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You You You Instead

I sleeping Also, you'll go soon. They will not be a pleasure not to work always in Spanish. Peceria para la Hente. Pordio seros, con quernos. Escomos yo el e cierndos, poules.

Céspantando smertos de los de goyados. En mi ambudón. La Capremo Rafael. If you really want to be ano me, cono, it's that you have to have it in your heart, in your kora sono. And it's that pride in my language. It's that pride of the land that I have. It's that pride that comes from way back, from ancestors. And to me, northern New Mexico, it's my currency. This is where I was born. And this is where I want to die. And I think that's what I see my role as being as a writer, as an artist, is trying to make the language accessible

to other people throughout the country and throughout the world, and also trying to make them understand who we are, who we are as manitos, who we are as no me, conos in order, whatever we want to call ourselves, except Hispanics. Just the word Hispanic, it seems to me like somebody that's in a panic, you know. But every four years ago nowadays, it's the only word that comes up, and everybody's afraid of being chicanos. Because if you're a chicano, then right away, all you were associated with a land-grant movement and you were associated with the headiness. So they kind of put you to the side, you know. Those that really want to assimilate and they have had to become, he's fantasized to a large extent. But then we have all become generic, and they just throw in us in the blender, and they're not going to end up playing the bzzz. It's here in the Plaza de Limbudo,

where the buccano sense here is based. I started writing the buccano in 1972. The character in the sense is really a composite of several pickles from northern New Mexico. But the main character is right from the Plaza de Limbudo. The picker, I guess, can be classified kind of like the anti-hero. Really, the person that lives on the margins of society, but also one that's very truthful, that he's one of the few that can really be a critic without being afraid. Because he has nothing to lose. As the deal, he has no idea what he is doing. He has no idea what he is doing, what he has done, what he has done, what he has done, what he has done, what he has done. If anybody in the village, the picker probably has the most colorful language, the most lively language.

Because most of the pickers that I know from here from northern New Mexico, they're all very traditional people. They're all in the sense that they all grew up working the land, working as cheap herders, or what have you. So they picked up a lot of words from a lot of the old timers. So for me, it's very important when I'm writing to be able to use a lot of the words that are familiar to the people here, and that it's really been a mixture.

It's been a mixture of the language that was brought over by Cortes and then how they have meshed in with a lot of the Indian words. And then lately, I think a lot of the Anglo-sized words that are part of our language, the Monito language, you know, like we don't say Fresno, but we say Brekka. We're talking about Brekka in an Arab building. But being that everything nowadays is in English, there's a lot of these people that know how to read in Spanish, but that we're not reaching to them because there's no materials in Spanish. When I started with my magazine, about a year or two years ago, also an elderly lady from here, a neighbor. When I saw her last year, she told me, you know what? I had a chance to read it in a long time because I haven't found any materials in Spanish until now that your magazine came out. And all this time, I thought that lady was illiterate, you know? But she was very enthused about the whole thing, at least she had found some materials

that she could finally start reading, you know, and she was very proud of her, you know. The worst thing that I can happen is that we forget how our language, you know, especially here in Northern New Mexico, it defines who we are, which makes us a people that's unique from the Puerto Ricans or the Cubans or other Spanish-speaking people, because the language here has evolved over the past 400 years. So we cannot lose our language or else that now, we're gonna be having lived from the language, are the things that are the commercial people use. We cannot be compacted and said, this is all you are, you know. All you are is a SOPIPI and all you are is a Taco Bell or all you are is a Burrito, you know. For that reason, I'm gonna be writing in the language of Northern New Mexico because I wanna keep it alive. I want for it to be part of the landscape. There's a lot of things that I see in Northern New Mexico,

so we're trying to preserve everything, make it historical, you know, make it like an artifact. Put us in a museum. Everything will change the whole equation of who we are, will change. Some tour group will bring in a bus load of people, where you'll have a lot of tourists just walking up along the ASEK, you know, this is beautiful and all with their cameras and everything, you know. And then they'll have a tour guide from the villages that will be paid minimum wage, to go and take all these tourists along, you know, and explain to them, well, this is what it used to be. And that's why I'll fight this on the summer life to keep it from becoming a museum. So we have to always, you know, the culture has to maintain itself and has to be the dynamic and a life, you know. And the language, of course, some one of the most important things, you know, that cement that glue that will keep the culture together. Because once the little kids also start losing the language and they'll start losing the customs

and everything that goes along with it, you know. It's very important to record things. As time goes by, I realize all that is lost. As people die, then you begin to realize that treasures have been buried in cemeteries. When I speak of treasures, I think of the many things that I did not ask my father, means a lot. I think it's very, very important to take down everything that we can before we lose any more of it. 🎵 With our voices, with our voices, with our voices 🎵

