The Value of Adobe.
Cesar Chavez/Dolores Huerta Day March 25, 2023
New Mexico can be both home and a complex, inscrutable place. I’ve seen it respond to new people and different groups with both open and closed arms. I’ve experienced the warmth of recognition between people who have experienced the same, sometimes small area of the state.
I wasn’t born here. My mother was Mexican. I was shocked when I came here, by the diversity of Chicanos/Hispanics and their histories. One time, when I’d been here for several years, my students asked if I would leave New Mexico. I looked at my arms and said, “my veins have become acequias, how can I leave?” New Mexico can come to own us.
But I worry for New Mexico. I’ve been thinking a lot about colonialism and its impact on culture. I’m a big fan of Cheech Marin’s essay, What is a Chicano. In some ways, we are all Chicano, but colonialism pushes out different cultures and identities, here and there, and intentionally erases history because of lack of space and time and because history reminds us of who we are and who has come before us. Colonialism is based on in-group/out-group dynamics, and, because in-groups form so naturally, it takes a lot of work to see what is happening and identify ways to change it. I think of US territories, England and Ireland, Britain and India and it makes me wonder how colonialism gets disrupted gently and how traditional knowledge survives.
We had a provost at UNM many years ago, Mary Sue Coleman. She moved in gently to New Mexico and was good for UNM. Her first year, I took her to the feast at a student’s family home in San Felipe Pueblo. At one point, I got a little nervous because I couldn’t find her. When I found her in the kitchen, doing dishes, I knew she would be good for us all.
But Mary Sue wasn’t New Mexican and years after she left to be president of U Iowa and then U Michigan, I asked her what the greatest lesson she had learned from being here was. She replied, “I learned how much you can do with nothing.” She said, “when Michigan faculty come to me pleading poverty, I have to laugh.” I know that New Mexico teaches us different things — while some learn what you can do with little, others learn stories and traditions and the warmth of community.
And that brings me to the value of adobe. For my last 15 years at UNM, I taught imagination to STEM seniors and graduate students. Incredibly, they could close their eyes and not see any images of what they had learned. They had forgotten, through years of being rewarded for memorization, how to access their imaginations, whether they were any good at it, and if it was worth the effort to re-learn (yes, re-learn) how to do it. In the end, it became their superpower.
One of the exercises, in teaching imagination is to ask students to list all the things you can do with a brick. You can look this up on the internet. But, in imagining paths forward in New Mexico, I realized a better question is “what can you do with adobe”?
A reason this has been in my mind, is that our history and ancestry is so important for understanding our present, wherever we come from. My mother always said, “What you don’t appreciate, you soon lose.” What I see sometimes is an almost active forgetting of people, especially women of color — but not just them — who have accomplished things all over our state. We let the National Indian Finals Rodeo, the Arabian horse shows go elsewhere. As new buildings rise and cut off mountain views, we lose the calming influence of our natural surroundings and traditional architecture. We forget how to talk with each other, ask each other questions, and even laugh. We forget the superpowers of remembering and reminding.
So, New Mexicans who have been here for generations, and those who have not, stand to gain from thinking about the value of adobe in more than just dollars and cents. Soft corners, warm walls, edges that tell stories. Adobe will make houses and walls, warm a bed or a body, art, bookends, bancos, hot plates, paper weights, keep the floor near a wood stove safe and warm, what more? See how it makes us imagine and remember? Adobe is the soft solid that has protected and nurtured New Mexicans forever. It has listened to our music and stories, and our tears.
I find it hard to stop imagining these days. Most recently, I wonder if a question has the power to open hearts and minds, change direction, bring us together, or make us love and remember ourselves and our ancestors more. What is the path forward? Can we stop to listen in these noisy times? Can we move together, align our voices? So many things happened 50 years ago when change was needed. It is needed even more today. Our heritage, nuestra querencia, and our imaginations are our superpowers. What needs to be said, thought, done, or shared?
I close my eyes and imagine we discover the first step in our path forward through a collective sharing of what is in our hearts, what we value, and remembering the value of adobe.
More: for photos of UNM Chicana and Chicano Studies (CCS) Students experiencing this history, go here: https://www.miculturacura.org/tierra-amarilla
CCS offers on-line and in-person BA, MA, and PhD degrees. If you are a high school or middle school teacher or working and interested in Chicana/o Studies, contact UNM CCS https://chicanos.unm.edu/ to learn more about opportunities.
