D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
May
2009
Snapshots of Spring
Pictures at an exhibition, poverty in Palomas.
There was a very interesting photo exhibit in Deming in early April. They were photos of the Anglo founders of Deming from the late 1800s and early 20th century. It was an excellent exhibit with well-chosen, lively images blown up several feet high from a collection of one of the founding families, the Nordhauses.
Those Anglo-Americans who came to settle the town were energetic, optimistic, confident, attractive, intelligent-looking, at ease with themselves. Almost everybody in the pictures was smiling. This is a piece of Deming history that I really have not been familiar with, even though I've seen the relics of their culture in the museum here.
There were fun photos of people riding high, old-fashioned bicycles and riding horseback in a silly "Redman Parade," with fake headdresses on. There were pictures of some intellectual-looking guys laughing their heads off. There was also an intriguing photo of a group of sober-faced Navajo Indians sitting at the train station. What they were doing there isn't clear to anybody.
Some of these Anglo settlers were positively aristocratic looking. There were women riding aristocratic-looking horses sidesaddle and wearing the most elegant long-sleeved dresses.
I don't know a whole lot about who all these people were. They were so distant from the image of the later hard-bitten, rough-hewn cattle rancher. This is a major disconnect for me.
It was a special event for old-time Anglo residents of town. They came with family members and reminisced about this person or that place and had a real good time.
I saw images of two Hispanic girls in the whole exhibit — "Manuela Holguin and friend." They were just little snapshots. These girls were smiling, too.
How fast did it take for the Mexicans to go from being accessories to these people's success stories to being put down and excluded? Probably no time at all. I know a little bit about how they were excluded from some restaurants and jobs.
Probably it wasn't easy for such privileged, high-class people to relate to a culture that had very high rates of illiteracy at that time and such extreme poverty. But how did it all happen?
One of the readers of this column e-mailed me a month or so ago wanting to know how safe it was to go to Palomas now. I wrote her back, and this was her response to what I said:
"You were absolutely right when you told me the THOUGHT of going to Palomas was fearful, while the visit itself was calm. I felt the same way.
"On the drive down my imagination went into overdrive, and I did say a prayer as I walked into town. I admit, my primary motive was financial — dental work estimated to be $2,500-$3,000 here in Silver City cost me $800 at the Fierro Clinic. But I'm so glad that I went and saw for myself that the rumors appear to be wildly exaggerated. There were no flying bullets or drug lords roaming the streets like I've heard for so long."
This woman actually refused to let me use her name, as friends and family would "freak out" if they knew she'd gone alone, she said. I didn't realize Americans were quite that paranoid.
I'm feeling more and more sure that the violence of last year has played itself out. I don't mean to exaggerate, because the violence will probably never be over entirely, but the place feels more peaceful than ever.
A former police chief of Palomas who now lives in Columbus said that for the past 15 years or so the average number of murders there has been about 10 a year. I wouldn't be surprised if the rate is lower than that now.
I know exactly what it feels like to be afraid, though. I remember how, when I first went down after the wave of killings last May, I almost physically felt daggers puncturing my skin as I crossed the border, I was so nervous. What I saw and felt when I got there turned my perceptions right around. The streets were quiet.
The violence of last year was extraordinary, and these images burn themselves vividly into the mind. But those incidents now seem like a dream to people there, they are so far in the past.
Palomas feels like a sleepy little town where I'd like to spend a little more time. At this time of year, with temperatures in the 80s, the few trees, with summer greens and golds, cast their shadows around them, and there's a laid-back atmosphere.
Of course, it's partly "laid back" because of the desperate unemployment in town. Palomas is virtually in a comatose state economically.
Palomenses are leaving the past behind while living in the difficult present.
A few days ago I drove around the streets of Palomas, and I found the usual stories of despair. There was a house with two families living together where they ate two or three times a day. Another family of nine miscellaneous members — an uncle, nephews, and sisters — ate three times a day, but just beans. I didn't ask about other expenses. Only one man in the house had a job.
The worst case I found was at a house with used clothing hung on a fence out front, where I stopped to buy some jeans. A woman named Maria Luisa said one of her brothers had four kids, and they were eating only once a day.
She and her brothers used to work in the fields of Deming where they had earned $40 or $50 a day, but had been deported. No matter what one thinks of immigration policy, this hunger is a direct, immediate result of US policy.
Another reminder of the troubles Palomas is going through is that I've heard from a few sources that Deming students as young as eighth graders have been pulled from school by their families to work in the fields of Colonia Victoria, a half-hour south of Palomas. They do this because they're destitute. Calls to the school system found a woman who couldn't talk to me about the situation, I assume due to privacy issues.
There are also a number of kids in Luna County schools whose fathers have been killed and left without a provider. A man I know who teaches at the Columbus elementary school said he'd been to several funerals. I saw him at Pepper's Supermarket with a couple of turkeys to bring to Palomas.
Maria Lopez, the social worker in Palomas who's been handling donations sent in care of Desert Exposure, says residents go to City Hall looking for food, but they don't have anything to give them these days. Donations are still very much appreciated.
Contributions for the hungry in Palomas can be sent to Maria Lopez/DIF, c/o Desert Exposure, PO Box 191, Silver City, NM 88062.
Borderlines columnist Marjorie Lilly lives in Deming.
She also wrote this issue's feature on co-ops in Palomas.