HOUSE MEMORIAL 54

52nd legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - second session, 2016

INTRODUCED BY

Patricia Roybal Caballero

A MEMORIAL

DECLARING THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 2-8, 2016, "CHICANO-HISPANO HISTORY WEEK" AT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

     WHEREAS, the conclusion of the Mexican-American War on February 2, 1848 saw the formal relinquishment of Mexican claims to its former territory in Texas and the transfer of five hundred twenty-five thousand square miles of additional land from Mexico to the United States; and

     WHEREAS, former Mexican lands now comprise all or part of eight states in the American west, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Texas, which became part of the United States following the war; and

     WHEREAS, in 1848, tens of thousands of people, who had been Mexican citizens and who were then termed "Mexican Americans", lived in and comprised large portions of the populace in each of the new American territories and states; and

     WHEREAS, these new American citizens lived in communities established as Spanish settlements and colonies hundreds of years earlier; spoke Spanish not English; and had developed a unique and rich culture built on Spanish and Mexican origins and influenced by neighboring American Indian communities; and

     WHEREAS, most Mexican American communities in the 1800s were farming and ranching communities, and a key element of their economy was communal use of community lands, a legal construct that had almost vanished in the rest of the United States; and

     WHEREAS, after the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, the single largest governmental, social and cultural challenge faced by New Mexico and much of the American west was how to accommodate the wave of migration from the midwestern and eastern states while maintaining the established economy and culture; and

     WHEREAS, the generations following the Mexican-American War were marked by various systematic failures to meet this challenge. In many cases, the existing culture was displaced and the established residents were dispossessed of their lands; and

     WHEREAS, New Mexico is unique in the American west in that although there was broad economic disruption of Mexican American communities following the war, it was not nearly as extensive in New Mexico as in other states. Further, not only were many of the pre-war cultural traditions retained by New Mexico's community land grants, acequias, moradas and barrios, but those traditions continue to be revitalized by each new generation; and

     WHEREAS, in the mid-1900s, the descendants of "Mexican Americans" began to refer to themselves more and more as "Chicanos", a term allowing for cultural identity but also distinctly American; and

     WHEREAS, the decades following World War II witnessed the emergence of dynamic Chicano influences on the national American culture, politics and economics; and

     WHEREAS, poets, novelists and movie writers such as Josephina Niggli, Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros and Luis Valdez have created a cultural dialogue that has expanded the meaning of "American"; and

     WHEREAS, American jazz, pop and rock and roll have been heavily influenced by musicians and bands such as Eduardo "Lalo" Guerrero, Al Hurricane, Don Tostí, Carlos Santana, Los Lobos, Linda Ronstadt and Ozomatli; and

     WHEREAS, the structure of America's politics and economy has changed, and Chicanos have gained a stronger footing within American society, in part through the activism of Edward Ross "Ed" Roybal and the community service organization; Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, who founded the united farm workers; and Pedro "Pete" Tijerina, Jr., and the Mexican American legal defense and education fund; and

     WHEREAS, today, Chicano children sometimes dream of being astronauts and might not even realize they would be following in the footsteps of former space shuttle crew members Ellen Ochoa and José M. Hernandez; and

     WHEREAS, more recently, many Chicanos and other Americans of Spanish cultural heritage have adopted the term "Hispano" as a more acceptable and applicable term for cultural identity in New Mexico;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the week of February 2-8, 2016, be declared "Chicano-Hispano History Week" at the house of representatives; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this memorial be transmitted to the secretary of cultural affairs.

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