At Week's End; 231; Tierra Amarilla: Tierra O Muerte; V.B. Price: The Artisco Land Grant

Since now our The Mexican flag flies from a hill near the Anamaria, over territory disputed by land-grant activists and an Arizona investment partnership. What will happen when the courts finally decide who the legal owner is? The issue is a land that belongs to our community, land that belongs to our people, and there's been injustice done against our people. This is our land. You know, it's written down in black and white. And VB Price comments on land disputes in the South Valley. When will those in power come to understand that messing with somebody's land can only

result in intractable faith? Good evening, I'm Neobogs at Weeksend. Tiara Amaria, a place which all who have been here agree must be unlike any place else. A natural beauty, unique even for New Mexico, a picture of tranquility. The beauty is real enough. The tranquility, however, seems more an illusion. Because a dispute that has its roots almost 150 years back continues to simmer, a dispute over land and culture and simple economics, and the effect each has on the others. Our report tonight is about a legacy of bitterness that brought violence to this valley only 22 years ago, and which some who live here are afraid could do so again.

Tiara Amaria, a land or death, that is a provocative statement because the people from these whole surrounding area, and I even speak, I think I can even say they themselves are not that violent. We are not people of violence whatsoever. A fortified encampment just south of the town of Tiara Amaria symbolizes the latest chapter of this continuing story. Behind it all, past and present is the old Spanish and later Mexican system of land grants to settlers, and the way those land grants were applied or not applied, after New Mexico was absorbed into the United States. The treaty the United States signed with Mexico provided that the historic land grants would be honored, but that was not always to be the case. This is a nihuela, this is at over 100 years old. This is one of the original dates for your life. I was given to an uncle by the name of Manuel Trujillo, that is an uncle to my grandmother.

This is still the title of the peace of land for my father and my mother, and my father still living it. A dollar document. Yes, it's a dollar document. Which the United States government has refused to recognize. You see that the form of life in our community then was our community together. The land outside of the communities was common land grants, with this ihuela you would have a right to those common land grants for wood, for grazing, for lumber, and whatever things else you needed from that common land. Such as the land on which we stand right now. But if you would not have a nihuela, you would not have a right to the common lands. So those lands were not for individuals, and even those small portions of land did not belong just to the individual, it belonged to the family. Because if you saw that peace of land, you would sell your rights to the common land, not only yours as an individual, but to your whole family.

So that's why those small pieces of land were important because they used to be handed down from generation to generation. The encampment is on a 500 acre tract claimed by Amador Flores. But which a judge has ruled legally belongs to an Arizona development partnership, Vista del Brazos, and appeal of that decision is pending. On this, every place you go, if you use a land for 10 or 20 years, supposed to be yours, that's the law of any state, I guess. But over here, he seems that the politics, they own everything, including the land, especially over here in Terramaria, Grandland. With Flores himself barred from the land, the site is occupied now by a group of his supporters, led by political activist Pedro Argeleta.

They vow to remain here until the courts recognize Flores as the rightful owner. So far, there's been no effort to remove them. According to the law, we are illegal here, according to the law. But according to our beliefs, this land belongs to us, it belongs to our people, it belongs to our community. So we have right to it. I don't know how the law feels, but I feel that in this particular case, it seems like our district attorneys for the Rio River County are too busy to get involved on it. It seems like our attorney general, or our government, is kind of turning away the other way. I don't know why. Now, I don't know if this is true or not, well, I'm saying, but it seems from where I'm sitting, it seems like that's what's happening. The land has been occupied for more than a year, but no move has been made. Exactly. Exactly. So, I don't know what the court is issued, and there's nothing that I see where the law is coming in there, I'd like to know where they're at.

But according to the authorities, to the governor's office, to the district attorney, to the state police, they're saying it's a civil matter, so we'll let the civil courts decide. It has been more than a year since the judge's initial ruling in favor of the Arizona group, yet the appeals process drags on. The showdown, if there's to be one, is expected when that phase of the legal maneuvering is completed. Meantime, each side expresses confidence that the outcome will be in its favor. There also is a bitter division in the community. In the general area here, I don't think really a lot of people are paying any year to his way of doing it in another way, I think, that he is holding back a lot of things within the area, mostly progress. What you're feeling on that, Mr. McCurray?

