Boot Prints in the Sand of Time

Boot Prints in the Sand of Time

by F. G. Lopriato y Lopez

For better or worst, New Mexico's past in firmly rooted in the Italian boot. The deeper one digs into the hard Caliche clay of The Land of Enchantment, the more evidant that indesputible fact becomes...

One has but to scan the pages of history of the Queen Mother City of the state, Albuquerque, to see that the pllars of her community are names such as: Domenici, Mattuecci, Franchini, Schifani, Brunachini, Bonaguidi, Dinelli, Giomi, Del Frati,

lecioni,Pucetti, etc and more Italian family names than we can list here, but the Rozzi's and De Blassis will remember.

Twice in its history Albuquerque has proudly numbered foreign born Italian immigrants as most prevalent in its census. Italians have been second only to Mexican foreign born immigrants in the city.

Why is it that first generation Italians faired so well in New Mexico? All kinds of conjectures have been handled every time that question is asked. From, "because everyone here is an immigrant in their own right" to " the Spanish culture, language, religion and temperament are similar." Youwould be closer to the truth if you choose the latter. The former has no basis in fact or in practice, but that is only part of the story.

First generation Italians didn't come here to colonize and exploit New Mexican society wit the intention of taking everything of value that was not nailed down and returning to their own home ground. No! They came here to be part of the society. To help it grow and to evolve together, improving as the society improved.

Oh Yes! There were many who came to line their own pockets. Some did just that and went back home, but most remained and became the best citizens in their town, county and state. Their children and grandchildren are now achieving national and international fame, Napolaone and Domenici for instance. By not resisting assimillation, Italian immigrants to New Mexico were able to slide into the vacuum created the the change in the state culture of New Mexico. Acting as a bridge bewteen a society that was undergoing transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society to a business society and from a Spanish speaking society to an English speaking society, from one system of education to another, and from one set of state values to another.

Was it Chance? The Will of God? Fate? Destiny? Or the experience of an older way of life that had already overcome similar conditions in the Old World? We'll never know, but one thing for certain is that Italian immigrant to New Mexico, even before the 1880's, rose higher and faster than Italians immigrants who chose Eastern states in which to settle. Italian immigrants to New Mexico may have been aware, but were not personally affected by Anti-Immigrant sentiments of the Nationalists Movement elsewhere that forced many Italians into isolation in "Little Italy's" seeking the aid of criminal organizations that expolited their own people.

You be the judge as we present the story of The Real Architects of New Mexico, in what promises to be last and longest series that the Wopajo Cry has ever undertaken.

The first Europeans, to set foot in what is now the Great American Southwest, were three survivors of the ill-fated Spanish expedition of what is now the State of Florida. What had begun as a sizeable force made up of several nationalities had been rebuffeted by the defending Indians of the peninsula, malaria and hunger which thinned their ranks. After killing their horse and eating the meat, they used the horse hides to fashion boats hoping to escape to Mexico via the Gulf, but the skins had not been allowed to cure enough and the boats sank in mid-sea. Three Spaniards and a black Moorish slave survived. (to be continued.)

SURVIVING THE 1930's-ITALIANS IN NEW MEXICO - #3

Antonio Domenici ran the Montezuma Grocery with his brother Cherubino. This picture was taken in front of his home at 407 North Fourth Street.

LA COLONIA SURVIVING THE 1930's - ITALIANS IN NEW MEXICO - #3

by: f. g. lopriato y lopez

STRETCH IT OUT, MAKE IT LAST, MAKE IT DO OR DO WITHOUT.

Bedsheets wear out when you use them enough. The women in Old Town during the 1930's did not have electric washing machines. They heated their wash water in pots, on a wood burning stove, in the winter, and outside in a galvanized tub and scrubbed everything on galvanized washboards. Whites faded, and very fast colors were boiled and scrubbed, inspected for wear and patched. Socks were darned and dingy colors bleached out and readied. If the sheets were still serviceable, the holes would be repaired or reboiled and rebleached for further use, often as curtains or dish towels. Lye was an indispensable household item. Sometimes bedsheets would be repaired and folded, both halves sewn together for reuse.

