Cuartocentenario

Published with permission from the Santa Fe New Mexican

Indian and Hispanic: Two Cultures, One History and One Family

By Daniel J. Chacon – April 26, 1998

SAN JUAN PUEBLO—A tour of Alfredo and Mae Montoya’s traditional adobe home near San Juan Pueblo is a journey into two worlds, a place filled with reminders of how two cultures have blended over the four centuries since Spaniards founded their first permanent settlement here.

A bow and arrow passed down to Mae Montoya by her godfather rests on the living room’s north wall. A collection of woven baskets encircles the top of another room—baskets that once belonged to Mae Montoya’s grandmother, who traded with Apaches.

A drum made with animal skin sits on brown tile. And a dipper gourd once used for drinking has a special place on a shelf.

Wooden santos given to Alfredo Montoya by his close friend make an impression at the entrances to the kitchen and the living room.

Then there’s the picture of the Last Supper. And the candle in a glass container bearing the image of a Roman Catholic saint, which when lit radiates a relaxing and spiritual feeling in the house.

This is the dwelling of a Hispanic family. It’s also the home of an Indian family. But for the Montoyas, it’s just home.

Alfredo, who grew up in the San Juan and Alcalde area, is of Spanish descent. Mae is from San Juan Pueblo and is American Indian . The two, once high school sweethearts who later fell in love again, married more than 20 years ago and now have two children of mixed blood.

“Our family, and especially our kids, can have the best of two worlds,” said Alfredo Montoya, a Rio Arriba County commissioner who is seeking a third consecutive term. “They’re not lost. They always have roots that go real deep. They’re real blessed.”

“I think it’s an advantage to both of them,” Mae Montoya, an elementary teacher of 19 years, said of their children. “I think it’s been great because they get to share two cultures. I think it’s a wonderful feeling and something they should be really proud of.”

“We’ve taught them to be proud of both,” Alfredo Montoya added. “They have something very few people have—two cultures.”

With this combination of cultures comes a double dose of traditions, customs, religious beliefs and languages, Alfredo Montoya said. He speaks Spanish fluently. His wife speaks Tewa with ease. Each has learned to speak bits of the other’s language, although Mae Montoya knows more Spanish that her husband knows Tewa.

Their children, 19-year-old Tañia, whose Indian name is Fall Flower, and Mario, 15, whose Indian name is Ice Mountain, both of the San Juan Pueblo Winter Clan, understand and are beginning to speak more Spanish. Tewa is still unfamiliar to the younger Montoyas. But through their mother’s side of the family, they are able to participate in the pueblo’s religious ceremonies.

The blending of cultures through intermarriage has been ongoing since the Spanish first set foot in the Americas centuries ago, creating a new population of people called mestizos, where Indian and Spanish bloodlines merged.

Don Juan de Oñate, the first Spanish governor of New Mexico, himself fathered two mestizo children.

Oñate, who during the cuatrocentenario observance is being remembered for founding the first permanent Spanish settlement in the United States, married a woman of Indian blood. She was Isabel de Tolosa Cortès Moctezuma, granddaughter of Fernando Cortès and his native mistress Isabel Moctezuma—the child of the late Aztec emperor.

Even in Spain, before explorers had set sail over an immeasurable ocean, intermarriage between the Spanish and others, mainly the Moors, was not uncommon, said Tom Chávez, a historian and director of the Palace of the Governors.

“Spain came here with a history of mixed culture anyway. Even the nobility didn’t have pure blood,” he said. “(Some conquistadors) wanted to create a new society—a model society of mixture. It was not unusual for them to intermarry with the people they met.”

Renè Harris, director of the El Paso Museum of History, agreed, saying that the Spaniards had already blended with the Celts, Romans and other groups by the time they landed in the Americas.

“You have a tremendous blending of cultures in the Iberian peninsula. Spain is very regional; Spain is not an entity by itself,” she said. “Each culture will have an influence on each other if they live in proximity for a long enough period.”

Estevan Arellano, director of the Oñate Monument and Visitors Center north of Española, said that while some people still claim they are of full Spanish or Indian descent, it’s highly unlikely anyone is of “pure blood” anymore.

“I think those people are delusional,” he said. “I think they’re stretching the envelope too far. It’s easier to brush it aside when you don’t understand history than to find out who you really are and find out who your ancestors are.”

“Culturally,” Chávez said, “none of us are pure.”

No one knows that better than the Montoya family, who will be at San Juan Pueblo today when the 19 leaders of the Pueblo Nation meet for the first time with government officials from Spain, including First Vice President Francisco Alvarez-Cascos.

“I acknowledge the Indian blood in me, the Spanish, my Mexicano—we’re all mixed,” Alfredo Montoya said. “We acknowledge that we’re of mixed blood already. There’s so much sharing—there’s that connection already.”