It’s time to take stock of Santa Fe’s legacy
This is a response to the letter/ editorial “Destroying a city that once was united” by Karla Moya-Crites that appeared in the June 29 Journal North.
To Karla, I understand that this is hard for you to see landmarks and traditions you’ve known all your life upended. I too am a fifth-generation Santa Fean. I don’t agree with everything that Mayor Webber has done, but I think the proactive removal of certain Santa Fe landmarks was done to protect not only the landmarks themselves, but also Santa Feans from acts of violence in the heat of the moment.
Let’s not forget what recently happened in Albuquerque during a protest of its Oñate statue. A man was shot and nearly killed. Why? Over a statue of a man who was so historically belligerent and vile that the king of Spain had him exiled to the new world?
When I see the word “heritage” used, it immediately makes me think of the white people in the American South who use the same word to defend slavery and the Confederacy. You seem to take it for granted that your traditions, religion and history are sacred, and above criticism.
Popé organized and led a revolt against cruel conquerors (conquistador literally means conqueror) and colonizers who had little respect for the original people’s traditions, religion and history. The Catholic symbols that you say he destroyed might be sacred to you, but at the time they were symbols of oppression and violence.
There is an overarching myth of Fiestas de Santa Fe that celebrates the idea of a “peaceful reconquest.” This idea is ridiculous. A glancing search in Wikipedia will tell you otherwise. It took a two-year war to “peacefully” re-settle Santa Fe. Fiestas might seem like a party to you, but how does it include Native Americans? Token “Indians” in a pageant don’t really cut it.
Let’s face it: We are the benefactors of conquest, oppression and violence. Just because we currently experience oppression doesn’t mean we are not also
capable of it. Notice how we “Spanish” people sometimes tend to look down on our cousins from south of the border, and ask yourself how many times you’ve heard the pejorative “mojado” or slang ”mo-how” used when referring to them.
In your letter, you ask local politicians and former Fiesta pageant members if they have forgotten their past. I imagine that they haven’t. My guess is that they have gained a broader insight and are not trying in vain to hold on to a mythologized past. It’s not liberal political correctness to understand and take into account ideas and perspectives that are not your own; it is being a reasonable human being.
The varied people of New Mexico and Santa Fe in particular were never truly united. It’s been a begrudging coexistence ever since the mass killing and violence stopped, and New Mexico became “settled” by Spanish/ Mexican colonizers. We may have many people of different mixed ethnicities and backgrounds in our own families, but that doesn’t mean each of those people don’t live very different lives based on their perceived races and ethnicities.
We’ve seen wave after wave of “outsiders” come to New Mexico but have forgotten that even though we’ve created our own unique heritage and culture, we are also outsiders.
No group or category of people are without their historical blemishes. I think it would be healthy to take an honest and sober stock in the legacy that we’ve inherited and have an open dialogue with all of the people and groups that now live in New Mexico and the City Different.
The removal of a statue or monument doesn’t truly erase history. We don’t see statues of Mussolini sprinkled throughout Italy, because the point of a statue or monument isn’t to reflect history, but to communicate a community’s values in whom they choose to celebrate. I think we should ask ourselves why we are so emotionally tied to these objects and symbols. Do they truly represent the best of us? I think this is an opportunity to redefine our traditions and values, and celebrate those who proudly represent who we are.
Finally, I think you are conflating the removal of these symbols with some notion of invasion or gentrification that has been happening in Santa Fe over the past century.
We had our chance politically 20-30 years ago when we elected Debbie Jaramillo, but unfortunately it didn’t work.
Santa Fe seems to be on its way to becoming another Sedona or Boulder, and our steadfast and nonpersuasive adherence to “tradition” hasn’t helped our case. Change is inevitable.
We had a chance to live in a beautiful place, but we are being pushed out. I too am grieving for a city that is now gone; it is cold comfort that the latest displacement is being done with checkbooks and not weapons.