Sanchez: A Priest in San Miguel; Part 2

Did you ever think when you were considering becoming a priest that you would come to this church? Not this particular church. One of the impetus of the vocation was to serve the people and certainly, you know, my particular faith has a strong roots in what my grandparents shared with me in the stories, the cuentos that they would tell me. The story of the people, the women that hid the crucifico from me when I first came here because they were afraid that I was going to take the statue of the blessed mother down. Somebody asked me, so were you angry at them? And I said, how could I be angry at them? I mean, they're like my whelas, they're like my grandmothers. No way. I mean, I have too much respect for them. Did you have a lot of apprehension when you stood here in the church? Was it a Sunday, Mass, the first time?

Yes. A lot of apprehension? No. No. I felt very much at home. And I knew that I came here to learn, and there's always a process, usually like the first six months to a year, you have to get to know the people slowly, what their needs are, how you can be a part of the community, and what my role is. And the people will tell you, and they've told me. How poor is the valley, how isolated are the people? The people in this valley, probably of all Northern New Mexico, the Pecos, Upper Pecos Valley, through San Miguel, and El Pueblo, and Biennueva, the villages along the river here, is probably the most isolated community left in Northern New Mexico.

It's the one that's been least developed and exploited. There have been attempts. Some attempts have been successful, like the man with Santa Fe Alois, but others have not been, like permaculture. The economy is basically agricultural. Many of the people do have to commute to Santa Fe or to Las Vegas, which is 32 miles from here, to work. The unemployment in this county, San Miguel County is 12% officially, but of course, you know, those statistics come from people who are actively looking for work. The real unemployment rate is closer to 20%, because many people have stopped looking for work, and do what they can.

They have their acres of land that they work with in season. They get go for wood, and they sell the wood to people in Santa Fe. They go in the mountains for wood. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they go for wood. And they're careful, you know, not to the way they do that, because they know they have to let the trees coexist here survive. So what they do is there's a lot of rock here, so they get the rock, and they sell it in Santa Fe for patios. You can see it in one of the exits, the first exit to Santa Fe when you get off I-25. There's an area there where you see a lot of trucks with people selling wood, especially in the winter. Rock, you know, for gardens and patios. Most people are from here. And many people have had to join the National Guard, the Reserves, Army Reserves.

When Mid-Eight of New Mexico, which was called Montanio de Fibre, the Fibreboard plant in Las Vegas open, many of the people from this valley went to work there. At $6 an hour, it was great benefits for them, because nobody is going to pay that much, you know, and they're not going to find a job like that that pays that well for this area. Unfortunately, as the plant started working, and we started to experience ramifications of this type of plant, and the way it was managed, the pollution, the disregard for the health and safety of the workers, and the community in Las Vegas. And so as a result, it led to the strike in June 11th of 1990. How many of the valley work there?

There's about 15 people at one time or other have worked in that plant. Currently, there's about five that still work there. What is the Hispanic percentage of the valley? Do you spend weeks speaking only Spanish? Oh, yes. Yeah, all our liturgies in the church are 90% Spanish and 10% English. The registered parishioners are all Hispanic, I have, there are no anglos, well, I mean, you can count the number of people that are non-Hispanic that live in the valley. There's some that have lived here for 20 years. I have an excellent relationship with people, beautiful relationship with people. And many times, there are the ones that are the most adamant about, quote unquote, newcomers moving in.

And it was interesting. The other day, I got a phone call from this woman who's been here for 15 years, and she moved here from Connecticut, and she works in Santa Fe, but she lives here in Vianoia. And she wanted to know about what was the result of the meeting that we had on, quote unquote, improvement of the highway through here, where they wanted to widen the road, and she was so angry, you know, that someone would even think about doing that. She was ready to do whatever she could to stop that. Any, there were pueblos here, Indian pueblos, any Indian population left in the valley? Yeah, we're all Indian ourselves. We have the mestizaje, the mixture of Hispanic and Indian pecos, pueblos. Which is about 24 miles north of here, was the dominant pueblo in this area. And they would farm all the way to what is now Vianoia, all along the river.

And there are ruins of smaller Native American indigenous communities that were here. There were probably temporary homes during the harvest time, or planting season where people from the pueblo would come and live here for a while, and then during the winter go back to the main pueblo. As this was populated by the colonists, Hispanics came from Spain and from Mexico. There was intermarriage, and the pecos pueblo itself eventually, the indigenous people moved to Hemispueblo. There is a story, and the table legend, Native American legend, the Moctec summa, father of Montesuma, a great Aztec chief, was Kaseke, chief here in Pecos.

