History: ‘It is as natural as breathing’
It was Sept. 8, 2017, and the 325th annual Fiesta de Santa Fe was set to begin, but this Fiesta was destined to be unlike any other in its long history.
A crowd of more than 150 protesters held up signs and shouted, “Abolish the Entrada, Abolish the Entrada.”
The Entrada portrayed the peaceful reconquest of Santa Fe in 1692 by the Spanish following the Pueblo Indian revolt 12 years earlier. The protesters demanded that the truth be told. It was not a peaceful reconquest. It was a bloody battle that took place a year later in 1693, and 70 Indian fighters were executed.
Thankfully, no one was injured during the protest, but eight people were arrested on a variety of charges.
Why did these people care so much about something that happened 325 years ago?
Because history matters. History isn’t simply a review of past events stored in dusty books, of interest to a handful of historians and teachers. It affects people’s identity, it affects their status in the present, and it carries the wounds that cultures feel for generations.
Many times commemorations and monuments represent an idealized version of how a culture sees itself. They can consciously or unconsciously project an attitude of superiority and dominance.
In recent years, there’s been a movement in New Mexico and across the United States to look at the past more honestly. In doing so, we begin to heal these wounds that have been ignored for too long. It seems like every day you see something in the news about this happening in places like Charlottesville, Va., and New Orleans, where people are coming to terms with their Confederate past and how it has been portrayed.
Although the process can be painful, the end result of reexamining how we present history can be a greater atmosphere of integrity.
Fast forward to Santa Fe, August 2018; after nearly a year of negotiations between Pueblo Indian leaders and Fiesta organizers, an agreement was reached to end the Entrada in its prior form. They agreed to create a different kind of event: Something more sensitive and respectful to both cultures, with more historical balance and accuracy.
What if this type of work could be done across the United States in places like Charlottesville and New Orleans?
Here in New Mexico, we all have more in common than not. Many people are a mixture of Spanish and Pueblo Indian blood. Their ancestors spent centuries living side by side,
surviving in this land of little rain. This is the richness that makes New Mexico so vibrant and unique.
But how can we be sure that what we learn and pass on to our children represents all the gifts and memories of our shared heritage?
First, it’s important for us to reach a little further, to go beyond the tendency to get our information only from a limited number of sources, the sources that reinforce our own views and beliefs.
Next, we need to open our minds, move past the idea that our own cultural values and mindsets are superior to those of others. Finally, we need to liberate our attitude and let go of the idea that our viewpoint is the only viewpoint.
History is complex, and there are no absolute interpretations. As Czech novelist Milan Banderas stated, “History is the thinnest thread of what’s remembered stretching across an ocean of what’s been forgotten.”
In the end, history is less about the chronicles of big events and important dates, but more about people’s lives and how they adapted and endured the challenges of their times.
By reaching a little further, opening our minds and liberating our attitude, we can create a space where empathy toward others can take root and start to grow. Gerda Hedwig Lerner, a Jewish, Austrian-born historian, was a refugee of Nazi occupation. She wrote, “All human beings are practicing historians. We live our lives; we tell our stories. It is as natural as breathing. It is as important as breathing, too.”