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Tag: Questa

WW I Recruits ~ Taos County

WW I Recruits ~ Taos County

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During the years immediately following World War I, Lansing Bloom was hired at the Museum of New Mexico charged with directing the Museum’s War History Service. In this capacity, he was responsible for compiling the biographical records and information about New Mexico’s 16,000 World War I veterans. Toward this end, Bloom conducted a survey of surviving WWI veterans of NM. Approximately seventy-percent of the surveys were returned and are housed today at the New Mexico State Archives in Santa Fe,…

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Community Cuentistas – Mapping the Storytellers in Juan B. Rael’s ‘Cuentos Españoles de Colorado y Nuevo Mexico’

Community Cuentistas – Mapping the Storytellers in Juan B. Rael’s ‘Cuentos Españoles de Colorado y Nuevo Mexico’

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One of the core lessons I learned from my grandmother was that the best storytellers are those that have mastered the ability to lean in and to listen. In this, I think of the work of now renowned linguist and folklorist, Juan Bautista Rael. As a native son of the region, he had no doubt been raised on stories, however, in the summer of 1930, he returned home, freshly minted with a Master’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley….

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Independence Day – Imagining the Nation, in Questa, New Mexico

Independence Day – Imagining the Nation, in Questa, New Mexico

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Recently, I came across a couple of photos taken of a Independence Day Parade in my home village of Questa, from circa 1935, which led me to reflect about this commemoration. It is interesting to reflect on this celebration of Independence Day (4th of July) for a mountain village that had been settled by Mexican citizens after Mexican Independence and before the U.S.-Mexican War that resulted in the annexation of the northern portion of Mexico. Questa, which was actually founded…

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Dancing Her-Story

Dancing Her-Story

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In this post, we reveal how there are many ways to tell a story. In this instance, we share how a memory that is passed from generation to generation is taken up by the writer, who inspires the choreographer. Each telling building upon the last, developed to sustain the power of memory and history.

Women and Creativity

Women and Creativity

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There is not a day that goes by that I don’t acknowledge the contributions of women, including in shaping who I am as a man to this day. Indeed, When I think of the power of the human spirit, realized especially through the deepest love that one person can hold for another, I think of mamá, my grandmother, one of the two women who raised me up in beauty and vision. Yet, as we close this month, where we pause…

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Black and white photograph of boy wearing a light colored jacket and worn out blue jeans, is seated for a photograph in front of a dark photo backdrop. The photographer, a man in a suit is seen from the back, operating a wood box camera on a tripod. To theright is a window with an old fashioned black metal lunchbox resting on the window sill.
Yearbooks- Reflections of a Community’s Youth

Yearbooks- Reflections of a Community’s Youth

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There is something deeply intimate about yearbooks. Filled with professions of eternal love and friendship, inside jokes and the youthful signatures of our classmates, each copy is an intense snapshot of a very particular time and and a very particular place. But, what each year’s edition has in common, beneath the personalized messages from ones friends and classmates, is a record of community.

La Sala – A Center that Celebrated Community

La Sala – A Center that Celebrated Community

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Some places only exist as memories and stories and this is certainly true of the Sala that belonged to my grandparents in Questa, New Mexico. As the youngest of all of the grandchildren of Jose Albino and Andrellita, I was one of the few who never experienced the business and building that our grandparents established to sustain both their family and their community. I did, however, inherit the stories. The Sala was located at the center of the village and…

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