Flour came in cloth bags. Most people bought large quantities: twenty five, fifty and hundred pounds sacks, depending on how large a family they had to feed, and white flour tortillas were the fare three times a day. Corn tortillas were also used but not as regularly as wheat, sopaipillas were served at special meals. Besides that, flour was also used to thicken gravies, sauces took starch, chicken, cutlets, pork chops, each made better eating if breaded with white flour. The cloth bags in which the flour came was probably more sought after than the flour itself. With a little boiling, bleaching, and dying, those bags became beautiful dresses and blouses for little girls, shirts, a hanky, slips, and panties. Cloth, not gold, was the big thing to most Old Town women. Most women could sew. The luckiest had pedal operated machines, but most sewed by hand.

A man's suit could become clothing for his children, and the same went for women's clothing and when they had served their time, the same thing might end up as part of a patchwork quilt or a throw rug.

Homemade laundry soap, and homegrown almost everything, even the dyes that they used made the need for money not as pressing but a hell of a lot more work for the women of Old Town in the 1930's. Little did they realize it was just basic training for what was ahead and that some day those who survived would look back on those days with nostalgia.

FDR's WPA Projects did a lot of good, despite the fact that the managers of those funds used the bulk of the money to feather their own nests first and then saw to it that those who could do them more good, socially, politically and financially got what they wanted, but, when those funds finally got down the common people. Any job was better than none in a money hungry world that, at last, found a way to make Old Towners need money. As I said before, we were as self-relying for most of our necessities and financial needs were kept at a bare minimum.

Now, you tell me if what they came up with does not rate, at least an E for effort on the confidence game of politics. There were just over a hundred thousand people in all of New Mexico, the CCC camps did a lot of good planting trees, and dressing up the landscape, there were jobs there for many people and most of them trying to make the transition from farming to business or something that would enable them to fit into their changing world.

There were no roads in the entire state, the WPA built several large dams, in fact most of the dams you see now in New Mexico are WPA projects, and Highway 66 from one end of the state to the other was a WPA project, there were many jobs there, but most of these jobs were being filled by people who were brought in to do the work. New Mexico was high on FDR's priority list. but New Mexicans were joining the armed services and the National guard in order to help their families make ends meet. Someone noticed this and made a fuss about it.

The next thing Old Towners knew, "Singing Teachers" were making the rounds weekly to teach grade school students songs that were already part of their folklore. And the Plaza in Old Town was having a very imposing and out of place stone wall built around the plaza in Old Town. It did not last long, and for the short time that it stood, it cost more to maintain than anything else. Other than being used as an emergency makeshift rest room by migrants who could not make it to a real rest room, it was cleaned up and maintained once a year at Fiesta time. Other than that it was avoided even by church goers who would walk around it rather than cut through even on cold days. Even the stone mason who built the wall hated it, but could not talk his supervisors into doing what the Old Town Plaza has now.

The project that really took the cake, was the WPA Outhouse Brigade. Old Towners didn't live beyond their means and their means were not very demanding to begin with. They made conscious efforts to minimize them more all the while they also made a show of their better materialism to put up a prosperous front. This tempted the controllers to reason that if they could not control the intake they would control the output. The WPA brought in the Outhouse Brigade. Everybody had to have a New State of the Art outhouse, built by "El Diablo a Pi‚. " They made it sound so official that some still think it was a felony not to comply. The city was expanding and Old Town would be incorporated making "City Water " and indoor plumbing mandatory, the new outhouses did no more than tear down the old outhouse and replace it with a prefabricated one of their own, over the existing hole, but, at last, someone had pulled something on Old Town. The word for outhouse used in old town was "Comun" pronounced "Ko MOON" from Commode." The Outhouse Brigade was called "Los Communistas." (The Communists.)

The 1930's were lucky years in a lot of ways for Old Towners. Mainly because of the Italian influence in the town. Italians had been the real leaders in the community, and why not? They don't make a big hoopla about themselves or their accomplishments, no matter where they end up. The segment of Italians who chose New Mexico as their new home left indelible footprints in the sands, not just of this state, but in states surrounding New Mexico and as far as Washington, D. C.. Not just lately, but historically. If walls could talk, they'd do it and be fluent in Wopajo. (all languages) ////fglyl

Surviving the 1930's in Albuquerque-Italians #2

Surviving the 1930's - ITALIANS IN NEW MEXICO - #2

by: f. g. lopriato y lopez

Ma l'anima nel cor si fa pi£ buona.