And they worshipped the feathered serpent, and their strongest clan was the Eagle Watchers clan. And as the pueblo grew in power and in size, they decided to go south of here. And according to the legend, when they asked Moctec summa where they were going, he said wherever the Eagle landed with a serpent in his claw on the cactus, that's where they would build their new pueblo. And according to indigenous legend here, there were the ancestors of the Aztecs. The colonists that came here from Mexico would not have survived without the pueblo Indians. And there was not the conquest that happened in Mexico, in other parts, the violence, you know, that the Spanish conquistadores did to the indigenous culture.

Here we had to coexist or not live here at all. And luckily we were able to and where our ancestors are, both Hispanic and Native American. There's a lot of beautiful bottom land along the river in this valley. It seems as though somebody could make a good living farming year round. They could, yes. And I think this is something that I think the community and people in general have looked at before, but now there is so much talk about economic development and what form of economic development. Our state legislature for the past 20, 30 years has only considered one form of economic development, bringing in factories or companies to outside like the fiber board plant came

from Oregon. There should be alternative forms of economic development. And there have been successes. One of them in Geramaria where the local people are now hurting sheep like their ancestors have before and getting the wool and have now weaving going back to the art form of weaving and set up, you know, businesses around that. People can make a living. It's not going to be economically quote unquote successful. We're not going to have the two cars and, you know, the big house and, you know, big screen TV and all that, but do you really need that?

And so people have to make choices and some people are saying, okay, so here in the valley we don't have all the quote unquote conveniences. But I'd rather live a more simple lifestyle and not have those conveniences and have a different way of lifestyle that it's not geared to city living. You have tapestries around the church here and depicting among other things the missions and the villages, even smaller places than here. Outlying missions. Tell me about those, please. Viennueva, our Lady Wara Loupé, our Senior Lady Wara Loupé, is the Mother Church. And then there are smaller settlements villages surrounding Viennueva, El Serrito, Avroda, Leiba, Gonzales Ranch, Senna, La Palma, that are connected to the parish to this community.

And I will go out to the missions, as we call them, there are some missions that I serve every weekend and others that we serve maybe once a year on their fiesta or their function. For the most part, Viennueva is kind of like the center and people will drive here. There are three stores in Viennueva. And I say that because I've been in a, I was in one parish where there were no stores in the village, La Hoya, and so they come in here for supplies and things like that. The missions have unique characteristics that are, make them unique unto themselves, particular farming they do, particular art forms, they may be developed there. The people have different stories and their own stories of that particular mission.

So that you would have services there occasionally and they would come to this church most of the time, right? Well, that's interesting because that, maybe that would be the ideal. Many of the villages won't go to church unless their service is there. I see. So you go there? Yeah, I do go there. And some pastors might say, well, they should come here. But there's a real relationship with that particular church in their village. And if there's no services in that village, then they feel that there's no need to go and when there is. But they have their own local, familial practices, religious practices, their prayers. And it's not dependent upon a priest. I see. How many people will be in this church at Sunday Mass? The church will be filled up usually, yes.

What? 200 people? About 250, yeah. It doesn't seem like there's that many people in the valley. Yes. You know, it's interesting. You can't always see the houses. You're supposed to like melt in with the landscape and because of the valley and it's sometimes they're hidden behind a messa or a top of a messa. Sometimes you're looking right out of the house and you don't even know you're looking at one. And the people regard their priest as what? In a small place, almost the mayor of the town and their advisor, legal advisor and social worker, what do you have to do? Well, traditionally, at one time, the priest was quote unquote the most educated of the community.

That's not true anymore. We have people that have college degrees and have graduate degrees. But there's still a sense that the people look at the priest as hopefully an objective member of the community. Many, many times there will be something that happened a hundred years ago. One family had a run in with another family. And for years and years and generations, that feud goes on. And many times the priest is called in to be the objective person to mediate between those two families. Also the pastor, the priest, is to be the person who informs the people, to gather the people for different issues.

Not just religious celebrations, but issues like having to do with the road, are we going to allow this road to be built, what are we going to do to stop the whip, trucks from rolling through here, different things like that. And my feeling is, as pastor, as priest, I am to present the information as objectively as I can and work with the people so that they make their own decisions about those issues. You don't see yourself ready as a community organizer? Yes, many times, I feel that's what a community organizer does, is present the facts and the issues as many times you have to go and look for the facts. The facts are not always visible if you were to ask someone, what is your ray of formaldehyde, what kind of effect is toluene or benzene, have on drinking water, unless you're a chemist

or someone who knows about those chemicals, you wouldn't have the slightest idea. So a community organizer gathers the information. Why do you know about those particular chemicals? I know about those particular chemicals because of, they're the chemicals that are used at Montagnan Fibre, the fiberboard plant in Las Vegas. They use over 20,000 gallons of ureaia from alohydate in their processing. So you're concerned about pollution? I'm very concerned about pollution, air pollution in groundwater contamination where they dump their waste, what they call industrial waste, both from the boiler, which in our estimation is more of an incinerator than a boiler. The contaminated ash from that boiler is being dumped in the city dump, which is then contaminating

the groundwater and affecting the community of Las Vegas and all the communities downstream. This is a fiberboard company that started in Las Vegas, which is the nearest big town many years ago. In 1984, a public service company of New Mexico was going through a process of divesting its money, and they decided to divest in non-utility businesses. So they built Montagnan Fibre, a fiberboard plant in Las Vegas. The local politicians loved it because they were bringing in economic development and jobs, and for an area like San Miguel County, the power of the politician, the political, comes from the jobs that he can deliver.