I agree with Henry, on the sense that he's getting to the media, he's getting the public awareness, but I don't think it is the awareness is not for the benefit of the Valley of Terramaria. I think who is it for, do you think? I think it's a personal gain, or for the few amount of folks that are up there on top of that hill. Pedro, you've been here more than a year now. What's your purpose? Your presence here certainly can't block or alter a court decision. Well, our purpose when we came up here was to bring to light the problems that have existed in the past. What we're doing here is just to continue and struggle of the metric of people over the land. And looking at past history, we have seen that the courts have never done justice to our people when it comes around the land grants. So by taking a position here, an armed position that we took, it was not to create a revolution, or to threaten our communities, but something that would help us bring to light to the

rest of the people within the state of New Mexico and across the country as to the injustice that has been committed against our people around the land. Do you feel that by allowing you to remain here that perhaps they have acknowledged the weakness of their position the other side? Yes, I think they have. And I think they thought that they could come into New Mexico and do what was done in the past. In the past, the way that the land was stolen from the people was done in a way where they would, if they were going to acquire title suit, they would put an article in the paper real small and people, the Mexican people, the Mexican people would hardly read the newspaper. So these people, they thought that they could come in into the state of New Mexico, get a corrupt judge, get a law firm that has had a history like Seth Montgomery and Andrew fighting against American people around the land since 1939 and get a title company to ensure the title and then move to the courts to throw American family off the land. They figured that this was the sixties or the thirties that they could still come and

do that. What they didn't expect was there was people that say, no, we are not giving up a fight, we are not going to let people come in and destroy the land, a way of life that is part of us that has been part of us for 500 years. Saramaria has been through this sort of thing and worse once before. 22 years ago, next week, there was a raid by land-grant activists against the Rio Arebac County Courthouse. It led to a shootout that ultimately brought in the National Guard to restore peace. Different players then, but basically the same issue is now. What the struggle here is something that is a continuing struggle. Our history is something that our people, we have been very ignorant to our history. And a lot of 140 years under the United States and not knowing our history, sometimes we tend to forget who we are. A lot of us haven't forgotten who we are. This thing has happened once before and then it comes back up later. Like it just dies and comes back again.

But if you are mentioning the, Henry mentions the fact that we are not violent people. Anywhere you go away from this community, you mention that you are from here immediately eyebrows go up and they pay you as violent people. We have gained a very bad reputation. Is that the legacy of the Courthouse raid? Yes. And yet if you look at historically at the Courthouse raid, most of the people involved were outsiders. They were not local people. Some people refer to what they fear would happen if an attempt were made to remove you forcibly from this land that then violence would ensue, would it be from your side or their side? Well, we have always said that we are not going to start whatever violent occurred to you. In fact, violence has been against us from over 140 years. Just the whole thing of how our land has been taken away, how they have forced us to leave our area and go to a big city. That's a form of violence that a lot of people don't see. But this is not a physical act.

No, it's not. It's not a physical act and it's not a act we use a gun. And violent is done in different ways. And that type of violent has been done against us, where unemployment in this area is high. We have to go out of this community to find jobs. And yet we find ourselves in the cities without any jobs. There are plans for a big ski resort to compete with those in Tauce and Santa Fe and elsewhere in New Mexico. Making this a rich man's playground has some express it with the descendants of the people who once owned the land relegated to service status that rankles some people. Others, however, see such a project as an economic revitalizer, a guarantee of Tierra Amarillas future. You got to look at the economic development that the way the settlers have come here and describe it and not even to us, to the people in the community, but to certain individuals is that they want to come in. They started first with the airport, then with the ski run and now trying to make subdivisions. Those are only a few people who have bought land and want to develop them to line their

pockets. Now economic development in a community is good and there's proof of how it's been done for example, La Clinica. There's another example, Tierra Wolves and Ganados de Valles, who are people in these communities have gone together and found ways how to create something to where it can develop this community. But people from the community are involved. These settlers, they come here and they don't involve people in the community. They only involve the businessmen and that's not the community in general. As far as the involvement that I have been, we've made sure that the Board of Directors for example, I'm speaking strictly of the ski corporation that I have been involved in, we've made sure that at all times, as a matter of fact, the by-laws indicate that at all times the Board of Directors must be majority local people, so that we all have a say. The only reason I became interested in this was and became a shareholder was to make sure that I was able to have a say because you have to put your money or your mouth is in

