I didn’t know it at the time, but writing this piece was hugely important for me. I had tried, and failed, to write New Mexican pieces before this, but this was the first one that felt like it had my fingerprints all over it instead of a cheap imitation. This piece, and the passing of my grandfather, taught me that culture is a practice, not a goal. It isn’t something you file away and revisit years later, it’s something you cultivate and grow. Writing this piece felt true to me as a New Mexican, and an American, because I was done trying to be somebody I wasn’t, and I began to realize that I needed to work on things that were relevant to me and my experience in the world.

I’ve had the great privilege of studying at amazing institutions with wonderful mentors, but I spent most of my time (against their advice) trying to be them. No matter how wonderful somebody is, what I realized is when you try and copy them, what you’re trying to copy is the experience of their ancestors. Though not impossible, it’s culture building in a condensed time frame, not unlike assimilation. Aaron Copland wrote music that brings me to tears, but who’s to say he’s the only composer worthy of being called American? Why can’t my ancestors – beautiful, persevering, flawed – be my inspiration as an American? The collection of experiences that have led to my existence, and my skills, could have only precisely happened here in the United States. Their history, our history, is older than the United States itself. I remember growing up and learning about American history in high school, and I was struck by how Northeast focused it was. I read about Boston, New York, Philadelphia, but never Albuquerque, El Paso, or Santa Fe where my family has lived for hundreds, likely thousands of years. Generations of future Americans fought, loved, and died over land, treaties, and representation. Latino culture is indigenous culture that frequently forgets its indigenous roots, and that forgetting is because of forced assimilation over many generations from outside as well as within. Beans and corn didn’t come from the Iberian Peninsula, that’s for sure. I had ancestors who spoke Spanish and because of them I can as well, yes, but we as New Mexicans also have ancestors who spoke Tewa, now only spoken by 1,000 or fewer individuals. Blood may tell us where we come from, but it tells us nothing about how we came to be.

Knowledge is fragile. Like the Library of Alexandria, what seems permanent can be easily taken for granted, and each generation is forced to make a choice of what to prioritize. I can’t undo the generational wounds that have forced living New Mexicans to forget the cultural sacrifices our predecessors underwent to allow us to exist, but I can make a choice as an individual to throw another log on the fire that is my cultural practice. Forgetting is easy, it’s remembering that takes work. The best I can hope to do is engage in conversation with those closest to me. When I’m guided by my elders, what I make will be truly New Mexican. When I eschew their contributions to my life, I’m making choices for my children as well who will never know any different. 

If I want future generations to have access to the beauty that I enjoy in this life, then I need to personally contribute to my culture. That doesn’t mean what I make will be unamerican, rather, what I make will be all the more American for it.