This company that would have 150 jobs, it's the largest private business in the county, would wheel a lot of power to the politicians that would support it and have relationship with it. PNM, Public Service Company in New Mexico, had difficulties in operating it. It was then sold to another company that had connections with PNM, and they had difficulty making a profit. In May of 1989, it was sold to Medite of Oregon, from Medford, Oregon, the largest fiberboard company, producing company in the world. They have a plant in Medford, Oregon, and also plant in Ireland, and they took over. They bought this plant from metal resources, which was kind of a shady deal because there

was about 19 million owed on the plant, and they sold it to Medite of Oregon for about 12 million. They bought it at a real, real good price, but there's been all kinds of investigations about Public Service Company in New Mexico. Their stock has dropped way low because of those bad business deals. When Medite of Oregon took over, they went into 24-hour operation. A previous to that, they had like 12-hour shift, but then they went into 24-hour operation to really make a go of it, and that's a lot of the problems and proceeded that time, but they continued and escalated, especially with the regard to the health and safety of the workers.

The workers tried to unionize, and they formed a union and tried to negotiate a contract with a company. The company would not negotiate a contract. So on June 11th of 1990, about 70 workers, union workers, went out on strike. The strike lasted for 133 days. It was a non-violent strike, which we were very concerned about, and when they asked me to work with them, our concern was that it remained that type of strike dealing with the issues and not get into violence. In October 24th of 1990, the plant had a vote for desertification. 52 workers that stayed out on strike, because 18 of them went back to work, were replaced by the company, refused to really negotiate or deal with them anymore, and then with

a desertification vote in October 24th, there was no longer a union. But before then, the Southwest Organizing Project, which is a community organization, basically working in Albuquerque dealing with people of color, environmental, social justice issues, I'm a member of the organization, and also a member of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, which is an eight-state community-based organization of people of color, Native American, Afro-American, Hispanic, Chicano. We supported the workers and their families, and even after the union was desertified, we've continued as a community-based organization, and SWAP provided the Southwest Organizing Project, Richard Moore, Jean Gauna, co-directors, provided so much technical support, and also

physical presence support, because we had no support from city government, county government, state officials. Las Vegas was the plant was economic. You were just ending up talking about SWAP. The Southwest Organizing Project has been around for about ten years, and very involved in the community organizing and dealing with people of color in Albuquerque, primarily the Mexican-American, Chicano communities, and in Albuquerque. Mainly with environmental issues that had always been concerned to people of color, but not termed environmental. The community under the Southwest Organizing Project and the community that was formed

from the strikers, the families, have met with the Attorney General and have asked Tom Udall, who is our State Attorney General, came into office in January of this year. 31, to conduct an investigation into this criminal offense, and we feel that the local authorities, the District Attorney, is too tied in with a political system that is using economic blackmail against the people of this county. We cannot get a fair hearing. We have not been able to get any cooperation on these issues of health and safety of the community and the workers. So Tom Udall, the Attorney General for the State of New Mexico, has begun the investigation and is working with Jesus Lopez, District Attorney, to try to see what they will do about

this incident. We also, on the environmental aspects, we are working with National Defense Council in our DC, out of Washington DC, to conduct investigation, possible suit against Medaid of Oregon for the pollution. What is the, how does it work for your future? You're here for how many more years? I'm here till the personnel border or the Bishop decides that it's time for me to go to a different parish. How long could that be? It could be for another three months, it could be for another three years. And could they send you almost anywhere? Within the diocese, within the State of New Mexico. So you would stay in New Mexico? Yes. Important for you to stay in New Mexico?

Very. Very important. Why? You know, I traveled outside New Mexico, I went to graduate school at Berkeley in California, went to graduate school in San Antonio, Texas, I've worked in Colorado, I went to school in Cincinnati. The bond for me between the culture and the people and the land is very powerful here. I really do not feel whole when I'm from here, away from here rather. Even when I leave and I come back, there is an undesirable sense of the land welcoming me home and being at home. And it's very difficult, it would be very difficult for me to live away from New Mexico. I wouldn't want to.