chutzpah

Posting the song "Mañanitas Tapatias' on the Facebook page for the book Stones from the Creek is a good opportunity for reflecting on chutzpah… particularly my chutzpah in presuming to create characters and voices that are  so distant from my experience.  I have mentioned elsewhere that it was actually meeting and discussing process with the carving Ortega family that convinced me that a carved saint had to be at the center of one of these stories.  And my scholarly work on the common lands of Mexican and Spanish grants in New Mexico made that a must, too.

But this is a distant and unfamiliar part of the United States for me.  How do I avoid romanticizing and exorcizing?  One way is by drawing on the people I have met when I travelled there.  Another way is by remembering that they are people, and I have spent a lifetime trying to understand people.  the details can be a challenge though.  For a very long time the mountain villages of New Mexico were dramatically underserved by ordained clergy.  The religious life of the people had to be sustained by lay brotherhoods, as Magdalena explains in the story "Warrior Princess."

The rise of an Anglo-Protestant elite in New Mexico, along with its promotion as an "enchanting" tourist destination by the Santa Fe Railroad, meant that those lay brotherhoods became more guarded about public worship.  The frequent Protestant opposition to ritual art meant that the lay Catholics found themselves derided for idolatry.  And the public processions of the brotherhoods were turned into a source of titillation for people who did not understand them.

I wanted to include the music of the procession in the story.  I found a book of Penitente alabados (http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Alabados_of_New_Mexico.html?id=8fGyC-Vn0FkC) and a set of YouTube videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ggbd9Exi4M) and I listened to the songs and read the liner notes of the Smithsonian Folkways recordings: "Music of New Mexico, Hispanic Traditions (1992)" (http://www.folkways.si.edu/music-of-new-mexico-hispanic-traditions/american-folk-gospel-latin/album/smithsonian) and "Spanish and Mexican Folk Music of New Mexico (1952)" (http://www.folkways.si.edu/spanish-and-mexican-folk-music-of-new-mexico/american-folk-latin/album/smithsonian)

One song that really captured my imagination was "Mañanitas Tapatias."  It is sung on the Folkways 1992 recording by a church choir from Las Vegas, New Mexico.  The liner notes explain that, with very few changed lyrics, it also serves as the New Mexican happy birthday song.  I guess that should have been a big red warning flag for me.  But when I come at a fact from a particular direction, I have trouble letting go of that path and seeing all the other approaches.

When I finally became concerned it was because I was trying to find a way to shared this beautiful song with my readers on the book's Facebook page.  I own the Folkways CD, so I hadn't bothered to try to find a good link to an online recording.  And then when I did?  Overproduced Pedro Infante videos, mariachis playing to young women, home-made birthday photo albums, and underproduced church bands.  It got me wondering: had I made a laughable error in including this song as part of a procession for Saint Michael Archangel?

I continue to find evidence that this song serves both purposes.  But I have also decided to stop worrying about it.  The story "Warrior Princess" is very compelling to me.  I think that it is one of the strongest in the book.  I hope that if it ever reaches actual New Mexicans, they will be able to respond to it in the spirit in which it was written.