| The West is still untamed in rural New Mexico. Despite what Santa Fe shop owners might have you believe, no turquoise coyotes bay at pink moons on blue mesas; no shellacked rattlers slither through seas of sage and saltbush; no metallic hunchbacked flute players serenade tourists. This is New Mexico, where the antelope really do play on the plains against sierra vistas, where cows apathetically stroll out in front of traffic, and where one, rather unpleasantly, sweats mud. |
| The true enchantment of New Mexico's country towns is the historical interplay between Pueblo, Navajo, Apache, Mexican, and European influences, resulting in a unique architectural, artistic, and culinary blend. But these towns have ridden out the jack rabbit and burro cycles of prosperity. They have felt the brunt of the Spanish Conquest, the Mexican War, American expansionism, land wars, and, yes, even the Civil War. The glorious and brutal past of New Mexico continues to sculpt the character of her towns today. |
| Yesterday in small town New Mexico emanates from those who did not abandon it. For many of the backbone citizens whose ancestors opened the frontier, the edge between getting by and not is still rather thin. Opinions run strong and conservative, though no town is without its vanguard of visionaries. One's genealogical heritage, as bittersweet as it may be, provides continuity, and for some, the past constitutes an avocation, a living, even an obsession. But not all residents are natives. Many are big-city refugees who answered an inaudible call to be our cultural custodians, and they've filled in the gap with their financial backing and drive. The stigma of being a newcomer demands tenacity, yet when you get right down to it, we are all newcomers to this land. |
| I am a native New Mexican, born and raised in Albuquerque, a metropolis by contrast and light years away from places like Ramah |
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