Manitos

Event description: Questa Stories hosted a “Women’s Tea: a story sharing afternoon” on Saturday, Nov 16, 2019, at La Sala in Questa, NM. We collaborated with Esther Garcia* as our event co-host, an active community member and former Mayor of Questa. During her tenure as Mayor she had hosted a women’s gathering and was struck by the outpouring; women embraced the opportunity to come together in celebration. This event stayed with her and inspired her suggestion of a Women’s Tea. Together…

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The Manitos Community Memory Project is an initiative to establish a community-based archive, grounded in the living culture of the villages of northern New Mexico, southern Colorado and the diaspora intricately connected to this region. The project was launched with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The following essay is a reflection of the first phase of the project, what was accomplished, what was learned and what is envisioned for its future.

As New Mexico’s governor undertakes to improve our state’s educational system, understanding the winding road that has taken us to the present day becomes both more relevant and timely. Education history is an important topic we hope to incorporate into the Manitos Community Memory Project digital archive. Remembering can also provide cultural and historical context for these latest educational reform efforts. An important part of educational history for Manitos is the missionary efforts of Presbyterians, especially women, who raised money…

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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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Since we first launched this project, we have begun to hear remarkable stories of the migrations of manitos and manitas. We have also begun to gather data from families in order to more fully visualize these journeys, exploring when people left and where their travels took them. Over the course of this project, we will dedicate a blog entry to as many stories as we are able to gather. Please return to the site to read as we continue to…

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Linguist, Len Nils Beké, is traveling 600 Manitos Miles by bicycle, mapping and documenting place names of the Manitas and Manitos homeland, and their stories. Follow along and connect with Len as he sends us updates from the road!

Len Nils Beké is a doctoral student in in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of New Mexico. In the Manito Topos Project, Len has embarked on an initiative focused on the recovery of Nuevomexicano Spanish place names. This week, he also launches his fieldwork expedition, which he has called Seiscientas Millas Manitas (600 Manito Miles).

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.