Memories of Cibola: Stories from New Mexico Villages

Let Abe Pena transport you to a Hispanic New Mexico village. There in San Mateo and in the nearby town of Grants, he introduces us to relatives and friends from his youth on his family s sheep ranch. His stories of their lives and experiences between the 1920s and the 1950s speak to such universal themes as coming of age, striking out on one s own, and joining family and neighbors to celebrate good times and to aid them in overcoming hardships. Though San Mateo was a remote village, its residents were a remarkable cross-section of humanity. We meet Lebanese immigrant children who grew up primarily speaking Spanish and who proudly exclaimed Yo soy mexicano, casi (Im Hispanic, almost). When a religious procession done in hopes of bringing rain results instead in hail, the villagers organize a second procession and parade their patron saint to show him the mess he made. And an aged Navajo, in allowing cattle to be driven across his land, asks only that they go by his hogans door so he can hear and smell them.