Land of Disenchantment: Latina/o Identities and Transformations in Northern New Mexico

New Mexico's Española Valley is situated in the northern part of the state between the fabled Sangre de Cristo and Jemez Mountains. Many of the Valley's communities have roots in the Spanish and Mexican periods of colonization, while the Native American Pueblos of Ohkay Owingeh and Santa Clara are far older. In this experimental ethnography, Michael Trujillo presents a vision of Española that addresses its denigration by neighbors--and some of its residents--because it represents the antithesis of the supposedly "positive" narrative of New Mexico. Contradicting the popular notion of New Mexico as the "Land of Enchantment," a fusion of race, landscape, architecture, and food into a romanticized commodity, Trujillo probes beneath the surface to reveal the struggle and pain brought about by colonization and the transition from a pastoral to an urban economy, as well as the limits of common ethnographic representations. "Land of Disenchantment" contains both Trujillo's original ethnography and his explorations of creative works by Valley residents Policarpio Valencia, Jim Sagel, Teresa Archuleta, and G. Benito Cordova.