Pueblos of New Mexico

by Ana Pacheco, Brian Vallo (Foreword)

As early as 1851, photographers journeyed along the arduous Santa Fe Trail on horseback and in covered wagons on a quest to capture the magnificent vistas on film. In the ever-changing light of New Mexico's landscape, they photographed the faces of the Pueblo People and helped to document their ancient, unimaginable world. They became witness to millennia of history. New Mexico's first inhabitants are believed to have descended from the Anasazi, the largely nomadic group that settled along the Colorado Plateau around 200 AD. Most likely, drought conditions brought the population centers of the Anasazi villages located in the Four Corners of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico to settle along the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico and the Mogollon Rim of Arizona in 1300 AD.

128 pages, Paperback

Published August 6, 2018

About the author

Ana Pacheco, 57, is the daughter of Jesús Pacheco and Natalie Ortiz. Her Ortiz ancestors settled in Santa Fe in 1694. Ana’s mother, Natalie Ortiz, was a descendant of Diego de Vargas who led the resettlement of Santa Fe after the Pueblo Revolt of 1692. Don Gaspar Street in Santa Fe is named after Natalie’s great-great grandfather, Don Gaspar Ortiz. The Ortiz Room at the Santa Fe Hilton Hotel and Ortiz Street located in the plaza area is named in honor of Eleanor and Beatrice Ortiz, Natalie’s aunt and grandmother, respectively. Her Pacheco ancestors arrived in Santa Cruz, N.M. in 1739 and moved to Santa Fe in the late 1800s. The busy thoroughfare Pacheco Street is named after Ana’s great-great grandfather Jose de la Cruz Pacheco

In 1976 Pacheco moved to New York City and three years later began her publishing career. She has held various positions with entertainment, Hispanic and financial service publications as an advertising and marketing executive and wrote free-lance articles for different magazines.
She returned to Santa Fe in 1992 after living in New York for sixteen years to care for her mother who had fourth-stage breast cancer. When her mother died 18 months later she decided to stay in Santa Fe. In 1994 she founded La Herencia, a quarterly journal dedicated to the preservation of Hispanic culture, which she published through 2009. In 2010 she published the official publication for the City of Santa Fe’s 400th anniversary, which included a youth symposium and journal published in the Santa Fe New Mexican.

In addition to publishing La Herencia, Pacheco published and edited four books: Las Comidas de los Abuelos, a cookbook featuring authentic northern New Mexico recipes. ¡Concha!: The Authorized Biography of Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven, Matriarch of a Three Hundred Year Old New Mexico Legacy, Albuquerque Feliz Cumpleaños: Three Centuries to Remember and Saints & Seasons: A Guide to New Mexico’s Most Popular Saints, which she authored as well.

During that time she served on the Board of Directors for the National Hispanic Cultural Center for the state of New Mexico for seven years. She hosted a weekly Hispanic radio show for Citadel Communications for three years. Pacheco also served on the Wells Fargo Community Advisory Board and Santa Fe Fiesta Foundation board for several years.

In 2010 Pacheco became a Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. The award was in appreciation of tangible and significant assistance given for the furtherance of better understanding and friendly relations among people of the world. In 2009 Pacheco received a Certificate of Appreciation from Santa Fe County for her work with the Hispanic and elderly communities in Santa Fe. She received the 2008 Heritage Preservation Award by the City of Santa Fe for Excellence in Community Traditions for her work with
La Herencia. She’s a 2007 recipient of the New Mexico Community Foundation Luminaria award for her leadership and contributions to the state of New Mexico. In September 2006 in Denver, Colorado, Pacheco was awarded two national awards by the National Association of Press Women. The first award, in the inspirational book category, as the author of Saints & Seasons: A Guide to New Mexico’s Most Popular Saints. The second award, in the history category, was for editing, Albuquerque Feliz Cumpleaños: Three Centuries to Remember.

Pacheco was a 2004 recipient of the Governor's Award for outstanding women of New Mexico. In 2004 she also received an award from PEN New Mexico for her efforts to preserve Hispanic culture, history and language. PEN New Mexico is the state's affiliate of the largest international professional association of writers, editors, and translators.

From 2007 through September 2013, Pacheco wrote the weekly column A Wonderful Life for the Santa Fe New Mexican, documenting the oral histories of the elder community. Her biography, J. Paul Taylor: The Man from Mesilla was pu

Reviews

[Victoria Rodrigues · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing archival photos. Some of the writing tried too hard to tie the historical information to a particular photo in a roundabout way.

[W F · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a little handbook with black-and-white photos of the 19 pueblos in NM. These photos all come from Museum of New Mexico Photo Archives, some depicting ceremonial dances that you typically don’t get to see or photo nowadays. “Ebb and flow” is how I’d describe the Spanish influence and Catholicism on the native population. There seemed to be different alliances among different pueblos with the Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, showing that history is not always black and white (pun intended). I also get to learn the dark side of living in an isolated society (witch-hunting, thereby dwindling their own population significantly to the edge of extinction) and the harsh reality facing people living in these settlements (weather, drought, flood, war, raids by neighboring tribes, religious/unjust trials). Overall a wonderful learning experience though I doubt I’ll re-read it. I also wish the book could feature fewer Spanish church pictures and more on traditional faith systems of the Pueblos.

[Roxanne Brook · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book to delve into my own ancestry in New Mexico. It is so fun to learn how distinct each Pueblo was to one another. The Tiwa, Tewa, Towa, Zuni and Southern Tiwa all had different languages. It was also enlightening to learn that the surname Vigil comes from the Tesque Pueblo that is part of the Tewa language. The pictures were also great to walk us through the time period.

[Julie Bowen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative with a lot of images. It's concise and engaging.