Dr. Estevan Rael-Galvez
A native son carries our past into the future
Dr. Estevan Rael-Galvez has, since becoming the state historian of New Mexico in 2001, spearheaded the creation of the New Mexico Digital History Project, a website that makes oral histories, historic documents, and essays accessible to the public. Affable and passionate, this Generation-X New Mexican speaks with Santa Fean about the future of history.
You’re not just studying any history—you’re studying your own history. How has this affected your work?
It has forced me to address those issues of my own subjectivity. There is a myth about objectivity in both of our disciplines—yours as a reporter, and mine in a discipline largely defined by methodology that says you must be distant from the objects of study. I think that’s a false construct. If we just reveal the nakedness of why we’re writing what we’re writing, it becomes better writing.
Why are you writing what you are writing?
Because I care deeply about telling stories that have not been told. I think the stories of subaltern classes—slaves, women, indigenous people—have largely been excluded.
Regarding the nakedness of your subjectivity: How does your upbringing relate to your work?
I grew up in two small towns in Northern New Mexico: Questa and Costilla. My father was a sheep rancher and a farmer. I couldn’t wait to leave. I hated growing up in a rural setting. I wasn’t a very good farmer; I always lost the sheep, always lost the water. My mother was always telling me poetry and stories as a way to understand where I had come from. And my father wanted me to understand the power of language to move me out of the places I was born into. He valued where he was from, but he also knew that there was more for me. My grandmothers also passed on the memories of those who came before them—indigenous people who were enslaved. The weaving above my desk is a testament to this. According to these stories, the woman who wove this blanket was a Navajo, captured in the mid–19th century and raised in Abiquiú. She was my ancestor.
Do you see yourself in a continuum of storytellers of the past?
Absolutely. I would draw on Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, who has been described as a dangerously radical storyteller. He says, “I’m not a historian; I’m an educator, I’m a storyteller who would like to contribute to the rescue of the kidnapped memory of my land and my people.” If I can rise to that challenge then I’m doing my job.
What’s been overlooked in New Mexico history?
In the book that I am working on now, which is based on my dissertation, I put forth the argument that slavery is foundational to the development of this entire landscape, but that has been obscured because slavery was illegal in New Mexico. Slavery was what [French social theorist Michel] Foucault would call a “tolerated illegality.”
It seems to be the norm in Nuevomexicano culture to claim pure Spanish ancestry. If it’s not true, what supports its continuing popularity?
Based on years of archival research, it is clear to me that mestizaje—generations of racial and cultural mixing—largely shaped the identities of people in New Mexico. Certainly, the elite class carried with them a sense of purity. Later, civic leaders and many people who moved to Santa Fe fashioned a myth that defined three cultures and cultivated a Spanish heritage fantasy. This was fueled by denial more than it was based on anything tangible.
And what’s overlooked in Santa Fe history?
Let me cite from Galeano: “Identity is no museum piece, sitting stop-still under a piece of glass. It is, instead, the astonishing synthesis of the contradictions of everyday life.” The Santa Fe city ordinance—as good as it was for preserving buildings that were being thrown down 50 years ago—created an artificial museum piece, with faux-adobe walls, that we now call Santa Fe. And it literally stuccoed—cemented—people’s understanding of what this city is all about.
And turning that stucco back to liquid form is part of your job?
If we are doing our job, as good preservationists, we’re understanding that a city has to live and has to change.
It’s often been observed that American culture at large is becoming ahistorical. Do you feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle?
I actually don’t. We are fortunate to live in a place that is hyper-conscious of the past and the value of history. Unfortunately, a lot of that is misinformed and based on mythology. I see my battle more as breaking through the myths than breaking through the apathy.
What do you hope to accomplish with the Digital History Project?
Knowledge continues to be a privileged commodity. This Digital History Project shifts that paradigm. It makes history not just more meaningful, but much more accessible than it’s ever been. It connects people; it connects generations. It reflects a shifting model of how people think about and experience the past. Many people see knowledge as ubiquitous and free-flowing, rather than as an elite commodity. Prior to the printing press, information was conveyed almost entirely by either governing officials or clerics. The printing press democratized it. Suddenly people could actually write books and contest those histories. Now, not everyone has a computer; but more do than are able to visit the New Mexico State Archives. My basic philosophy is that history is a contest of stories. History, like memory, is intangible. If we are going to scrutinize the change of memory, we should also scrutinize a historical document.
What will the portrayal of history look like in the future?
I imagine kids walking down the street, listening to their elders tell the story of the history of that street on their iPods—that’s my vision.
Delve into our state’s past with the Digital History Project, newmexicohistory.org
