latino

Eric Williams ericwphoto.com

Estevan Rael-Gálvez, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, on discourse and identity

He was a terrible rancher. The son of a borreguero (sheep herder) in northern Taos County, Estevan Rael-Gálvez says he constantly lost his flock. Life on the farm wasn’t for him. So with his mother’s encouragement, he walked away from his family’s generations-old trade of sheep and farming in Costilla and Questa to answer his calling—academia, and ultimately a much larger world where culture, art and politics converge. July marked Rael-Gálvez' first year as the executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Lively and cerebral, Rael-Gálvez has wasted no time in the influential seat, propelling the NHCC to the forefront of Hispanic cultural and political affairs both locally and nationally. One year into his service as head of this increasingly powerful institution, the Alibi invited Dr. Estevan Rael-Gálvez to answer our resolana-style questions (but more on that later).

• national hispanic cultural center
• estevan rael-galvez
• academia
• history
• hispanic
• latino
• sb 1070
• new mexico
• arizona

One of the coolest things about being me is the amount of stuff people tell me. Sometimes it’s off the record, even though it’s not juicy/verifiable/interesting enough to be on the record. Occasionally the gossip is so good the whole down-low thing makes me want to scream. Most of the time the information I get is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes and totally shareable. Generally, this kind of stuff is sent via e-mail with the words “for immediate release” in big, bold and sometimes italic letters at the top. It’s maybe not the most exciting, but some of those e-mails actually include the interesting stuff. Let’s open the vault.