Sanchez: A Priest in San Miguel; Part 1

when you can when you are at the pulpit here mr ahmed listen to distribute out and you sometimes have a sort of a glimpse of what it could have been like and how does the church the churches more than two hundred years old two hundred years ever have sort of the echoes of residences for the past couple months in yemen when her oh definitely it you know i never knew my great grandparents and they were from the spelling and so i look upon the people and i see their face i see the relationship just in the way that we look alike greater your great grandparents could then that would have been the end the congregation within singer out that yes they were in the search and mr church and another which isn't because the us and um i know where their land was unaware that the ruins of their house war and of people pointed out to me and then when i came here in

a you know the people that all the people in right away at some of the elderly remember the name now she says scientists that each other's my great grandparents and i'm so i i have a real sense of a from that relationship with my ancestors that have a responsibility to carry on what was taught me the respect for the land for our way of life the lifestyle here but i have a responsibility to relate to the people not in a dominating way but rather as a brother and working with them seem to their needs an awfully preserving a way of life here in the snow to the people in the congregation and the parish on when they find out that you have have grandparents mural impressed other

victims they're impressive in the sense that they do know that their relationship is more important than my ordination liquids and by that i mean is that i'm not just a priest now that i am a relatively unrelated to them who happens to be a priest they refer to resist a young priest in santa fe's that no no just the increased as voters he got enough in the city and that i think is someone from the city no known the suspicion well there was there's always suspicion of anyone knew who comes into that now there's a time that must be a very very own a careful approach to quote unquote newcomers even people their

ancestral ties to discuss transparent is that it's not supposed to do that the pigeons in new england you're saying and this natural suspicion and people come you can have these ancestral ties in the valley the protocols river valley for many generations and centuries then isolate i recently or in the past twenty years especially with the gentrification of some cafe in santa fe many more people from

olson units will have moved here and the sense of failure especially at the recent statistics by the us bureau of census for the first time since sixteen oh nine percent of it was established as the capital city of new mexico for the first time the sheer hispanics are not a majority in the city hispanics know am cannot afford to live in the city and our property values have increased our real state some of the gentrification process is now consider like aspen or some community palm springs and so very wealthy people have moved into town and the local native people cannot afford to live there as a result they have to move out into the county and also those

us census does to sticks show that while in the city of some for fear that the population hispanics is now about forty percent of the population of the county wives the number of hispanics has increased in the counters that shows is that hispanics have had to to move up and that's usually what happens in the process of gentrification the fear is that many times people don't want to move out find a valley and beautiful and want to come and build condos and condominiums a developer property here and we had a recent episode of that there was a group from son to fit very well meaning a community using permaculture bill moss and from one from australia started to sell concert borrow from the aborigines very much in tune with native american understanding of the relationship or the land of the most and came to santa fe

about four years ago and there was a group of people who weren't decided that they wanted to form a community where they would live together and follow the ideas of permaculture so they came out here to the valley and they want to purchase a sudden land in important and that so they had these fancy brochures and try to sell our parcels of land the brochure stated that you need at least fifty thousand dollars annual income to live in the community which excludes everywhere in the lesser known valley also up in a brochure that stated that no pets were allowed unique community that if you had horses that you use for recreational purposes that you could keep on with the other villagers down by the river meaning us there were

literally in the end what they called cobalt which means the higher probability an openness overlooking to put to you somehow they made a mistake in this whole process of not establishing a relationship with existing community when he was brought to our attention by reporter from some for fear that his committee was coming here and initially iran between five families moving then fifteen than a hundred people were very upset they want to know what was happening and so it's been very kept very quiet secret to sew up the reporter connected me with the leader of permaculture community and i talked to him on the form and he said welcome to have a meeting with the people in the valley and i said sure so we had a meeting here in in the church in the

same church one night about an hour before two hours before the risk was come down from some profit to talk with the villagers he call me and try to change his mind and coming down i say look listen that would be very fatal for them planning to do that so he they decided to come down and there have been wild rumors what else was going to go on in this but the concept was was great the nose forrester relationship to the land and recycling things and use of the land in half but they had not establish that relationship are not made a connection with the existing people familiar it here and the land and at the end of the film you lasted for about three hours and there were some heated discussion there was anger the fact that they were so secretive that people wondered why why these people doing this how can a secret and

at the end of the meeting i asked the people there was about a hundred fifty people from the village here and i'm about from the valley here in the church i asked them all those who feel uncomfortable with what you've heard us cia and the eyes running out for a church to sell those who feel comfortable with what you've heard say i was dead silence on this was a result of that particular development means no longer being built but there has to be that that understanding certainly that the people of community is a part of the land and there has to be that respect and none if there is not that respect you know your eye is a priest cannot come into this person's help him do things my way out i have to know the people there and understand that you