the order to be able to have an opinion, to be able to have a say, this is the reason I bus years out. And developers, over here, any place you go, there's no good for Spanish people, especially for Spanish people because they won't give you any job, they will give you a job to clean the toilets and everything, like that kind of shit. I have been in business for what? Since 1972, I own the store I own and I think that my progress in this country coming in here alone and everything and starting back in business by myself with nothing, no background on anything and building it, people helping me get to where I am. It's not, it's not myself that got me where I am, it's the people within the surrounding community, the tourist, the outsider that is so much mentioned.

The intentions of the developers are not to come in and be part of the community, their intentions is to come and destroy our community, to make it the way they think, their New York class and all that, to make it the way they think it is going to be, if they can sell a piece of land and line their pockets, it's good and they don't care how they destroy the land, because if you go in places where they are trying to develop, they bring in, they want to pay roads up to their cabins, they want all these facilities that they have in the big cities, and what they do is they will sell a piece of land for a huge amount of the money, but that may be kind of people here, you find a lot of those pieces of land instilled in the hands of the community and they don't want to sell it, because money to us is not important, but our means of survival, our land is important because we can make a garden, we can graze our animals, and we can make a living off of that. Agriculture is the area's sole economic base, just as it has been since this region was first settled under Spanish rule.

The agrarian tradition runs deep, but can farming alone provide the way of life needed to keep young people in the area? I think the statistics speak for themselves. Obviously our young people are leaving, the very few that stay around here because the fact is that there just isn't any way for them to make a living that will provide them enough funds to compete in today's high technological type society. We have the natural sources here, all the natural sources that anybody would want are here, but in order to develop these natural sources and protect them, we need funds, as I'm also a border director for the ski corporation, and I know for a fact that just to raise any kind of business, even my own, you're talking millions, and like I say, the big question

stands how many of us could afford to start a factory here, even the Somal here in Chama, recently closed. As far as I know, to this point in time, not even the state or the federal government has been able to come across with a true answer as how can we bring the Somal back to Chama and bring 50 families or keep 50 families around the surrounding areas which I understand that's what it used to employ. The school districts since 1965 has lost over half of its enrollment, we're way down below half of the enrollment that it was in 1965. I am an agreement with the fact that we do need development here, economic development, one which will not deface the beauty of our countryside and our scenery, one which will bring livelihood to the people from here, one which will bring people back to the home

that they love because so many of our people have to live here in order to make a living, one which would bring amongst us people a feeling of cooperation rather than that of jealousy and rivalry and ill feelings, one which would unite us instead of separate us. Development, if it's in the hands of our community, it's good. If the land was in our hands, we would need to go out of this community to work. These communities, you see here, they're over a hundred years, and how would they develop by our people, by farming, by racing animals, by racing cattle, sheep, horses and hay, while farfah, that's how they were developed. We don't need nobody from the outside to come and tell us, hey, we're going to do it for you, we don't need that. Is it in part in a difference in approach to the problem? Everybody wanting the same thing, a better life, but the manner in which you go about it? Well, I don't say the other side wants a better life for our community.

We want a better life for our community, they want a better life for them, for the ruling because they want all this development is gear-headed for retires from backies, from business men in the big cities to come here and spend the weekend and then leave, but that's not for the benefit of our community, our interest is our community. Over your encampment flies the Mexican national emblem, and that is upset some people in the community. What does that represent, truly? Well, it represents the Mejicano people. We are part of a nation, the Mejicano people, we got our independence from Spain after being under Spain for 500 years. This was part of what the Spanish call la Nueva Spana, when we got our independence, all the indigenous people that lived within this area that the Spanish call the Nueva Spana liberate themselves under the word Mejicano, because it comes from an indigenous word, word Mejicla, and that flag is part of that nation. We are part of a nation, a nation that has been divided by the United States.