You know, Hispanics do not feel the cemeteries are a sad place. It's like coming home to visit somebody. So not only is it a special place because family is here, but it is a special place because it's something that our ancestors built long ago. I've been often been asked what a Notatorio is. The word Oratorio comes from Orar to pray. If you look in the dictionary, it tells you that it's a chapel, but a Notatorio like this one is not a chapel. We do not have an altar here, but it is used as a house of prayer. This particular Oratorio was used to house the people who came to bury someone here. When they came to the cemetery with that body, they placed it here in this room

and the women and children and some of the men gathered around it and prayed a rosary, while other men would be digging a grave. I would say that the Oratorio symbolic of a resting place, a final resting place, but it's also symbolic of the past and of what our ancestors did and how they created out of nothing. They took the mud and the water and the straw, and they built what they needed. When there were any priests to lead them, the people themselves took up this leadership and together they kept the faith. It is symbolic of the culture and it's especially symbolic of that which we are loosing so much, because if this is the only standing Oratorio in the cemetery in all of Northern New Mexico, where there were so many of them, then you see what we are loosing. And if you ask some of our young people what this Oratorio means to them or what it is,

I'm very sure they wouldn't know. I feel that it's very important to keep all of these pieces of our tradition, of our culture alive. I think that we can build on the history of the past. I think we need to maintain it and then build on it creatively. And also to inspire all of those who are going to be born tomorrow, to remember who they are and where they came from, and what the roots are. Good evening and welcome all of you. I see so many faces I didn't expect to see here, so that's much happier that we all gather here

for this very special location. When I started working on the restoration, there was a crack in this west wall that was at least six inches wide. The beams had fallen down, they had rotted, the plaster was completely off on all the outside walls. The cemetery is called Kenya's niggas, because of these little black stoves that were markers for the graves. And they were probably the best way that our ancestors had, noting that some beloved stoves was in that spot. Once we had the building up, then the people came together to help plaster, to clean up, and so on. I also want to tell you that we're quite pure, that the land was donated by a family, by the name of Sanchez.

Don't be as it all Sanchez was a very famous man. He was also a very special person because he brought up 23 orphans. And the descendants that we have here are mostly older people. We have very few young people left from these families. So it wasn't an easy thing to do. But when you ask the people to come for something like this, they go 100%, they're always there for you. And we were able to finish it, and we were able to have a blessing ceremony with Father Johnny. But we cannot look at a cemetery as a place for the dead. It is the place for the living. One of the Spanish words that we do for cemetery was Campo Santo, huh? The place of the saints.

Saints are not yet. They're alive. It's not the actual auditorium itself that means so much. The people coming together and working together sending me money that I knew was hard earned money. The people who gave so generously and so willingly and often would say, I'm sorry, I can't be there, but this little bit will help. And it did. When we finished the work, we put all of their names on the North Wall with praise be to God and thanks be to you because it was through their efforts that we were able to restore this auditorium. I think having a connection with the past is what makes you what you are. And we're thinking of Daddy, because I didn't have a mother,

I was with my father all the time, but he was plowing and harvesting as well. And he would go out to plant a field of wheat, and he made me this little halter kind of thing that not where I haven't told you about it. Well, he always had a big one. He made me make a little one, and we'd work side by side on this plowed and beveled ground. And he'd spread the seed, you know? And we'd dip a hand in for the seed and spread it. And he'd say, para nos, para vos, y para los ane malito de dios, for you, for me, and for all the creatures of God. You know, that's a value that comes to you as a child, how can anything erase it? Yeah, no, but yeah, they were in it, they were in it.

