This is the fourteenth entry in a month-long series, Fifty years in the United States: An immigrant’s perspective, as part of the annual Blogging from A to Z Challenge.
New England and New Mexico.
In the fifty years since my family moved to the United States, I have lived in only two regions of the country, New England in the Northeast (mostly in Massachusetts, but also, for a time, in New Hampshire and Vermont) and, for a little short of a year, New Mexico in the Southwest. In 1620 a British royal charter established the Plymouth Council for New England allowing British settlers “to colonize and govern the region” for Britain. New Mexico–Nuévo Mexico–was similarly claimed by and for Spain in 1610. It became part of Mexico in 1821 after Mexico won its independence from Spain, but most of it was acquired by the U.S. in 1848, as a result of the Mexican War, and the rest in the 1853 Gadsden Purchase.
My stay in New Mexico, however, made it very clear to me that this whole continent is Indian Country. It was colonized and ravaged by European settlers, but not without a fight. Although schoolchildren are taught that Native American culture is dead, just look around, it is everywhere, even in the Northeast, where the population of indigenous people is small. Native American tribes in Massachusetts were the Mahicans, Massachusett, Nauset, Nipmuc, Pannacook, Pocomtuc, and Wampanoag. The Census of 2010 records 37,000 Native Americans still living in the state. The people are still here and they will always be here.
Just look at the place names. In Massachusetts alone, for every Boston or Plymouth there is a Mattapan or Mashpee; Natick, Nahant, Nantasket Beach; Scituate, Seekonk, and Swampscott. So many mountains, rivers, lakes, islands: Mounts Greylock, Wachusett, and Watatic; the Assabet, Connecticut, and Merrimack Rivers; Lakes Cochituate, Quinsigamond, and Monomonac; Chappaquiddick and Nantucket Islands.
United American Indians of New England (UAINE)
It’s not only geography that carries the memory and the spirit of Native American persistence, but history, the history of resistance, also persists. On my first Thanksgiving in the United States I attended what turned out to be the first Native American Day of Mourning, held in 1970 in Plymouth, Massachusetts (see TMA #84, Feasting or Fasting?). It has been held every year since, with November 28, 2019 marking the 50th anniversary. The biggest rock in Winchendon, where we lived for seven years, was King Philip’s Rock, said to be a place where Metacomet, the Wampanoag Chief (also known as King Philip), once held a meeting during King Philip’s war, or the First Indian War (1675-1678). The struggle continues, as the Trump Administration, in its latest land grab, has just announced the revocation of reservation status for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.
New Mexico was saturated with Mexican and Native American cultures. Much of the Mexican American–Chicano/Chicana–culture is itself indigenous. In New Mexico, 48% of the population is Hispanic and nearly 10% Native American, from twenty-three tribes of the Pueblo, Apache, and Navajo. Anglos, as English-speaking people of European origin were called (a descriptive term for non-Hispanics, not an insult), were in the minority; what a difference that made! As an immigrant I felt so much more at ease in New Mexico. The state constitution proclaims New Mexico as a bilingual state, with one out of three families speaking Spanish at home. I found that multilingual atmosphere congenial as well, as people spoke in either language or both, without any sense of inadequacy or the shame bilingual children are made to feel in an English-only climate.
Speaking of shame, the Massachusetts state flag bears the image of a Native man with a star above his right hand and an arm wielding a sword over his head—symbols of dominance, both. The name of the tribe is retained, but the relationship is quite clear. There have been initiatives to change the image, so far unsuccessful. The New Mexico state flag bears the symbol of the Zia, a sacred sun symbol, and was designed to highlight both the state’s Native American and Hispanic roots.
Although I lived in New Mexico a little short of a year, it has exerted a lasting influence on me, and on my view of America. It is aptly named Land of Enchantment.
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