Copyright © 2011 by University of Nebraska–Lincoln, all rights reserved. Redistribution or republication in any medium, except as allowed under the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law, requires express written consent from the editors and advance notification of the publisher, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
While the native Hispanos formed the majority
of the population throughout New Mexico's territorial
period and into the early statehood years
after 1912, they were nevertheless subject to the
powerful forces of Americanization. As Anglo-American
and foreign settlers prepared New
Mexico for full incorporation into the United
States, considerable ethnic conflict arose. Seeing
many threats to their social and cultural interests,
Hispanos responded with ethnic protest.
By the turn of the twentieth century, a distinct
tradition of Hispano collective resistance
emerged. Some of the most significant Hispano
protest took place within the vast region that the
Spanish pobladores (yeoman settlers) first called
las vegas grandes (the great meadows) and el
llano estacado (the Staked Plains), which extended
from the Rockies onto the western fringe
of the Great Plains. Anglo newcomers came
upon Hispanos who were already settled in the
Plains counties of San Miguel, Mora, Colfax,
Union, and Guadalupe.
A major form of protest innovated by Hispanos
living in the Plains was la junta de indignación
(mass meeting of indignation). In the
typical junta de indignación, a spontaneous
demonstration was organized to deal with an
issue suddenly affecting the Hispanos as an
ethnic group. One of the biggest and most
significant of such juntas took place in Las
Vegas in 1901 in response to a Methodist missionary
who disparaged in a local newspaper
column the "pagan" religious customs of the
Hispano folk. A crowd of 600 Hispanos rallied
to refute the missionary's alleged "lies" and
"calumnies." Typical of the Hispano junta de
indignacion, a round of speakers denounced
the offender in harsh and sarcastic terms. Also
typical of this protest genre, the leaders appointed
a committee and charged it with
crafting resolutions to be published in the
press calling for Anglos to cease their racial
prejudices.
Hispano ranchers in the Plains also applied la junta de indignacion in efforts to keep legal possession of communal lands. On the important Las Vegas Land Grant, for example, a "people's" movement, consisting of hastily convened meetings, formed in response to the actions of a group of elite townsmen who attempted to gain control of the grant. In this case, juntas de indignación intertwined with dramatic court cases and local elections.
Statewide juntas also erupted in 1933 when a psychology professor at the University of New Mexico disseminated negative stereotypes of Hispanos in his racial attitude scale. Protests erupted in the two Plains communities of Springer and Taylor Springs in Colfax County. Both involved the rituals of indignant speakers and a petition calling on the governor to fire the professor whose "slanders" insulted the Hispano people.
As a collective repertoire, la junta de indignación enabled Hispanos to forge a homeland ethnic identity. It served as a means for giving notice that they would not tolerate the denial of rights in the land that their ancestors had settled. The classic turn-of-thecentury junta de indignación went out of style in the mid-1930s as the Great Depression and the New Deal caused significant changes in New Mexico's structure of political and civic engagement.
See also HISPANIC AMERICANS: Hispano Homeland.