In the past month, people from all over New Mexico have come to StoryCorps’ Mobile Booth in Albuquerque to record a conversation.
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In Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Chimayó, people have talked about family, history, and heritage in all kinds of ways. We’ve heard from teachers, mothers, master adobe builders, curanderas, pueblo leaders, activists, artists, and beyond. People have talked about having children, getting married, building homes, red chile, green chile, migration, genealogy, and living in New Mexico for 12 generations. They’ve talked about losing loved ones, maintaining culture, and finding strength in family and friends when times are hard.
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On Friday, June 4th the MobileBooth West team headed north from Albuquerque for a day of recording at the Chimayó Museum in Chimayó, New Mexico.
As participants from Chimayó and nearby Cundiyo arrived to record, many recognized relatives in the photographs hung on the museum’s walls. The building itself is a traditional adobe structure that opens on to the Plaza del Cerró–a Spanish colonial settlement established in 1740. An irrigation ditch or acequia runs by the front of the museum and is part of the system of waterways still used from colonial times to the present to irrigate the land around Chimayó.
A longtime mayordomo or caretaker for one of these acequia‘s, Samuel Vigil, recorded a conversation with his grandson, Mario. At 85, Samuel continues to be the volunteer organizer for the cleaning and maintenance of the collectively owned acequia. Mario grew up with his grandfather in Cundiyo and asked Samuel to share stories about his own childhood in the small town. Mario currently works as a teacher while living on the family’s land in Cundiyo where he plans to stay and carry on the traditions he was raised with.
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