¡Colores!; Colores! (608); 608; A Mi Raza: Sabine Ulibarrí

You The writings of Sabine Ullibari. You're mistaken. You forget that those sentiments, and the ties that you feel for the people in the land, are things of the flesh, things of the heart. Next. The

writings of Sabine Ullibari. writings of Sabine Ullibari. writings of Sabine Ullibari. New Mexico Our land that gave me to do. I have seen, lived, and I will die. I taught myself to love. Land full of laughter, of light, and in love, of promises, and in love, of roses and spines. Land full of high and clean mountains, forests, legends, and mystics, of soil, wood, and grass, of dry and strong winds. Land full of

high and clean mountains, and in love, Land full of high and clean mountains, In the rain, in the rain, in the rain, My dear, sweet and gentle. Pino, pinyoni, posole, chile, chicharroni, tolle, empanadas, cifrigoles, hurrakas, chinchontes, flores. No me quitan las veredas del recuerdo y del sentimiento a mi tierra amarilla a la tierra a mamía. Muchas veces en la brisa

de alguna noche tranquila hay susurros y murmullos y suspiros indecisos. Son las voces de los viejos que perduran en el viento tienen tanto que decirnos para el tiempo en que vivimos. No te olvides ni te entregues, no te dobles ni te dejes, levantate y anda, atredete y manda. La voz sale de la tierra. Subesola, la alta tierra, baja triste al mundo valle a decirte lo que valis. Un nivel rí.

Un ser little guy that came out of the mountains of northern New Mexico a long time ago. And he's been looking back in that direction ever since. I think it was Homer who said, I am a part of all the Reich of Met. Well, all that I have met started in 1919 when I was born. And I was born in Las Nutrias. Las Nutrias was not even a village. They were a string of ranches along a string. And my grandfather and his brothers went there in the latter part of the 19th century and they established a ranches along the string. And I was there until I was about seven years old. My family was not rich, but they weren't poor.

And I was very solitary. There were no children to play with. My dogs were my companions. And I'd roam all over the fields and all over the woods doing the sort of things that intrigue me. Or even sleeping under a pine tree. He was white, white as memory is lost. He was free as happiness is. He was fantasy, liberty and excitement. He filled and dominated the mountain valleys and surrounding plains. He was a white horse that flooded my youth with dreams and poetry. I suppose I was

very much of a daydreamer. My father was a heroic figure who right off him was quite warm. He was a legend. The stories told about him were endless. Many avaliant cowboys swore to put his altar and his brand on the animal. But always he had to confess later that the mystic horse was more of a man than he. And when I was a little boy, he bought me a saddle that was not much bigger than a postage stamp. And we'd go off in the early spring. That led to tremendous excitement, tremendous amount of make -believe. Because at night, for example, we'd camp out under the stars. And around the

campfire, in the early spring, the coyotes are hungry. First of all, we'd hear the howling of the coyotes. And that put the bjbis into me. Then later, they'd creep in, they'd get bolder and bolder. And you could see the rise glowing out there in the dark. I felt like an executioner. But there was no turning back. I whirled a rope and throw the obedient glass over. A rope that whistles and burns the saddle tree. Smoking, burning gloves. High is burning in their pockets. Mouth parts, fevered forehead. The whole earth shakes and shutters. Deep gasping quiet.

The wonder horse is mine. Up there in Tiramarilla, we have the chama. And it'd be flooded in the spring. Well, my father would have to cross it. And there would be rocks stumbling down on the water. There would be trunks of trees and all kinds of debris. And we'd cross the tree. And the horses would have to swim across. And the water was ice cold because they were big trunks of ice in there too. And again, that was frightening. All of that was food for daydreaming. I decided to turn him loose in the fence pasture. No animal had ever escaped from that pasture. My father was a man of the

outdoors. But he had a love of literature. My mother and my father, both, read books to me in Spanish and in English. My father and mother both had two years of college, which was quite extraordinary back in 1918. I got to know the classics, including the Quirote. He's not there. I see that during the night he walked incessantly, sniffing, searching for a way out. He did not find one. He made one for himself. So in the long winter nights, my father or my mother would read, I could visualize everything that happened. And I could hardly wait. And as I roamed the rants during the day, my mind was full of

those adventures that I had heard about the night before. No matter how much it hurt me, I was rejoicing over the flight and freedom of the Wonder Horse. Now he would always be fantasy, freedom, and excitement. The Wonder Horse was transcendent. He had enriched my life forever. Perhaps even at that time, I became aware that there was something a world beyond the fail that only literature that only art could capture. And share something spiritual, something higher than reality as we can see in touch and feel.

