Albuquerque Celebrates La Herencia on Route 66
Hispanic heritage in Albuquerque is as old as roasting chile. Well, it might be a bit younger than roasting chile.
Harvey Caplin, Two Dancers in front of San Felipe de Neri Church, ca. 1955, Albuquerque Museum, gift of John Airy. PA1982.180.849.
There is the simplified version of this story: Hispanic heritage in Albuquerque dates back to the 1706 Spanish settlement now known as “Old Town,” and the rest is history. Then, there are the facts that complicate that simplicity. Many of the settlers in colonial Nuevo México were mestizo (mixed indigenous Mexican and Spanish), bringing cultural and linguistic traditions from the Mexican basin. For example, the Route 66 neighborhood, the Village of Atrisco (est. 1703, according to Spanish documents), gets its name from the Hispanicized Nahuatl word atlixco (“water surface”). El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the ancient trade route established by Ancestral Pueblo communities and later named by the Spanish crown, led the flow of commerce from Mexico City north to Ohkay Owingeh/San Juan Pueblo, past Santa Fe. The “royal road of the inlands” was an important site of cultural, culinary and commercial exchange, so much that its path from Santa Fe to Albuquerque would be rewritten as U.S. Highway 66 in 1926.
La herencia Hispana (Hispanic heritage) is entwined on Albuquerque’s Route 66. Many of the Mother Road’s Albuquerque stories would have been forgotten to time if not for documentation by local Hispanic scholars such as Emma Moya. Lowrider car clubs also played a major role in the preservation of Route 66’s memory on Central Avenue. The existence of lowriding in New Mexico alone is a manifestation of Hispanic migration history along Route 66: from California to New Mexico and back again.
Glenn Hood, Girls in tiered dresses sit on a convertible outside of San Felipe de Neri Church, ca. 1965, Albuquerque Museum, gift of Beryl Hood, PA1994.050.260.
InteliGente: A University Car Club on Route 66
The University of New Mexico’s student body continues to honor the tradition of customizing cars through car shows and organizations dedicated to the cultura. The InteliGente Car Club, founded by Ph.D. student Dominique Rodriguez with UNM alumni Diego Rentería, is a play on the Spanish words inteligente (intelligent) and la gente (the people). The group has held several events for the University community over the past year including an annual car show called “Lobos y Lowriders.” In just a year, Lobos y Lowriders has grown its participation numbers, invited a DJ to play non-stop oldies and hosted a food truck to serve aguas frescas and Mexican street food.
Lobos y Lowriders was the brainchild of fellow Chicano Studies Ph.D. student Valerie Chavez. She envisions the event to keep rolling into the future, hopefully expanding to educational panel sessions where community members and scholars may come together to talk about lowriders and the culture’s significance to Albuquerque. Chavez remarked that having the cars present on campus is a source of comfort for so many students, showing that they belong at the university and their families and neighbors are equally welcome to be a Lobo.
Chavez said, “Being a Lobo is statewide, it’s a part of New Mexican identity. We’re a small state when it comes to population. For so many of us, this university has been part of our lives even if we didn’t know anyone who went to UNM. For these [lowriders], to be invited on campus to show their culture is special.”
