C de baca retained this morning with a vote of confidence: http://www.nmfbihop.com/showDiar...do?
diaryId=1756
Naturally. He speaks for the Republican Party and what they believe.
A few things from a blogger in New Mexico following the story (hell, I was the first to catch his quotes in the BBC blog post).
Those in Northern New Mexico consider themselves to be Hispanic or Spanish, not Mexican. Many can trace their lineage back to the first Spanish settlers.
That said, in Albuquerque and southern New Mexico, there are many people of Mexican descent.
I'm a Hispanic with roots in both.
Now, there are some places where the Spanish look down on both Mexicans and black people. But it isn't very prevalent any more. Maybe forty, fifty years ago... but probably not so much anymore.
Even the conservative radio hosts here in New Mexico are attacking C de Baca.
LP,
Right--they do consider themselves Spanish but they should consider themselves "Mexican." Or at least the same people ethnically as Mexicans. Because that is basically what they are. The Spanish myth is a fantasy heritage.
Erik, why should they consider themselves Mexican? I see your point that those in Northern New Mexico may not actually be pure Spanish, but how does that realization lead to the conclusion that they must therefore be Mexican?
OK, maybe I am not using the correct terminology here. But my point here is that they are mestizo in some way. Like Mexicans, they are a mix of Spanish and indigenous blood. Thus, I am using that term, which perhaps is inappropriate in this case.
On the other hand, they were Mexican at one time and still would be if the US hadn't stolen half of Mexico.
I encountered a very similar strange racial and ethnic dyanmic during the three years I spent in Albuquerque.
In Northern California, where I've spent nearly twenty years, I will often ask someone who appears Latino or has an Hispanic last name if they speak Spanish and start a conversation that way.
I would never do that in Albuquerque in part because so many Native Americans have Spanish surnames, but they might feel uncomfortable or even insulted if I took them for Latino.
But I also found that speaking Spanish to or around the "old New Mexicans" was also a no-no, since very few now speak Spanish and there is a good deal of hostility towards recent Mexican immigrants and towards any kind of "Mexican" as opposed to "Spanish" identification.
Although I taught literature at UNM, these hostilities did not emerge in class so much as I found them in the general population and among parents of other children my own boys went to school with.
Ironically, it was my Chilean husband who most often confounded both recent Mexican and "old Spanish" New Mexicans because neither group could readily identify his ethnicity by his looks (olive skin and dark hair with blue eyes, largely Anglo in appearance) or his accent (no speaks anything like a Chilean in New Mexico).
It often made people uncomfortable because they couldn't put him in the right ethnic "box" they were used to.
Elizabeth sums up a lot about New Mexico racial weirdness right there.
Interesting thread. I lived in Las Vegas NM from 1980-1986 and I saw racist behaviour toward blacks *all* the time. The New Mexican upper crust does not have a monopoly on racism.
Dear Erik,
What you have empirically observed is your perception and not reality. You are classifying a whole group of people and it is impossible to group all the Hispanics together for it is not a race, rather an ethnicity. New Mexico is a melting pot of ethnicities and races, just like most countries around the world. If you ever go to Spain you will observe the diverse physical attributes of the Spaniards. The people are tall, short, white, and brown, with light and dark eyes. Spain is a melting pot and because of the mixing of a multitude of races and ethnicities, over two centuries, including: Guals, Vandals, Visigoths, Romans, Normans, Basque, Moors, Arabs and a plethora of other peoples. So invariably New Mexican's who are of Caucasian Ancestry have varying physical attributes. Some New Mexicans are of mixed ancestry and some Native Americans have Spanish last names. The same is true for all Hispanic or Latino countries around the world. There is NO such thing as a Mexican Race and the Hispanics in New Mexico are largely: Caucasian, African, Indigenous or a Mixed Race. Many Hispanics in New Mexico are in fact of European decent and this is based on factual research.
Commenting by HaloScan
