Columns

By Frances Levine

Four times in my New Mexico life I’ve smelled the acrid smoke, scanned the roiling skies, and waited anxiously for summer monsoons to quell fires on the Pajarito Plateau.

The first time  — the summer of 1977 — seared my deepest memories of the damage wildfires can do and how dangerous and strategic the work of fire crews must be.

Forgive me if I’m being presumptuous, but I just can’t help feeling part of this town’s historical identity, and I’m here to say that Las Vegas is a great place to celebrate the Fourth of July.     

You want patriotism? We’ve got it in droves. Las Vegas has always provided more than its fair share of fighters of our wars, believers in our causes, and doers for our ideals. We’ve got veterans and peaceniks, each of them standing for what they love about our country, sometimes standing as one and the same.

Since I began writing Orgullo del Norte, I have received numerous remarks from readers. The vast majority of comments received have been positive.

However, there are some readers who believe that, politically, I am on the far right and others that think I am on the far left. Some have even come to the assumption that I believe that historically, all whites are racist and have even been asked if I were anti-Spanish.

Allow me to set the record straight.

Soon after its founding in 1835, other settlements flourished around Las Vegas, the earliest of these along the Gallinas River south and east of our town.

These placitas were self-sustaining villages and hamlets, whose early settlers farmed and ranched, many irrigating off the Gallinas River. Most had their own church and cemetery, many of which still exist, and several boasted a general store and, in later years, a post office.