Come il frutto maturo. Umile e ardita,

sa piegasi e resist; ferita, non geme;

asai comprende, asai perdona.
Dileguan le tue brevi ultime aurore,

o Giovinezza; taacciono le rive,

poi che il tonante vortice dispare.
Odo altro suono, vedo altro baglore.

Vedo in occi fraterni ardere vive lagrime,

odo fraterni petti ansare.
Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863Ä - 1938)

There are still a lot of Old Towners alive today that remember playing hopscotch, skipping rope, (single and double), making their own scooters with pieces of discarded lumber and two halves of one roller skate, guns out of two pieces of wood and a close pin, strip of rubber cut from old inner tubes. From a garage, we could accumulate some sheets, blankets, window curtains or drapes and anything we could find that would accommodate an audience's rear end would make a theater. Admission was one or two wooden matches. Adults and children alike came to enjoy Old Town's "Summer Playhouse Productions."

There are still Old Towners who wake up to the sound of church bells, whether they ring or not, and say their morning prayers. They still cross themselves (their hearts) when they pass a Catholic church, and bow their heads reverently when they mention the name "Jesus." They still kneel in the isle before taking a seat or a pew. The men still do not enter a church without wearing a jacket, if not also a fresh shirt and a tie. The women wear dresses, not mini skirts, cover their heads, and kneel to receive communion.

Church bells no longer ring at noon and at six, if they do they are not heard in the din of traffic and the sound of "progress." If they do, and if they are heard by Old Towners who were around in the 1930's, either they cross themselves or consciously prevent themselves from doing so, such is the power of religious programming.

New Mexicans are not aggressive or competitive by nature. Every book written and every course in American Culture mentions the fact that the Hopi, and the Navajo, had to be taught to compete in their games and races. This writer has also experienced the same behavior in Pueblos. It is less prevalent today than it was back in the 1930's. The worst thing "Mexicans" or Native Americans could be accused of was "thinking of one's self as being 'better' than anyone else," all but the Spanish Blue Bloods and many Newcomers.

One local talk show host, with an Italian last name, by the way, to emphasize the superiority of his upbringing in Ohio and those of the locals, ends his petite rampages with, "I guess they were not raised like me."

When a Navajo wanted to point out rude or unacceptable behavior he would say; "he/she acts as if he has no kin/family/or relatives. "Mexican" and Italian speakers put down in New Mexico are either; "Que mal educado! or just plain, "Mal Educato!"

Still, it's a long way from the 1930's when one didn't race to be better, or win prizes, or play games to win but just for the sheer joy of being part of your group at fun time.

As the business district grew, more and more new people came to New Mexico and set up shop, homesteaded. Others simply squatted on private land and on land grants that that was already set aside as legal town sites ear marked to be developed into townships became choice targets. Determining who was, and who was not, a rightful heir to a land grand became the most lucrative practice of law in New Mexico, and it lasted for decades.

There were those who began their careers in law and retired wealthy years later, having only worked one case, "The Land Grant Case."

Newcomers insisted that because Spain had lost the territory, (to Mexico) Spanish grants were no longer valid and Mexico had lost the war with the United States, the land was free for the taking. Some Texans still believe everything East of the Rio Grande, (in New Mexico ) belongs to Texas, and act as if it did.

Injustices flourished on both sides. Some legal heirs lost out to squatters that somehow had managed to pay taxes on that to which they had no papers and ended up with hundreds, if not thousands of acres, and some legitimate squatters and homesteaders lost out to Eminent Domain after they had lived up to all the rules and regulations imposed on them by everyone concerned. Italians are known for their record keeping, as are the Spanish. It's a hold over from Empirical days when it meant nothing if it was not documented. Italian families everywhere keep family journals, photos, letters, diaries, newspapers clippings, birth certificates, passports, steam ship and airline tickets. The Spanish liked to wear their entire family histories like a suit of armor, a custom that is not non as common, but at one time, one could tell who was who by just the name alone. Still there are some, like Fernando C De Vaca. ////fglyl

San Ildefonso potter Maria Martinez sitting next to a row of pots.
ajo women weaving blankets. N

genous peoples. parades and processions
The First American Pageant, Central Ave, Alb., 1928.