They were in it, they were in it, yeah, they were in it. With grandma was born in March 5, 1991, 103 years ago. And she had 11 children, right? 10, 10, 10 children. And four of the 11 lived to adulthood. And then, of course, this is, there's grandma, mom, me, my sister-in-law, and my sister's daughter, Melissa, and then I have two daughters. I'm on line Alicia. So this is four generation one is right here. Yeah, four generations right here of the female. And it's a strong, strong bloodline, I think. OK, I can't get the fire to the limo. What one of the newy?

You have to go in a bed, don't you? To me, she's a symbolist. I could have never imagined what she's been through but to me, for her to still be here and to have the bed, to me that's straight, that's a lot of strong. She tells me that when she first got married, they did not have a stove to cook on. So they, she used to cook on an open fire in this mess. This, this, she's lived here from the day she got married. She was 18 when she got married. And grandpa was 21. And they had such a wonderful relationship. That was something else. This one day, they were going up to, up to senior citizens to have lunch. And he couldn't shift. He couldn't shift fast enough. And of course, if you know through Chiswell and I have one side of the Italian canyon. And he couldn't shift. He couldn't shift fast enough. And they went down the canyon. And she just drove all the way down the canyon. And the story she tells is that she was getting ready to jump out of the trunk.

And he grabs her hand and says, if we're gone, we're going together. He took it off. And they went all the way down. They were funny. They were funny. They were funny. They really were funny. But it was real funny. I wasn't able to do it. You didn't get the permission that it wrapped up in upstairs. One of the biggest traditions that she's handed down to us is getting together, sharing a meal with family members. And the closest is she always, she was always cooking. She loved to cook. And she always wanted to serve people. Hey, buddy, they came to her house. And one of the first things she said in the first people came is after there's food going. There's always been that strong sense of caregiving in our family. And that comes from my great-grandmother. Another thing that's been passed down,

I think, is that you're happy with yourself and you're happy with your own company. And I've always been taught to just be happy with your own company and that depend on anybody else for happiness. And I think that's important. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to your grandma. Happy birthday to you. I look at that one's grandma. That's a good one. She showed us how to be responsible for our actions, to show respect for the elderly, especially the elderly. Think of the other person's needs, not to be selfish. And she used both of them used to stress very strongly that hard work never killed anybody. And we worked very hard. She taught us a lot about faith, having faith.

She came from a very devout Catholic family and that tradition has been handed down not only to me, but my children and my grandchildren. And to me, that's the greatest gift that I could get. We used to kneel in front of the fireplace practically every night in one of the prayers. And it's a very long one. And it's very touching. And that is the last 40 days of Jesus's life. I remember seeing tears run down her face when he was crucified, that meeting the crucifixion. And it affects me pretty much the same. Walking into this house, because of her prayers, it's almost an automatic blessing that you have, that you can get from all the prayer. There's just so many things that have occurred in our lives since we've been dealing with her. And I think it's through her prayers that all these good things have happened to us. And one of the funny things about when she gets into a car

is she's got to have her rosary with her. She's has to have that rosary because she'll pray all the way down into the intestinal or wherever she's going and she prays it all the way back. I just want to make sure she's safe and everyone else is doing that. And she's not sure about that car. She feels safer and a horse and carriage. Yeah. Of course, she always, she's always praying anyways. And she says, OK, I've already prayed for you and for everybody that needs praying for. And now I'm going to pray for the dad. And so she'll do that. And then she says, OK, I'm ready to go to sleep now. And my daughters are trying to learn from her. They sit and they listen to her and they want to learn to pray. But she knows so many prayers and Spanish. It's amazing. My family, a husband, a husband. My father and his grandfather just took it. I'm just watching this have.

We were living in North of Santa Fe, and mom called one day. She was really worried about how she was going to continue to take care of grandma's best to she could, and I told her that somehow we would try and help her work it out, and we told her we'd be here as soon as we could if everything worked out. And the funniest thing was we put the house up for sale and it sold in six months and before we knew it, we were here living with her. I guess I never thought that I'd be coming back to Thruch's, for me, I left thinking that

I wouldn't be back. We re-evaluated our goals and decided that this was far more important. So coming back here definitely changed a path for us. It was coming home. And doing what we were taught to do, she took the time and energy to take care of us when we were so young.

So I think that's probably one of the biggest gifts that we've learned is to give it back to her now. Now giving back, giving back is I guess what this is all about. Because he took him in the arrow and let's tell you, God, I mean. Give it back.