[FRIAM] Way off topic

Mon Mar 24 15:47:21 EDT 2025

Frank -

my sister and her husband (gringo from Wisconsin) moved to Seville Spain 
in the late 70s because it was one of the few places he could work as a 
(freshly minted) Copper Exploration Geologist in the global mineral 
mining context of the time.  They both became fluent in Castilian while 
there, then moved to Santiago Chile (same reasons, different 
era/hemisphere) where the Spanish spoken was closer perhaps to the 
Castilian roots than what I knew from the backwoods of W. NM and then 
the AZ/Sonora border.

When I moved to Northern NM, there was a whole other spin offered via 
the Norteno dialect with ancient roots, some isolation and integration 
with Puebloan vocabulary and idioms.    When my sister and husband would 
visit or bring visitors from Spain or Chile it was interesting for them 
(the visitors) to haughtily correct various vocabulary, idiomatic or 
pronunciation "errors" which were simply regional dialectical 
differences, some rooted in 500  years of history.

I don't know how broadly distributed the languages of colonial European 
powers are today... English and Spanish being the dominant in the new 
world with French a distant third along with Portuguese and Dutch just a 
smidge?   I think Pieter indicated that Dutch and English are 
equally/similarly represented in modern Afrikaans language/culture?   
Portuguese has an interesting play in indonesia and Belgian pops up here 
and there as well?  There must be an uncountable (idiomatically not 
mathematically) number of dialects and pidgens and creoles?

When Matt and Janire (CultVR/4piProductions) first visited here around 
2009, Janire (Najera from Najera, la Rioja, Espana, Basque Region) was 
almost completely unaware of the Spanish Colonization of this area.  New 
Spain was barely in her history.  The Spanish Embassy in the US funded 
her to do a book project documenting the old Spanish Trail, yielding a 
book, virtual tour, and a traveling exhibit.  She interviewed a lot of 
Spanish descendents along the trail from here to southern California.

    https://www.spainculture.us/city/washington-dc/moving-forward-looking-back-journeys-across-the-old-spanish-trail/

    https://www.artbook.com/9788416282197.html

    https://janirenajera.com/moving-forward-looking-back/

I think you met them in the context of sfX during the heydey?

On 3/24/25 12:56 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> My maternal grandparents were both native New Mexicans who lived their 
> whole lives here.  My grandfather was genetically German but he spoke 
> Spanish better than he spoke English. Once he came to visit me when I 
> lived in married student housing at Carnegie Mellon.  There were a 
> couple of Mexican guys who were in some summer classes who had become 
> friends of mine.  I introduced them to my grandfather.  One said to 
> the other in the typical Mexican sing-song way of speaking "Ven. 
> Quiero que conozcas a un Gringo que habla mejor que nosotros" (Come, I 
> want you to meet a Gringo who speaks (Spanish) better than we do)  My 
> grandfather said, "Habla como un hombre!  No Cantes."  (Talk like a 
> man.  Don't sing.)
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2025, 12:26 PM steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>
>>     Steve:
>>     Do all your friends and neighbors have the Red Cards no matter
>>     their status? In fact, probably all of us should be carrying them.
>>     T.
>
>     For the most part,  we operate on a don't ask, don't tell basis.  
>     The only folks with known status to me are those who have achieved
>     a full green-card status after years of temporary work stints,
>     etc.   The rest are likely under various radars.   Often there is
>     an adult child, likely born in the USA who is peripherally
>     involved. My Spanglish is good enough to negotiate lots of work
>     and social situations but nothing as sensitive as legal
>     immigration status and I stay far away from those discussions as a
>     matter of respect.   I try to telegraph that I am an ally but
>     don't belabor it.
>
>     https://www.ilrc.org/red-cards-tarjetas-rojas#item-4477
>     <https://www.ilrc.org/red-cards-tarjetas-rojas#item-4477>
>
>     I grew up with kids whose parents (more often grandparents) did
>     not speak English.  Not because they had immigrated from MX but
>     because their ancestors lived in the territory which became the US
>     while they lived there.   In the mountains Western NM, some of the
>     parents (born in the early 1900s) were raised in Spanish-only
>     households among Spanish-only social/family networks. The kids
>     grandparents likely were children when their families immigrated
>     to the area from the Rio Grande valley after the Civil War (when
>     the newly formed/available US Cavalry rounded up or killed the
>     native Apache living in the area).
>
>      In Southern (Douglas) AZ, many of these families had equal
>     representation on both sides of the border that was drawn with the
>     Gadsden Purchase.   Some living on the MX side may have been
>     deported there during the 1st world war or depression when there
>     were attempts to displace "mexicans" from the US without due
>     process.   May have been part of the "alien enemies" act
>     activities of the time.
>
>     I think the Gadsden purchase included the Mesilla Valley in NM
>     (nod to REC) but in my case it was the region south of Tucson in AZ.
>
>
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