Reflections on the long road to a renewed Fiesta

It has been a long 11 months since the day the All Pueblo Council of Governors took action, calling upon all of us to come together in respectful and principled dialogue to amicably resolve our differences that we appreciate are deeply embedded in our history.

At the heart of our actions then, as it is now, is that we could not stand by to watch the place we all love and the place we call home and its spirit represented by the people be destroyed by the escalating conflict by the re-enactment of the Entrada, a historical pageant presented during Fiesta de Santa Fe. We could not see our beloved people, all people, be torn apart by an event that reopens the wounds of the past.

So we deliberated and, guided by our core values of love, respect and compassion for all people, acted to fulfill our sacred trust. We were compelled by the voices of our young people to engage in a necessary dialogue to come to terms with our shared past to maintain the peace among our brethren.

This a momentous and historic occasion, one that generations yet to be born will reflect upon and express gratitude for the leaders of this time who recognized the conflicts of our past that haunted us and threatened to destroy us. By our collective courage, we resolved ourselves to acknowledge the pain and the suffering inherent in first encounters. This was a time when we refused to accept the threats of division that could have destroyed the spirit of our beloved homelands. Instead, we chose to take the high road to resolve our issues in the name of peace.

Today marks a new beginning as we lay the past to rest through our mutual acknowledgement of the pain, agony and suffering that took place and through our shared pardon, we take the first steps of a new journey from this day forward. Today will mark the first day of a new beginning of our shared and continuing journey guided by our shared core values.

Our shared faith has led us to this point of reconciliation. We found the means to forgive and share our most desirable future to gift to our children. This is what guided us when we first adopted the resolution asking for respectful and principled discussions in prayerful hope that we would see this day become a reality.

We want to thank the leadership and courage of Los Caballeros de Vargas President Thomas Baca-Guiterrez, whose initial correspondence asking for dialogue — brought forward and shared by Gov. Kurt Riley of Acoma Pueblo — was consistent with our desire and gave us hope and inspiration that what we are witnessing today was possible. We welcomed his thoughtful articulation that he, too, desired to return to the original purpose and vision of celebrating our shared faith. We express our gratitude to him and to the organization for the decision to retire the Entrada. That was the first courageous step we needed. We appreciate how difficult that must have been. In time, it will be seen as the most significant step to this peaceful resolution.

We also want to express our gratitude to Melissa Mascareñas, president of the Fiesta Council, for her leadership and courage. Her initial response supporting the decision of the Caballeros was profoundly important to support the Caballeros at such a critical time. I do not believe that criticism to return to the celebration of our shared faith can be sustained. There is no wrong in that decision.

And finally, we are indebted to former Cochiti Gov. Regis Pecos for his vision, wisdom and commitment to drive this process from start to finish. We asked him to do the impossible in bringing all the stakeholders together. No one gave him a road map, but he developed one and defined a process. We endorsed it, and here we are today.

In closing, I wish to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude to Gov. Riley, Tesuque Pueblo Gov. Frederick Vigil, Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber and the Most Rev. Archbishop John Wester for their collective wisdom and guidance and leadership throughout this extraordinary process.

At this time, I wish to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for all that we have been blessed with, for the sacrifices that all have made to get us all to this point and for the intercessions of our Lady of Peace to make this possible. Like our migration stories reflect, we are guided to these places we call the center places of our existence. Our Creator gifted to us all that we would need for our collective well-being physically, mentally and spiritually along our journey. The Original Instructions prescribed for us a way of life — of to be, how to live, how to treat one another. We are taught that if we abide by those Original Instructions, we will thrive and flourish. Our deepest expression of our love for these gifts is to abide by them and they will provide peace and justice in our lives. And when we fail, we must forgive.

What has been achieved here is recognizing and returning to being mindful of those Original Instructions. It is disrupting the temptations for our own destruction.

E. Paul Torres is chairman of the All Pueblo Council of Governors. This is a shorter version of formal remarks he made after a meeting to mark a year of reconciliation. The full version is online at santafenewmexican.com.