I am proud to be an American.
There are times when those important words must be said without qualification or embarrassment, and as Constitution Day arrives Sept. 17, on the road toward the 250th anniversary of the United States, I think this is one of those moments.
I love this country. I love New Mexico, too, and lately I have been thinking about how extraordinarily fortunate I am to belong to both.
My family's roots in this place reach farther back than the United States itself, we can trace our roots back to the 1400’s. I was born in Santa Fe, and raised on Mount Taylor. I am part of a Hispano New Mexican family whose story was already unfolding here when America was still an idea waiting to be declared.
That history makes me no less American. Indeed, it makes me profoundly grateful to be one.
When I think about inheritance, I think of my great-grandmother, Grandma Bell, making tortillas in her adobe home. As a child there seemed to be nothing historical about it. Grandma Bell made tortillas because we were hungry. She made tortillas because she made tortillas. Only now do I understand that those ordinary moments were pieces of a culture passing quietly from one generation to another.
I am Hispano. I am New Mexican. I am American.
I am proud of every one of those words.
My Hispano identity carries a history particular to this place. It does not make me Mexican, and I do not identify as Latino. That is not a rejection of anyone who does. It is an affirmation of who I am, and of the generations whose lives made mine possible.
America, at its best, gives us room for that.
We can come from pueblos and villages, farms and cities, families rooted here for centuries and families that arrived yesterday, and still meet beneath three extraordinary words: We the People. Our country has not always lived up to those words. Neither has New Mexico. Our history contains conquest, displacement, prejudice, war and failures of justice.
But our inheritance also includes a Declaration proclaiming human equality, a Constitution built around self-government, and a Bill of Rights protecting liberties that generations of Americans struggled and struggle to extend more completely.
The First Amendment allows me to publish this newspaper without asking a mayor, governor or president for permission. The Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures. Here in Grants, residents recently questioned the city's use of automated license- plate-reader cameras, and their elected government ultimately ended the program. That is self-government.
The founders wrote the Constitution so that generations after them could amend it, fight for it, and meet the promise contained within it.
I regret that I cannot speak Spanish as fluently as generations before me. I worry about the stories, words and traditions already disappearing. I wish I had paid closer attention when Grandma Bell made those tortillas.
But inheritance is not merely something we lose. It is something we carry.
One citizen can ask a question, one parent can teach a child, one neighbor can help another, one community can change its course, and one generation can decide that what previous generations sacrificed to give us will not be squandered.
That is our beautiful inheritance – and our responsibility.
This Constitution Day, I am thinking about the Americans who built this republic and the New Mexicans whose lives became part of it. I am thinking about my family and Grandma Bell. I am thinking of Mother Whiteside and the founders of what we today call Cibola.
Most of all, I am thinking about the Americans who haven't been born yet.
What kind of country will we hand them? What kind of New Mexico?
Will liberty be stronger because we possessed it? Will they know where they came from?
Those answers belong to us.
I am proud to be a Hispano. I am proud to be a New Mexican. And I am profoundly proud to be an American.
May we prove worthy of what was handed to us.
God Bless Cibola County.
God bless New Mexico, and God bless the United States of America.