Missing perspectives

The New Mexico History Museum is hosting a Fiesta Symposium focusing on the history of the Pueblo Revolt, the Reconquest and the Fiesta de Santa Fe itself. According to its release, “featuring an array of presenters, this event aims to open broader understandings of the complexities of New Mexico’s history.”

Trouble is, the organizers of this well-intentioned event forgot a few important perspectives. The Pueblo Revolt, after all, featured Indians ousting the Spanish from their colony in what is now New Mexico.

Here is who is on the panel Wednesday discussing New Mexico’s colonial past: There is archaeologist Stephen Post; filmmaker Jaima Chevalier; photographer Steven Katzman; and artist Virgil Ortiz of Cochiti Pueblo.

Post is an expert on the archaeology of the Palace of the Governors, while Chevalier and others created Veiled Lightning, a documentary that looks at protest through lens of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Katzman is putting together This Miserable Kingdom, a photographic survey that documents minorities dealing with government actions against indigenous people. Ortiz will share his insights into his multimedia artistic approach, designed to raise awareness of Pueblo culture.

Note who is missing: There are no official Pueblo representatives, people with authority to speak on behalf of what their tribal members want going forward. Most of all, there are no representatives of the numerous descendants of Spanish settlers who call Santa Fe home, including members of the Caballeros de Vargas or the Santa Fe Fiesta Council or even one of the many Hispanic cultural experts. It seems to us difficult to have a “conversation” without perspective from local Hispanos.

After all, the current controversy centers around how the re-entry of Don Diego de Vargas is portrayed during the Santa Fe Fiesta each year. The Entrada has become a lightning rod for protest. Organizers have reasons for what they do — misguided, perhaps, but sincere in a desire to honor their ancestors. Those feelings must be heard so that, as a community, we can find a way to commemorate this colonial past without causing offense.

A conversation about the events of the past is worthwhile — past due, even. Those distant events have left deep wounds that fester to this day. A panel lacking the perspectives from all the key actors will do little to improve the current tense situation, however. In the same release announcing the event, museum Executive Director Andrew Wulf writes that, “all history must be approached from an assumption of complexity.” Complexity is seldom this one-sided.