'Hidalgos at long last': A genealogical-interpretive history of the Hispano people, 1480--2004 (New Mexico, Colorado)

In the spring of 1598, a group of Spanish families led by Don Juan de Oñate settled along the upper Rio Grande Valley and founded the Kingdom and Provinces of New Mexico. For the past four hundred and five years, these settlers and their descendants have played a key part in the history of the area now known as the American Southwest. These “Hispanos,” a people of mixed European and Indian ancestry, include approximately 540,000 individuals living today.; Unfortunately, most academic and popular histories of the United States pay little attention to the historical experience of the Hispanos. Even texts devoted to the study of U.S. Hispanic cultures often fail to distinguish the Hispanos from the broader Mexican-American population of the Southwest. Hispano readers are thus left with the impression that their history has been tangential to the main narrative of American history and that their forebears were essentially victims of history rather than makers of history. Indeed, Hispanos are often told that they are not truly a people at all, but that their longstanding concern with family history and pride in their Spanish roots only isolates them from their Mexican-American neighbors.; A careful study of the key events in Hispano history, from the formative experience in late Medieval Spain down to the present time, will demonstrate that the Hispanos possess a history and folk culture that indeed make them a distinct people. Through a study of their history with particular attention to how their direct ancestors met the greatest challenges in their lives, Hispanos can develop a more positive self-image that will not only protect them against the neglect and hostility they often face from the wider culture but that might inspire them to more effectively shape the history of the Southwest after a century and a half of cultural retrenchment. Through their collective story of survival in the face of prodigious difficulties and their unbroken devotion to faith, family, and community, the Hispanos have apparently become, in the words of Fray Angélico Chávez, the great Hispano genealogist, “hidalgos [that is, a noble people] at long last.”...