Taos and the History of Ideas: Propaganda v. Scholarship: Reading List

The response to the renaming of Kit Carson Park by the Taos Town Council has resulted in a wonderful discussion. Ironically, the supporters of the change have engaged in a “propaganda” campaign while the loyal opposition has written letters, columns, and posted responses on various news sites, smacking of scholarly argument based on evidence. But scholarship always loses out to “propaganda’s” perverse rhetorical effects and the power of politics. You can win the argument but lose the battle for hearts and minds.

It appears that the representatives of the Town and their supporters of the name change have engaged in a kind of retrograde 1970s “politically correct” reductio ad absurdum marketing approach to history. They are punishing the dastardly white man, a symbol of untoward anti-social acts and heinous barbarism (historically and currently). By elevating “hurt feelings” to a principle of policy and engaging in futile acts of “reconciliation,” the Council and its supporters can purge their liberal guilt or appeal to the alleged righteousness of their ancestors. The subsequent catharsis might even result in a kind of “I feel good” moment: sing it like James Brown or do like Muhammad Ali— float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Taosenos must be right because the U.S. Federal Patent office, too, has made a point about the incorrect insult to Indians by the Washington D.C. professional football team, a team named after a city, named for George Washington, which name also commemorates an “Indian Killer” aka “the father of our country.” Unfortunately the team included a moniker, “Redskins,” a racist nickname as part of its marketing program. Washington also bears the initials, D.C for District of Columbia (named for Columbus).

Some of us are paying for the sins of our white fathers.

In a column published in The Taos News, Sylvia Rodríguez, Rebecca Hall, Peggy Nelson, Thom Allena and Fabi Romero, say, “The point is that the act of naming the park, not to mention the entire national forest and so many other local venues for him, constituted an official proclamation that there is only one true version of history: that of the victors.”

I have apparently been under the misguided belief that history was alive and well in Taos due to the juxtaposition of Taos Pueblo, Kit Carson Park et al, the cemetery, and Manby’s grave (symbol of developers and bankers), Taos aka Don Fernando de Taos, land grant activists, acequia culturalists, the extant communards, second homers, multicultural artists, etc. The “myth of the three cultures” living together in a mutual atmosphere of distrust has now been disturbed by a 1970s juggernaut of political correctness. We must heal ourselves. Since Kit Carson himself was illiterate, we can’t blame the man but must blame the symbol used by one group to tell a story but not the real story. What is the real story?

Since the late 60s and early 70s, the academics and scholars have adapted to notions of multicultural studies and improved scholarship in the 21st Century.  Still, there are those who believe a kind of Marxist materialism is responsible for all political and social ills associated with colonialism. Indeed, Capitalism and the Catholic faith, the imposition of the Spanish and American ways on Taos and Taos Pueblo, can be scapegoated and blamed for the presence of corrupt politicos and the repression, for instance,  of women at Taos Pueblo. But don’t mention the historic patterns of patriarchal culture.

The notion that history is written by the victors is just another cliché used by the propagandists to persuade politicos that “we (others) know what’s best.” The Homeric epics, The Iliad and Odyssey, were immediately re-written and their epic values re-conceived by Plato and the tragedians in 5th Century BCE Athens. Then the Roman Virgil rewrote the story of the real victors in the Aeneid. One epoch reacts to another, incorporates and synthesizes ideas, and transforms them, just as Marx transformed ideas of capitalism and religion in the 19th Century.  Still capitalism appeals to the forbidden vices of avarice, greed, and sloth, which vices are much criticized by the ancient philosophers and the church founders. Marx criticized it all. His impact remains with us but Marxism (class warfare) doesn’t account for all the idiosyncrasies of human and cultural behavior. You can’t always blame the white man for existential choices made by individuals and cultural groups—though he is a self-made bastard.

Rodriguez et al write: “It remains to be seen whether the opportunity you have given Taoseños is utilized to its fullest potential and ultimately put to constructive, educational use. We admit the odds in favor of this are not great. But at last city leaders have opened the door.” Ever the academic idealist, Rodriguez hopes that folks will read and inform themselves. Alas, practical experience suggests they will not.

Here’s an incomplete list of books I have assigned students for courses at UNM Taos in the upper division during the last four years or so. It doesn’t mean they necessarily read them though we did talk about them and they occasionally wrote papers. I have put an asterisk by a few books to point out their importance as a kind of minimum standard. I’d be surprised if any politico in the Taos public sector beyond Tom Blankenhorn, Gene Sanchez and Arsenio Cordova has read more than one. The latter two activists read them in one of my classes.

The books listed are chosen for their relevance to Taos, language and accessibility to the non-professional reader, and for their effect on clarifying the issues. Books should be read in the context of history and weighed by readers in relation to each other and experience so that one gains a critical or analytical understanding of this complex community. I have learned much about the relevance of these books to Taos via my native and multicultural  students as well as alternative accounts of history they have proposed. Particularly, John Suazo of Taos Pueblo has written a wonderful piece called, The Man Who Really Killed the Deer. Richard Trujillo’s tales of Tio Zuco are unique in their contribution to local “Chicano culture.”

Listed alphabetically by author

Burke, Flannery: From Greenwich Village to Taos (University Press of Kansas)

*Forrest, Suzanne: The Preservation of the Village (UNM Press)

*Gordon-McCutchan, R.C. Taos Indians and the Battle for Blue Lake (UNM Press)

*Hassrick and Cunningham’s “In Contemporary Rhythm: The Art of Ernest L. Blumenschein” (University of Oklahoma Press)

Nichols, John: *The Milagro Beanfield War, The Magic Journey, The Nirvana Blues, (Ballantine).

Parsons, Elsie Clews: “Taos Tales” (Dover);

*Rodriguez, Sylvia, Acequia: Water Sharing, Sanctity, and Place (School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, NM).

Rodriguez, Sylvia: “Art, Tourism, and Race Relations in Taos: Toward a Sociology of the art Colony (Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 45, No.1. Spring 1988, pp. 77-99)

*Rudnick, Lois: Utopian Vision. (UNM Press).

*Sanchez, George I. Forgotten People

*Sides, Hampton: Blood and Thunder (Doubleday)

*Stuart, David: Anasazi America (UNM Press)

Waters, Frank: To Possess the Land (Ohio University press)

Waters, Frank: The Man Who Killed the Deer (Swallow Press/Ohio University Press)

Judge Peggy Nelson suggests the following for readers interested in multicultural points of view:

“Manifest Destinies: The making of the Mexican American Race” -Laura E. Gomez

“When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away” – Ramon A. Gutierrez

“Captives and Cousins” – James F. Brooks