Thursday, August 31, 2017



Fiesta in Santa Fe
De Vargas Entrada in Santa Fe and Entradas in Bolivia
Aimee Villarreal has a fascinating piece in today's NMPolitics.net (click here) discussing the ritual re-enactment each year during Fiesta of De Vargas' reconquest of New Mexico in 1692, twelve years after Popé chased the Spanish speaking people from Northern New Mexico all the way down to El Paso on the run.  The re-enactment is folkloric, mythical, and, factually, incorrect, since it maintains the reconquest was peaceful.  It was not.  In recent years there have been objections to the ritual, since it seems to celebrate something natives may not be pleased to celebrate.  Villarreal herself seems torn:  on the one hand she argues it is one of the "few times of year locals reclaim the plaza and our regional Nuevomexicano culture and traditions are center stage."  But on the other hand she suggests the "painful ideological trappings of conquest and conversion" should be replaced.

La Paz, Bolivia, 2017 Entrada for Jesus del Gran Poder

No such ambiguity exists in Bolivia, where entradas are celebrated at various times of the year by indigenous groups (about two thirds of the population) and whites alike throughout the county, with huge processions dancing through the streets for hours.  Dozens of civic associations spend months putting together costumes and troupes for the occasion.  Bolivian President Evo Morales, an Aymara-speaking native from Oruro, whose government is the most actively nativist in Latin American history stated on July 29 of this year, referring to the tradition of entradas, "other countries like Peru are trying to appropriate our wonderful cultural legacy, and we should not permit it." (click here for press release) He characterized the entradas as a symbol of "our diversity."  In truth, the entrada in Bolivia as it has developed is an important ritual that helps unify a culturally diverse population with a nasty colonial past and enormous contemporary inequalities, by engaging all cultures in common, socially acceptable activities designed to create inter-cultural pride-in-doing.  Many institutions--religious, economic, social--in Bolivia reinforce cultural inequalities.  This one breaks them down while emphasizing cultural diversity

As in New Mexico, entradas celebrate the "entrance" (conquest) of the Spanish empire into Bolivia, but also as in New Mexico indigenous people long ago embraced the rituals as their own, and take enormous pride in participating in them, simply accepting the political conquest as given, but not as a conquest of the spirit.  Lest this seem a sign of submission, indigenous pride in Bolivia, at least since the revolution of 1952, is as strong or stronger than it is anywhere else in Latin America.  Indigenous politicians in El Alto, a city of one million natives just above La Paz, for example, are proud of having ousted two white presidents in a row in 2003 and 2005 by blocking the road to the La Paz airport in a decisive move supported by protest movements throughout the country.  One of the ousted presidents, Gonzalo Sanchez, by the way, spoke Spanish with a gringo accent, was cozy with the US Embassy, and fled to Washington DC when El Alto revolted against him.  This helped pave the way for Evo Morales, an exceptionally talented organizer of indigenous groups, to become president in 2006.  He is still president.

In both Bolivia and New Mexico the Catholic Church is a key ingredient in the ritual, given that indigenous people and Spanish-speaking people alike tend to share in common the spiritual authority of the Church, even though the indigenous people everywhere long ago embedded their own local spiritual beliefs within the relatively tolerant margins of Church doctrine.  It so happens that in Santa Fe and La Paz, Bolivia, some entradas are devoted to Nuestra Señora de La Paz (known here as La Conquistadora).


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