LA COLONIA ITALIANA D'ALBUQUERQUE

Albuquerque businessmen and politicians, c. 1930

LA COLONIA ITALIANA D'ALBUQUERQUE

by: f. g. lopriato y lopez

(Please Note: Indians-in this article refers to Native Americans)
To Albuquerque, the 1930's should be a very special decade. The railroad shops were going strong. New businesses were starting up and long established companies, such as Sears, Montgomery Ward, Kress, J. C. Penny were expanding and hiring workers. Bars, theaters and restaurants were opening up, and general stores were selling everything from animal feed to clothing, hardware, seed, meats, and even livestock. Oh, Yes! Right smack in the middle of the great depression...

At the top of the local business ladder, were Italian, Jewish, Greek, Armenian, and Lebanese businessmen. They hired family first and locals next. Albuquerqueans were helped to make the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society by those immigrants who had already experienced the difference in the their old home countries. Most immigrants had come here to escape poverty and understood the plight of the people.

Bars, general stores, and wholesale liquors were the owner by Italians while prepared food businesses were mostly Greek owned. The Lebanese liked marketing almost everything you can dream up. Jewish businessmen tended to go with the new market, created by the Fred Harvey chain. Indians; Indian Lore and Indian Crafts.

It was mainly the Harvey chain that sold tourists the idea to take bus tours out to the pueblos and reservations to see Indians in their natural habitat, and consequently, gave value to Indian jewelry, blankets, even the way Indians dressed and interest in Indian art; sand paintings, their dances and their pottery.

New Mexico was also very culture friendly, because of the Archaeology school at UNM. Grade School teachers who attended UNM (University of New Mexico) made their students aware of Indian culture and their rightful place in New Mexican society long before it became popular to be Indian friendly elsewhere. Jewish merchants established trading Posts that bought and sold Indian craftsmanship and hired Indians to works in their shops and homes. They moved into Indian country to be closer to the source of their income and were so accepted by the frienmdly culture that one Jewish man became the chief of a tribe. Another became governor of New Mexico.

The Italians reigned in the business district of Albuquerque though. Their children went to UNM and became business, social and political leaders, teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, etc. All immigrants were welcomed with open arms by the people. The same people who became the consumers and a labor force.

Ideas were exchanged between the immigrants and the populace except for a few individuals in other immigrant groups. It was only the Italians who spoke the language of the state fluently, and could also do business in several dialects spoken by the tribes. Jewish businessmen had the Indian trades in silver and artifacts but more than that they prided themselves in mastering Native American languages.

One Lebanese man ran a grocery store in Isleta Pueblo. He married an Isleta Indian and fathered two beautiful daughters that made quite a name for themselves later in life.

All in all, you could say that Albuquerque survived the 1930's by scratching each others back. Unfortunately others, (non immigrants) did not come here to be part of the town. They came like an occupying army, to change, to take over and be in charge, and by the 1940's Albuquerque was beginning to change. They played the game of "divide and conquer." ////fglyl

Champion Grocery, operated by Alessandro and Amadeo Matteucci and located on the corner of Seventh Street and Tijeras avenue, was one of the largest Italian-owned grocery stores in Albuquerque.


Jubilee Parade. Horsemen passing down Central Ave., near Second St. as crowds look on; business enterprises visible at left; ca. 1930.



Unidefied mem Albue's Italian-American community posing for a photograph on a hunting trip south e city
falo dancers, Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico


UNM Footbal Team, Albuquerque, NM 1930

Union Bakery and Saloon, Albuquerque New Mexico,

Courtesy of Zimmerman Library, UNM

Surviving the 1930's in Old Albuquerque

by: f. g. lopriato y lopez
Chapter Four - Union Bakery

I close my eyes and visualize the Union Bakery on South First Street... I smell the sweet yeasty perfume, its freshly baked bread and taste that special mixture of vanilla, lemon, and cinnamon on the giant rolls and hear the echo of Italian voices, happily singing, joking, and planning their week-end and conversing in the most poetic language this side of heaven, Italian, as they end another work week.
Not everyone has a safe, secure place to which they can retreat when life gets as hectic as it is today. The lucky few that do will not go mad with worry over the economy, the political mess, and a million other things that are really beyond our control.
My safe place is an island in time. The l930's, right in the middle of that churning, angry ocean of despair, the Great Depression. It was the worst of times for the rest of the country, including many parts of our state, but for Old Towners, and Albuquerque, as a whole, it was a time of real hope, and they were better off than they had ever been. The city was growing. Grocery stores began popping up in almost every neighborhood, and in the business sector, General Stores, that carried every type of merchandise you can imagine, dry goods, feed, groceries meats, and poultry products, wholesale and retail.
On the 300 block of North First alone, from Tijeras to Marquette street, Franchini and sons, Dino Bonaguidi, M. Vaio and Sons, the Tartaglias, the Masaglias, and The Bachechi's had large general stores but throughout the entire town, Italian names were prominent in businesses ranging from Ferraro's cigar store, to Bachechi's Paris Shoe Store. Bars, Pool halls, Service Stations, Garages, hotels, bars repair shops, and more were all owned and managed by Italians, and staffed by their families, who advertised in Spanish to attract a Hispanic clientele, whom they served in the Spanish language.
If Albuquerque had changed it's nickname from "The Duke City " to "La Piccola Italia," in the 1930"'s no one would have objected. It was an Italian Town. The Priests were Italian, teachers were Italian, Politicians were Italian, businessmen were Italian, Nurses were Italian and Italians began to come here as patients because of the high and dry climate.

A more complete history of the Italian Community is forthcoming when we get to the series dealing with La Colonia Italiana di Albuquerque, right now, the important point we want to make is that both Albuquerque and New Mexico survived the great depression without too much permanent damage by cooperating with the immigrant populations. The Italians were not the only first generation of immigrants to New Mexico, there were others, but not as numerous and not as motivated as the Italians.

The Jewish community, who also had a dog in the fight, because of the Jewish roots in the Spanish community, for instance, and it's difficult to tell about the Greeks, Lebanese, etc., but this writer is more familiar with the Italians than any of the rest. Jewish immigrants also fared better in Albuquerque, and, like the Italians treated the Natives and the Hispanic Communities differently, partly because of the already established Spanish-Jews, and Jewish owned trading posts, and pawn shops catered to "Indians" both on and off the reservation and bought from or hired Indians as their silver smiths and to do various other jobs. One full-blooded Jew even became a tribal chief. Pawn Shops and Indians had a different kind of business going for them, Silversmiths would pawn their work to a shop, who would store it and, with the craftsman's permission sell whatever would sell at a commission. The craftsman would pay interest on the pawn but could use it for special rites and return it, secure in the fact the jewelry he left at the pawn shop would not be stolen but it was, it was insured. Costs that the average craftsman cannot afford.
The Town and the Town in Old Town grew closer and closer, now there was not only a linguistic and cultural tie to the Italian Priests but a genealogical relationship developed. Families that been assumed to be Spanish or Mexican were traced back to Italian origins. Italian priests and monks who became extra curricular MENTORS and advisors of boys who actively sought out their and companionship in hopes of some day becoming priests or monks themselves also helped them to find not only themselves., but long forgotten family roots that led them to Sicily and other Italian cities and towns. Many of these young Old Towners grew up and served in the armed forces during World War Two, and found information about Italian history after the fall of Rome, the Unification, Geribaldi, and Southern Italy, useful to both their own interests and those of the United States.
Because of its isolation New Mexico was the last of former Holy Roman Empirical bastions to fall, and since Spain owed both it's rise and fall to Catabolism, the l930's saw the last desperate struggle of Bishop Lamy's struggle to maintain Roman Catholicism in the center of everything in New Mexico. The railroad had come in, and with it Protestantism had invaded Catholic territory, New Mexicans who had existed for centuries without the need of money and luxuries now had need of both. ////fglyl



Above: Alvarado Station, Albuquerque, NM c. 1930 Below: Italian American Shopkeepers, Albuq., NM c. 1930



Above: Paris Shoe Store Interior, Albuquerque, NM c. 1930 Below: Super Service Station, Albuquerque, NM c. 1930


Historic Photos Courtesy of Zimmermann Library, UNM Albuquerque, New Mexico