A new era for Fiesta
With the controversial Entrada re-enactment gone, organziers hope for calmer celebration
It’s not your abuelita’s Fiesta. For the first time in more than a century, the city on Friday will celebrate a new kind of Fiesta de Santa Fe, after a yearlong effort to take the controversy, escalating racial tension — and potential violence — out of the weekend event.
Fiesta, billed as the oldest continuous community celebration in the United States, commemorates Spanish conquistador Don Diego de Vargas’ reoccupation of the city in 1692 after the Pueblo Revolt 12 years earlier that left 400 Spaniards dead and forced some 2,000 settlers out of the territory.
But this year’s event marks the first time in decades without the Entrada, a costumed re-enactment in the historic downtown square that organizers say depicted de Vargas’ “bloodless reconquest.” The drama-
tization, which Native American activists and others called racist and revisionist history, has sparked rowdy protests and nasty confrontations in recent years.
Elena Ortiz, an Ohkay Owingeh tribal member who helped organize Entrada protests, said Thursday she has no plans to attend Fiesta this year.
“We have nothing going on,” she said. “As far as we’re concerned, it’s over.”
Ralph Arellanes, chairman of the Hispano Round Table of New Mexico, had been organizing a socalled People’s Entrada in support of local Hispanic traditions and in protest of the decision to end the long-running re-enactment. But he said he will attend Friday’s festivities only as an observer.
“My primary purpose is to observe what the developments are and see where it goes from there,” he said. “I really want to allow those that worked on this change over the past year, give them a chance and see how the process goes.”
While Arellanes’ organization has no plans to stage a counter-Entrada, he said he knows “people are talking about doing something for the Entrada.” Arellanes couldn’t offer any details, saying he didn’t know of any specific plans.
“I can’t speak for what others may do or may attempt to do,” he said. “I just know people are not happy about the change. With any change, people are not going to be happy, especially a tradition as old as this. I’m just putting it out there.”
A year ago, the Santa Fe Police Department had about 80 officers mobilized for the event and nearly 100 more from other law enforcement agencies in the state on standby at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center.
Dozens of demonstrators descended on the Santa Fe Plaza to protest the Entrada as some of the officers working the event tried to corral protesters into a “free speech zone.” Officers arrested eight people, though the charges against all of them were later dropped.
Police spokesman Greg Gurulé declined to say how many officers will be patrolling the event this year, saying that is part of the police department’s tactical plans. But he added he didn’t expect the
same level of police presence as last year.
“We’ll have as many officers as we need down there,” he said. “Somehow, I don’t suspect we’ll have quite the presence that we had last year because we had some pre-warnings that things might happen. We wanted to make sure everything stayed peaceful down there.”
City officials, Fiesta organizers and others hope the event will be much more peaceful this year without the controversy that followed the Entrada.
“Conscious of the struggles that have divided us, past and present, leaders from all our traditions have met this past year to discover new ways of celebrating what unites us, thus moving from conflict to communion,” Catholic Archbishop John C. Wester said in a statement last month after the city announced it would hold a celebration of community faith at 2 p.m. Friday, the same time that used to be reserved for the Entrada.
“With an abiding appreciation for our ancestors and our traditions, we have deepened our realization that we hold much in common,” Wester wrote. “We have forged a way forward to allow us to publicly celebrate this harmony.”