‘That’s why I love history: It’s still alive’

he said. “That opened my eyes to my Spanish past and to the possibility of discovering it.”

Finding out how the various ethnic groups and cultures clashed, cohabited and cooperated in the days of settlement and conquest fascinates Martinez. In the centuries-old written works he studies on the issue, he finds our antecedents struggling with the same issues that face New Mexicans today.

In his research, he finds people judging one another’s talent for speaking Spanish and the way they build churches. They write of marrying people of other races and cultures. They speak of serving this nation or that in a war, of explorations north and west, of land-grant conflicts and baptisms. They put

each other down based on socioeconomic, religious and artistic taste.

“Everyone here is Spanish or Indian, but you can’t tell them apart,” Martinez says, translating and paraphrasing from a letter written in Spanish by Pedro Bautiste Piño to the King of Spain about life in Northern New Mexico in 1812.

“That shakes up our notions of ourselves,” Martinez said.

The early New Mexicans fought to survive against the elements and each other. But ultimately, he said, they learned to live together, much like the various races and cultures do today.

“Even though we didn’t always get along then — or now — we’re one big happy dysfunctional family,” he said with a laugh.

Martinez has other jobs to do, of course. His office constantly fields questions about ancient land grants and genealogy searches and who the state’s first economic development director was and who had access rights to a certain road at a certain period of time.

“We get a lot of calls about Billy the Kid — probably the most,” he said. “He was an outlaw, and people are fascinated by outlaws.”

There also might be queries about the origins of a specific Santa Fe street or the history of a certain house — and whether that house is haunted. And if so, why? “We can’t always help with that stuff,” he said. “It’s esoteric.”

Martinez said he realizes there are so many historical components in the story of New Mexico that some may temporarily get misplaced. He said they don’t actually get “lost” in the dialogue, but they “go to sleep. And it’s my job to remind people of the less sensational parts of history. But to me they are all sensational.”

As deputy historian, Martinez initiated a monthly series of free lunchtime talks at the center — all focused on New Mexico history — to keep those stories alive. On Wednesday, he presented “A History of the Catholic Church in Late Spanish Colonial New Mexico.”

He said he has some concern that “history will become history” because people will forget or no longer care to look into the past to answer today’s questions.

At the same time, he said, “We are still having a dialogue about the Pueblo Revolt here every year and what it means. Not what it meant, but what it means. That’s an ongoing dialogue, and that’s why I love history: It’s still alive. It still has meaning.”