Red Nation is ignoring its own complicated history

Regarding the controversy of removing the statues of deVargas and Oñate created by the radical Red Nation, the following is by George Orwell:

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every painting has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

The saddest aspect regarding the destruction of history is that the Red Nation ignores the history of its own indigenous roots. Indigenous people were involved in their own horrific wars against each other where they maimed, killed and took captives and slaves way before the arrival of Europeans, including either Oñate or deVargas.

If radical Red Nation cultists demand that whites or Europeans return to Europe, then more than half the pueblos would be depopulated because there is much intermarriage with Hispanic men and women in the pueblos.

Red Nation also graffitied “Tewa Country.” Maybe they need to be reminded that Santa Fe was chosen because it had been abandoned, probably because of those same horrific Indian wars. Inhabitants fled and sought safety among the cliff dwellings like Bandelier, Mesa Verde and Puye.

And what about the first ethnic cleansing in the U.S. when Popé demanded that everything European be destroyed, including the massacre of innocent children and women? Why was Popé deposed by his own people? Why does the radical Red Nation refuse to answer these questions? And why won’t Red Nation address the fact that pueblos fought right alongside the Spanish in order to protect their common interests or the fact that many of us Hispanos have beloved cousins and families among the Pueblo people?

ORLANDO ROMERO Nambé