spiritual. It’s that spiritual connection that you have with everything. Those spiritual processes, with Hip-Hop it’s ciphering… we break dance in a circle… and once you are in that circle and everybody is feeling the music… and everyone is moving in continuum with each other… you no longer have to talk to anybody. Everyone knows what each other is thinking. Everyone is really interconnected with each other.

I think the person that got me into painting was Amy Coats, my dance teacher. It was a long time ago she made me a stencil of something, and she had some spray cans in the basement. We have a huge basement that we spray paint in. [It] probably wasn’t a good idea because there is no ventilation down there. I think I spray painted down there, and I was like “wow that’s so cool.” That’s when I realized spray paint was bad for your lungs. I’d go back home and I’d sneeze and I’d have rainbow colored boogers.

Challenges in Gallup for Youth

I’d say alcohol and drugs, and getting in with the wrong crew [are challenges in Gallup]. There is all kinds of hustlers here. If you don’t have some sort of click, some sort of group to hang out, if you don’t have time to kill, your life will slowly go down hill here. This town traps you. It entraps you. “The Land of Entrapment,” I guess you can say. I see the youth growing up and constantly hustling drugs like in middle school and everyone smoking weed. Everyone is drinking. It’s crazy to just see that here in this point and time. And to see how that will affect way down the road. It’s always good to have some sort of artistic connection with the world that you can always fall back on. Rather than saying there is nothing to do and be bored. I feel like this studio just drew me away from that. In efforts, I am trying to draw other youth away from what this town could do to you.

I constantly try to be here all the time [in the studio]. I have a group chat with all the B-Boys. I always text them when I am coming down to the studio. So they can know that I am here and they can come down here whenever they want to. The dance teachers here are trying to have fees for the students that come here because they come here for free a lot of the times. At the same time a lot of our students are very poor. I am not going to tell them you can’t come here because you didn’t pay your fees. That’s kind of silly. I would rather them be here than be off somewhere else. I feel I always want this place to be a place of nurture and growth. It’s like any kind of classroom. It has to be a positive place. And I feel like this is just my big classroom of sorts.

The Future of Dance in Gallup

I will be performing at the Aquatic Center today. My mom runs belly dancing, so she will be doing that there, in Hawaiian Luau costumes. I’m going to take some B-Boys down there and we are going to cypher. We are going to stand in a circle and one person is going to go out at a time. I feel like that’s the extent of our dancing. A lot of the times we will just kind of dance wherever. I have a boom box and we just go to different locations and we just dance. We just chill at a certain spot. Just turn on the music for a bit. I remember a couple of times we would go to different locations like the mall and Walmart and we would keep dancing until the security guards would kick us out (laughing).

[I would like to see] more activeness in our art community. Our art community is pretty big in terms of an art community, but we have all this people here and they are always saying, “Gallup sucks. I hate my community.” You can’t hate on your community if you are not even a part of it. I hate people that are always like, “I hate Gallup. I wish I was never born here. I can’t wait to move.” You have to be part of this [community] in order to say that. You can’t just be hating all the damn time. You have to bring yourself out and actually put yourself in the process of what this community is. And then from there you can be like… “wow! Our community does suck. Our art community is really fucken lame.”

But at the same time, we are always working towards making it better. Because there is always something you, YOU, can fix as a person. You always have to bring yourself into the picture. Always try harder to make this community what it is. We need more people doing that a lot of the time. Even though a lot of the people just stay home. They don’t go to any of the events.

Gallup is a pretty small town. A lot of the time people know each other. I know all kinds of people that know all kinds of things about other individuals. Everyone knows… like if you do something today… everyone will know about it tomorrow. It’s a close knit community. Things spread really quickly.  But at the same time, it takes forever for things to get done. I don’t know how to fix that in-between there.

I’m Raven Bright from the FOF Crew and I am glad to have been a part of these interviews!