N.M. Hispanics Overtake Anglos (non-Hispanic whites 41%)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | March 16, 2011 | Dan McKay

[Signalman]

Surprising, the governor of NM, is a CONSERVATIVE female Hispanic. I thought they didn’t exist (according to the left).

[greyfoxx39]

It has always seemed to me like there are really three very distinct groups in New Mexico, aside from the native Americans: the Anglos, the Hispanics whose families have been there since the 17th or 18th centuries and then all the newcomer Mexicans, legal and illegal who recently have flooded in and swamped the place. There is a huge difference in attitude between the last two groups.

Very well put and very true. You can include Southern CO in that description also.

[Betis70]

>>the Hispanics whose families have been there since the 17th or 18th centuries and then all the newcomer Mexicans, legal and illegal who recently have flooded in and swamped the place. There is a huge difference in attitude between the last two groups.

Definitely agree with that. Part of my family came to NM escaping the 1910 revolution and are more on the ‘support the illegals’ side.

[Vaduz]

Thank you congress

[bkepley]

Look on the bright side, when is the last time you heard of a Latino Muslim?

[LatinaGOP]

I do wish they’d make a distinction between those of us whose families have been in New Mexico for hundreds of years like my own family and those who emigrated here from Mexico in the recent past. I’d be curious to have that info.

[colorcountry]

I would imagine New Mexico was inhabited by a majority of Hispanics when it became a State. My husbands family was among them - inhabitants of the New Mexico region since the 1600’s.

[LatinaGOP]

My sister did our geneology and traced our earliest ancestor to a man who came into what is now New Mexico with Onate in the late 1500’s.

[pallis]

I think the ratio where I’m at is 85/15, Hispanics to Anglos. I could care less about the ethnic/racial ratios, but the leftnut to conservative ratio worries me. Figure that 75 to 85 percent of the Hispanic vote will go for leftnuts, although I think Governor Martinez got around 49 percent. How that would translate out to national elections is anyone’s guess.

[Betis70]

Interesting. Finding genealogy records has proven tough for that side of my family. We have when my grandpa crossed Eagle Pass, and we know my great-grandpa was from the Torreon Coahuila area, but other than that...not much.

Guess you might get a chilly reception at Acoma, huh? When we went on a tour there, my mom got lots of nasty-gram looks from the tour guide. She finally asked my mom if she was ‘Spanish’ at the end of the tour.

[LatinaGOP]

My sister found a distant relation on a geneology board who had done all of the research so she lucked out. My paternal grandma was part Mescalero Apache from the Silver City area so I’ve got that in me too. I’m both the oppressor and the oppressed - it’s very confusing. LOL

[Polybius]

Not really news for those of us who live here. NM has long been an Anglo-minority state ......

The entire United States of America has been "Anglo-minority" since waaaaaaay before 1887 when the pages below were published in "The Irish Race in America". (Click to enlarge.)

Back in the 1800's, an "Anglo" meant somebody with an "Anglo-Saxon" bloodline (the Normans shall not be mentioned) that traced his ancestry back to Merry Olde England. Not even the Scotch-Irish qualified for membership in the Anglo-Saxon Club.

Back then, "Anglo-Saxon" certainly did not mean somebody with parents named Fred Kowalski, Joseph Kennedy, Vincent Lombardi, Robert Stephanopoulos, Abraham Goldberg, David Eisenhower, Elliot Roosevelt, Ralph Olsen, Robert Prudhomme, John Sousa or Jorge Farragut.

It is safe to say that neither New Mexico nor any other state west of the Mississippi River was ever "Anglo-majority".

America is not an Anglo-Saxon bloodline. It is an idea. The potential problems with America's future will not be the passing of the "Anglo" bloodline into minority status (that occured looooong ago) but the carrying on of traditional American ideals by the increased number of "non-Anglos".

