Journal Article

Preserving Hispanic Lifeways in New Mexico

Hunner, Jon

2001

Overview

Essayist and social commentator Richard Rodriguez observes that there is no one name for people of Spanish descent. Since Hispanic is an English name, Rodriguez observes, it aptly illustrates the nature of Spanish descendants in the United States, who are a complex minority in an Anglo world.1 Granted, in other parts of the United States, Latino and Latina are often preferred terms for identifying people of Spanish descent, but for this article, the terms Hispanics and Nuevo Mexicanos will be used to describe New Mexicans of Spanish descent. According to Forrest, The more pragmatic economic origins of the Hispanic New Deal derived from a desire to preserve the native cultures as lucrative tourist attractions and prevent the villagers from becoming a rootless, landless population permanently dependent upon federal relief.7 The New Deal launched many initiatives that put local people to work as woodcarvers and furniture makers, and also sent Works Progress Administration photographers like Russell Lee and John Collier, Jr. to document many of the rural villages.8 The federal programs provided some relief, but often a paternalistic attitude prevailed. 9 Todays community public history projects must continue to ask this key question. Since the 1960s, the National Park Service (NPS) has actively preserved Hispanic heritage. For adobe structures, exterior cement stucco (introduced in the 1930s) locks moisture inside the walls. Since adobes are merely sun-dried mud bricks, they erode when in contact with water, and especially at ground level, adobe walls crumble away.

• Publisher: University of California Press,University of California Press Books Division
• Subject: (HN) Social History / Adobe buildings / Architecture / Art exhibitions / Attitudes / Community / Cultural background / Cultural heritage / Cultural institutions / Cultural preservation / Culture / Economic development / English / Hispanic Americans / Hispanic culture / Hispanics / Historians / Historic preservation / Latin American culture / Livestock farms / Museum exhibits / Native North Americans / Pragmatics / Research Article / Spanish / Tourism / Traditions / Villages