‘That’s why I love history: It’s still alive’
State historian brings that love for N.M.’s past to his job
You could almost hear New Mexico State Historian Robert Martinez’s mental engine revving as he perused a letter, written in Spanish and dated Jan. 9, 1621, detailing the conflict between Franciscan priests and the governor of Spanish Colonial New Mexico.
Martinez, 55, moved his hands and eyes around the document as if seeking to grasp living history by the throat right there in his office, located in the State Records Center and Archives on Camino Carlos Rey.
Letters, official documents, pamphlets and books from the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s and into the last century tell us a lot about who we once were and still are, he said.
It’s the main reason Martinez wanted to be state historian, a job he acquired in June after serving as deputy state historian for six years. His background also includes a 10-year stint as a history teacher in the Rio Rancho school district, 14 years serving as a research historian for the Sephardic Legacy Project and gigs as a folk musician with his brother Lorenzo and their father, Robert, in the group Los Reyes de Albuquerque.
Not bad for a kid whose family roots trace to the Spanish Colonial days in the Mora region and who was born and raised in Albuquerque, where he enjoyed a steady diet of watching monster movies, science fiction programs and The Brady Bunch.
His interest in history stemmed from his desire to figure out who he was as a teenager working as a busboy in a restaurant full of people who identified as Spanish, Mexican, New Mexican and American.
“It led me to ask, ‘Am I Spanish? Am I Mexican?’ I thought I was an American,”