get to lead to rouse highways or which is a re visit we thought that goes through a biological which is a terrible roads two lane highway near sixteen miles of that two lane highway there's the shoulder but other highway department decided that they wanted to live in the road to this valley home with three with two sixteen foot wide lanes an eight foot wide shoulders the idea is they want to bring it up to federal highway regulations they told us that you know because they wanted to improve the traffic can make it was dangerous because the voters soccer team of song river in the canyon and i'm so the people decided that we we came together and we've sent a letter to the governor to high wheat commission and

none when we came together as a community to talk about this road i thought people would say well let's not have the road or you know let's try to get them to narrow the road the new roads won't be sixteen foot wide lanes a foot wide shoulders let's compromise at the meeting there was no compromise the people said we were known you wrote it all in we wonder how department in here in this valley and they can come in and maintain it but no new role at all that i was pleasantly surprised that what's really shocked that there was no compromise at all because they could see then that for sure it would be a law which proctor though the route through near santa fe the passes to lainey junction because my overall which is a very exclusive community people that have a lot of money to live there

and they have a lot of power may signal two with proctor and so when they were looking for a route the considered that but then because of the opposition and because of who the opposition was there was no question they would consider it but they chose highway eighty four which is about thirty miles from from here home which would bring the waste from colorado and north and then take it down to connect carlsbad but these type of intrusions which are not good for the community or for and therefore the land and we had another example of very very tragic one of six years ago there was a retired scientist was almost buoyant wanted to set up a shop and that he came to him some will say they were just off interstate before twenty fourteen about twelve miles

and he told people that he was going to buy some land he was going to make a tortilla factory and it's a world that's nicely white house and some employment isn't one it's very high in this county it's about twenty percent unemployment and other innocent like that would be nice to know we can make a pretty awesome silva and it turned out that the man applied for a license to work with henri and depleted uranium was going to do well he has contracts with kenny cuts in the federal government and disappeared so the company's call center if a balance and he's the only employee and evidently he does trying to come up with some alloys using depleted uranium for him for god knows what but he's where he set up his shop is right above the river tigris river or very concerned parent in a pollute the

river our main lifeline here to the valley with korean regime she got in a polluted river with depleted uranium for him out we have a committee meeting that people actually meeting six years ago and that the environmental improvement division that gave him a license anyway last year licenses but for five years the license came up for renewal we had another meeting we said you know this really isn't good for us you know we know the man was not allowed to sit up his business in suffolk county has soviet communist regulations against that type of worker business and many rules almost every piece for some unknown but sunny get county who never in their minds of his characters has never thought somebody would want to set up a lab tor been depleted uranium for him on the regulations against sadat

sorry get it it refuse so to come out for when it came time to renew the license to meet with people here the reason for not coming out to have a meeting in some perfect well was that they were afraid of the people and so they would come out here to meet with us aren't there been a tense up you know we really really have to work with these people so that we leave this place along because it's dangerous building some dangerous chemicals that find out what chemicals using in that process we had and it's all covered up that we can get to have anything and into the river were monitoring their copy it all see the administration's previous of state administration to the one that became into tuesday government on january the governor was scary crothers who is an

undersecretary of the environment under wants and during his four years on the environmental improvement division was really the laughingstock of people who were loving concern of concern for the environment how did this man was given this license to work with foreign depleted uranium to self regulate nobody from state monitors in the weekends on air checks or is he doesn't see himself but it certainly is a visitor to your factories i'll let them ask about how you came here along with a new group in santa fe did you come out to the selling much bump we came through here at times to see were in our great grandparents lived and i came when i was a small child i came with my grandmother to visit

cousins who lived in exile say i remember i mean she would tell me stories about like starvation peak of several that they're not and which is a peacock where they would have procession to the top of a peak and people would have a big audience with a call that audience as all night vigils and they would pray in times of drought they would carry the sumptuous as the statues of saints of their pray for rain different needs of the particular people saw there was a group of settlers are being attacked by its native americans and plains indians the comanches used to rate here in the special's history the comanches and they would steal each other's children and for most part they would be part of the families that they would be kiosk raise a

family but some of this particular event happened that when there was a native american indian raid in but now it's all the villagers went up the peak it's a very narrow narrow says as it climbs and the story goes that the native americans surrounded the bottom of the peak and the villagers had no way of getting any more food so they'll start up there was no way for them to come down and says what's called starvation pick