If American ideals are carried on by the "non-Anglos", the number of pseudo-Anglos will magically increase just as it did when America discovered, in the early 20th Century, that no amount of denial could hide the fact that the United States was no longer an "Anglo-majority" country:

"Your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather and your great-great-grandfather were all O'Reillys. But, since you speak English and since we are running short of, ..... well, ..... you know, ..... real Anglo-Saxons, ..... we decided to drastically lower our standards. (Jeez, and we thought we had hit rock-bottom when we decide to include the Germans. Now we are down to the Irish. What next? The Italians?) So, Mr. O'Reilly, you are now officially an 'Anglo'. Welcome to the Anglo-Saxon Club! But we will call you just 'Anglo' so as not to confuse you with ..... well, ..... you know, ..... real Anglo-Saxons."

[oldsicilian]

Went to UNM 1970-76. Moved to Albuquerque from L.A. A real culture shock. Grew to deeply love New Mexico. Really miss my Hatch chiles here in Virginia.

[Polybius]

My sister did our geneology and traced our earliest ancestor to a man who came into what is now New Mexico with Onate in the late 1500’s. .... LatinaGOP

Interesting. Finding genealogy records has proven tough for that side of my family. .....When we went on a tour there, my mom got lots of nasty-gram looks from the tour guide. She finally asked my mom if she was ‘Spanish’ at the end of the tour. ..... Betis70

For Spanish genealogy research, you should try searching at PARES (Portada de Archivos Españoles - Web Portal of the Spanish Archives) run by the Spanish Government.

PARES

At "Búsqueda Avanzada" (Advanced Search) type in a last name in "Buscar" (Search) and you will get hits to the documents catalogued in archives all over Spain including the Spanish colonial archives (Archivo General de Indias).

Remember that search engines are very concrete thinkers and not very smart. You will get lots of hits for "Montalban" but will probably get zero hits for "Manuel Ignacio Francisco de Montalban y Ulloa". Keep the search simple.

A couple of years ago, if you discovered a document of interest to you, you had to order photocopies to be made. (You still can.)

Now, however, many of the documents have been digitized and you can view high quality digital images of them, online. Just click on the camera icon if the document has one.

I have discovered a lot of genealogical data in many of the documents, some dating back to the 1500's.

The good news:

1. There are digital images of over 2 million pages of documents. More digitized documents are being added every day.

The bad news:

1. They are in Spanish. (No problem for me.)
2. They are in OLD Spanish. (Okay, now we start having some problems. Thank goodness for online dictionaries.)
3. They are in handwriting.
4. They are in OLD handwriting.
5. They are sometimes in OLD, BAD handwriting.
6. The style of old handwriting changed from century to century. Once you learn the script from the 1700's, you can be lost in the 1600's. Once you learn the script from the 1600's you can be lost in the 1500's.
7. Even if you learn the script and the old language, the documents are full of abbreviations.

The good news, again:

There is help online.

The Mormons have a web page that gives you a tutorial on old Spanish script and abbreviations:

Spanish Script Tutorial created by the Center for Family History and Genealogy at Brigham Young University.

If you go to Google Books and search for "Paleografia española" you can dowload free digital copies of books witten in the 1800's and even the 1700's that taught Spaniards in the 1800's and 1700's how to read the paleography from the 1600's and before.

(Click to enlarge and go to this particular Google Book: "Anales de la Paleografía Española", 1857.)

[Betis70]

Wow! Thanks for the information. My dad did a bunch of research before he passed away via Ancestry.com, but we always ran into a bit of a brick wall with my mom’s family. Maybe this will help.

FReepers rock.

[sean327]

We have traced my family origin in New Mexico to Diego Castillo. He came to New Mexico in 1598 with Onate. He was a native of Torrijos Spain. I proudly carry the Castillo last name today.

There needs to be a distinction made between the “old families” and the new invaders. We are two very different groups. We love this country, while on the other hand they exploit it, and our cultures are distincly different. Theirs is Mexican, while ours is Spanish Colonial.