Book description
New Mexico's Española Valley is situated in the northern part of the
state between the fabled Sangre de Cristo and Jemez Mountains. Many of
the Valley's communities have roots in the Spanish and Mexican periods
of colonization, while the Native American Pueblos of Ohkay Owingeh
and Santa Clara are far older. The Valley's residents include a large
Native American population, an influential "Anglo" or
"non-Hispanic white" minority, and a growing Mexican
immigrant community. In spite of the varied populace, native New
Mexican Latinos, or Nuevomexicanos, remain the majority and retain
control of area politics.
In this experimental ethnography, Michael Trujillo presents a vision
of Española that addresses its denigration by neighbors--and some of
its residents--because it represents the antithesis of the positive
narrative of New Mexico. Contradicting the popular notion of New
Mexico as the "Land of Enchantment," a fusion of race,
landscape, architecture, and food into a romanticized commodity,
Trujillo probes beneath the surface to reveal the causes of social
dysfunction brought about by colonization and te transition from a
pastoral to an urban economy.
Michael L. Trujillo is assistant professor of American and Chicano
Hispano Mexicano Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. He
earned his PhD in anthropology from the University of Texas, Austin in
2005. This is his first book.
