Manitos

Hosted by La Merced de Santa Gertrudis de lo de Mora (known less formally as the Mora Land Grant), to preserve the History, Culture and Diverse Heritage of the Past, Present and Future of Mora County. This year, the events theme of Rancimiento or Rebirth, takes on a special resonance in the context of ‘recovery’. The organizers are keen to stress that this event is not focused on the destruction wrought by the fires, but is a celebration of the many ways that the community came together in “querencia” and “mutualidad”, during and after the fires.

As I write this, the bulldozer/burn line that the firefighters have made from Highway 65 to State Highway 283 appears to be holding steady on the ARCGIS satellite map that I try not to obsessively check and re-check for hotspots and changes to a fire perimeter, that can move with alarming speed. This breathing space allows time for reflection that has not been possible for the last week, as the Hermits Peak Fire and Calf Fire merged and expanded in…

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As a child of diaspora, my cultural linkages are often broken in ways that fly under the radar. A person can get quite used to cultural magpie behavior to fill voids in identity formation. A certain cosmopolitanism sets in and become a way of life, until challenged out of the blue on unlikely occasions. This New Year’s Morning as I conscientiously set about making black-eyed peas for luck in the coming New Year, I texted my prima to see if…

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Today at 4pm, New Mexico Highlands University is hosting a forum on Food Sovereignty, featuring a Welcome Land Acknowledgment by Manitos scholar Dr. Eric Romero, from the Highlands University Languages and Culture Department and Interim Director of the Native American and Hispano Cultural Studies Program.

Recently, Governor Michelle Grisham issued a state-wide ‘stay-at-home’ order, to help flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic, closing the schools that remained open and most workplaces. Chances are, if you and your family were not already sheltering in place at home, you are now. This is a novel situation for most of us, enforced isolation during the day. While at the beginning it may seem like there are endless things to do, movies to watch, social media to surf,…

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On a stormy summer Saturday in July, I was privileged to bear witness the first ever Costilla/Amalia Community Reunion. This event, years in the making, brought together the extended community of Costilla, NM and Amalia, NM, neighboring villages in the northernmost reaches of the New Mexico mountains, for a celebration of their shared history. The reunion was to my eyes a resounding success. Attendance was in the thousands and it was remarkable to see the strength of family and friendship…

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In the Facebook groups where manitas and manitos meet, digital communities centered around identification with the manitas and manitos homeland of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado, group members have become quite adept at using the power of online crowdsourcing to create meaningful accretions of collective knowledge and memory.