My grandmother smoked cigars. She was strong, strong as only she could be. Through the years, in so many situations, small and big tragedies, accidents and problems, I never saw her bend or fold. I can see her at this moment as if she were before my eyes. Her eyes fixed, I don't know where, her thoughts fixed, or I don't know what, an animated statue a petrified soul. It turns out my history is very much the history of New Mexico. So, looking at my life, I'm looking at history. History

made flesh in spirit. History come alive because it is alive in my flesh and soul. Why is literature so important? Literature is history. History come alive. Literature is the inside story. The hidden story what makes a people tick. My grandfather smoked cigars. The cigar was a symbol of the feudal lord, the patron. To

suck on that tobacco was to drink from the fountains of power. The cigar gave you class. They say that when my grandfather died, my grandmother would light cigars and place him on the asteris around the house. The smell of the tobacco gave her the illusion that her husband was still around. As time went on and after lighting many as a gar, she began to smoke the cigars. At nightfall, when the dusk so the day were done, she would lock herself in a room, sit on her rocker and light her cigar. There in the light or in the shade of an old love,

now an eternal love, the spiritual strength was forged that kept my grandmother straight, tall and slender, facing the winds and storms of her full life. Tomorrow would be another day, but my grandmother would still be the same. last night, my grandmother Life history, time is

is a continuum. It flows like a river flows. And I think we've tended to chop it up into past, present, and future. And I see you've let the past drop out of the flow. And we are becoming a now people, a present people. The past is out of sight, and the future is out of sight. And living in the present only is living in one dimension. And we are producing a generation of young people with historical amnesia, cultural amnesia. If you don't know where you came from, how in the heck are you going to know where you're at, or where you're going?

The literary word. The scriptures tell us that in the beginning it was the word and that the word was made in flesh. So it was in the beginning and so it was still there. When I was a freshman at UNM, I told my friends that someday I'm going to teach at this university. They all accept me. And I think becoming a professor at the University of New Mexico was the greatest achievement in my life. I wanted to communicate my excitement, my fascination, my interest in literature to my students. I also felt it very important to pass

on the Spanish language to as many students as I could. Where are you from? Boston. There's a narrow view of democracy that I don't like at all. I'm originally from East Africa, Ethiopia. That view of democracy that wants us all to look the same, to act the same, to read the same books and spout off the same slogans. It is one thing to mass -produce refrigerators or donuts. It's quite another to mass -produce the citizenry. I liked Miyabuela Cobrabara Interesse. I like that, sir. It's funny. Because I liked the play on words where he became the county assessor. Yeah. It's just Miyasi Sore minus two. I think that diversity

enhances the very concept of democracy where different people with different backgrounds can work together for the same goals each in his own way to respect the difference. I think is the big test of democracy. Amen. I like that story. And I was sitting down and reading in a loudheins. It was a long story. But then, you know, I ignored all my homeworks for a while. Just I wanted to finish. I hope that my students and my readers generally go away with the new understanding and new awareness that the differences that separate us are mostly

on the surface. Under the skin, all men are colored. And the color is red. And if my readers and my students find out that we're not that different, not that strange, not that suspect, there'll be a better understanding to know is to love and not to know is to fear. How beautifully nature cloaks herself and what a smiling face it assumes when it's going to die. It probably is because she knows that the

glories of today will be repeated next year in the year after, eternally. It may be because she knows that after the winter comes the spring, that death is neither sorrow nor the end, but at rest in the beginning. 75, three quarters of a century. It's hard to believe. I hope through the years I've been able to communicate my love for the magic, the miracle, and the mystery of literature. If I can communicate that to my students, then they will make their own way and they will read a book and then another and another. And somehow the literacy and the intelligence

of the people is conserved. It lives on. If you know how to read, and write, you know how to live, and die. Something else that goes into my life work, as long as I'm at the University of New Mexico, a little spano from Chimayo, or Pinyasco, or Paul Valera, and say, well, if will you are equal to it, I can do it. Now my generation is stepping off the stage. And it's up to the coming generations of Hispanics to do as much as we did. And what did we do? We only did what we could with what we had to do it with. That's all that can be asked of any human being.

Do the best you can. But make sure it is the best you can. Something less is never enough. Now it's your turn. Go to the University, graduate from the University, make it, make it one way or another. The way is up, and the way up is not easy, but it's exciting. The higher up you go, the clearer the air is. The higher you go, the farther you can see. It's titillating and exciting to go up the mount. So all of you have a mount. Start climbing

and keep on climbing. You can climb up the mount. You can climb up the mount. You can climb up the mount. You can climb up the mount. You

can climb up the mount. You can climb up the mount. You can climb up the mount. This Colores program is available on home video cassette for 1995 plus shipping and handling to order call 1 -800 -328 -5663. Thanks for watching.