Are you advocating a return to a union with Mexico here in Tierra Armería? We, the flag here represents what we are, because outside of that, come here, they recognize us as Mexicano, whether people want to return to Mexico, that's up to the people. But as I belong to an organization called En Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Mexicano, our position is socialist reunification under a socialist Mexico, not under the present Mexico, because under the present Mexico, now people are worse repressed than we are here in the United States, so whether it's in the south or the north or the nation, we are an oppressed people. But we're not saying we want to go back to Mexico, that is, you know, that is crazy. Has Amador Flores become secondary to a broader dispute over what was intended with the land grants and what has happened to them? Juan Amador took over this land, he knew that it was land that belonged to the community, that belonged to the Mejicano people, and he knew that someday it would have to go back to the Mejicano people, when that permanent injunction was issued against him last year

in April, that legally said, Amador Flores, you don't know nothing. But Juan, we came and took these positions, we said, no, the land is ours, and we're going to keep it, and we're going to do it by any means possible, and we're not going to let nobody come and threaten the existing of our community. Well I think that we're scaring potential investors, in the matter of, with this land grant situation, it seems like folks don't want to invest their money on something that is unshaky grounds, and I can't say the blame for it. But we have to, I think, that resolve this problem of the land grant, or what really happened on top of that hill, before we can get people interested to invest money on this valley. I don't reside on the land grant, so I don't have any personal or profit-oriented type interest in it.

The other hand, I do have an interest because it has a great bearing on the attitude of our students. I think our schools, to this day, have been reluctant to even address, in an educational setting, the land grant issue. I think the issue raised, written the last 20 years or so on the land grant, it has had some value. For example, I think it has had a revival, and perhaps a reemergence of pride on the part of many of our students in their culture, in their language, in their background. And that's good. Has somehow Amateur Flores, and his desire, his attempt to get land, become secondary in the dispute in the past year? Well, the overall consensus seems to be that Mr. Flores was used as a vehicle for Mr. Archeuleta to carry on what he is trying to prove in this matter. When me and my partner make the papers that did in 68, we said that if the land land used to come free, we had to turn the 500 acres wherever we got up there to the community.

And I guess the last year was the time to turn it over to the community. Now I'm not fighting for myself or for my family. We're fighting for all the people, poor people, Spanish, Anglo, Black, Indian, all we want is justice, we don't want to fight. Whatever the outcome of all this, there are apt to be lingering effects for the divisions have been deep, and the people on both sides of the issue care passionately. Now another aspect of the New Mexico land-grant story, here is tonight's guest commentator VB Price. Land is like family, it inspires deep loyalty and love.

Land is home, land is identity, it is a source of nurture, confidence, and repose, and anything that threatens it is an enemy. Land is often an object of intense and brooding conflict. Messing with someone's land is like messing with someone's kin, and no one will stand for too much of it. Land disputes have long dominated the public life of Northern New Mexico and Albuquerque as well. Recently for instance, residents of the rural South Valley have put together a powerful political base to incorporate and become a separate town, free from Albuquerque planners and urban know-it-all. While working on what's known as the Southwest Area Plan for the South Valley or SWAP, Valley residents came to feel that urban planners and politicians were insensitive to their special family feelings toward the land.

Residents came together to form a new town to be called Las Plasas de Valle. The incorporation election which could take place late this year or early next, and the new town could have a tremendous impact on Albuquerque's future, many feel, and negatively. Planning advocates, myself included, have long maintained that Albuquerque needs a single metropolitan planning authority. However, with a new jurisdiction in the South Valley, a potential new one in the North Valley, with the new town of Rio Rancho and increasing complaints out of the East Canyon area, a single metro planning entity seems more remote than ever. However, I wholeheartedly support the South Valley's desire for autonomy. The Southwest Area Plan is a plan for increased urbanization that is not a land-loving plan. It is not designed to control growth in ways that serve the needs and values of existing residents.

South Valley activists object most to Swap's transportation plan, which imposes a rigid grid pattern on the current winding rural roadways of the valley. The grid pattern will not only destroy huge areas of agricultural land, it will also act to channel traffic so that it bypasses the valley, rather than drawing consumers to South Valley businesses. Land-use disputes are the essence of politics in Albuquerque. When will those in power come to understand that messing with somebody's land can only result in intractable conflict? May be the incorporation of must-pluses to the valley will teach them a lesson. We invite your views about At Weeksend Commentaries. Please write at Weeksend, K-N-A-M-E-T-V, 1130 University Boulevard Northeast, Albuquerque, New Mexico, H-7102.

I'm Neil Boggs at Weeksend from Tierra Amarilla. Good evening. . .