A Broken Woman Breaks The Law

Alibi

\ Jan 25, 2007

5 min read

Here ya go, Albuquerque

Spend the $103 I just paid you

On repairing your countless potholes

Or maybe you could put it toward

Building some kind of recreational center

Or pop forty trash haven for your

Bored shitless teenagers and twentysomethings

Anything to keep them from drag racing

Up and down Montgomery at all hours

Blasting their Christina Aguilera and Ashlee Simpson bullshit

I watched the video online

Shot with impartial big brotherliness

By one of your new traffic light cameras

Sure enough, I turned left just as

The yellow light turned red

But in my defense

I had just been intimate with

An enormous vaginal probe

At the breast imaging center

And I was thinking of that

And other things

Like my brother’s recent diagnosis

Of schizophrenia

And my mother’s lupus

Attacking her nerves

With a vengeance

And the poverty I enjoy

With my husband

Of almost two years

I usually hide out in the house

I do not own

I only drive

When I absolutely have to

So thank you

And Donald Trump bless you, Albuquerque

For sticking it to one of your

Most lackluster

Luckless citizens

On one of her

Worst days

Way Out Westland

I really thought, up until reading Christie Chisholm’s “Atrisco’s Long Goodbye" in the Jan. 18-24 issue, that the Westland sale was simply a result of a free marketplace—a willing seller and a willing buyer, although a seller exercising poor judgment in my opinion. However, even without hearing from the buyer’s side, it appears the sale wasn’t based on a free market where both sides are informed and willing participants in the transaction. I hope attorney Nicholas Koluncich and the Atrisco heirs fighting this "takeover" pursue it all the way up to the highest court, if need be.

Kudos to Ms. Chisholm and the Alibi for committing the time and resources to dig into these stories and bringing us the information we probably wouldn’t have access to otherwise.

Neither Here Nor Ither

I would like to make a few comments about your contributing writer Gustavo Arellano of “ ¡Ask a Mexican!” Many of his answers about New Mexico are consistently prejudiced. What is worse is that many of his followers, recent letter writers to the Alibi , believe him. Webster defines prejudice as not accepting the facts. For example, Gustavo’s followers end up calling a nationality a race. Mexican, American and Spanish are not races but nationalities. Their citizens can have white, Asian, black, Indian or Spanish or no Indian blood at all. Any person reading this column can become a full-blood Mexican by nationalizing. Quoting Billy Carter, you can choose your friends but not your relatives. This is baseless. If they are correct, then they should include all of South America as Mexican because of the Indian-Spanish blood mixtures.

To add to their prejudices or twisted way of reasoning, when Lucero’s forefathers colonized New Mexico, Mexico did not exist till 250 years later. This being a fact, our colonizers of our great three-cultural state had to be something other then Mexican. Oh, by the way, the U.S.A. did not exist either, or is that ither?

Here is the catch, or what is terribly wrong with Arellano and his followers: Why would they, who know nothing of New Mexico or Lucero, in the name of honesty write to a newspaper ridiculing family trees and race, then, in addition, call them the "P" word, a Nazi and a devil, then admit they do not believe in this. Speak of having your cake. They use the "P" word like that comedian Michael Richards uses the "N" word. We never learn. We may as well publicize our three-cultural states’ motto too, the New Mexico Hispanic is rotten. Maybe they understand English. Let us not forget that each state in the Union along with each country on the planet has their individual culture plus hundreds of thousands of subcultures. Arellano et al. do not understand this. Why not let New Mexico Hispanic culture be part of this "cosmic" world?

The New Mexico Historical and Genealogy Societies have researched millions of hours of records about New Mexico. It is recorded in our libraries. It is free. Some was written by such notable historians as the Borderland Historians, Chavez, Espinosa and some by peons like me. Unlike Gus and his followers, one great thing about them is that any one of them will tell you they do not know it all. With all our info I cannot believe anyone would base history or their education from Gus. I wish them prosperity.

Oh, I hope the two guys who bet that $100 got it right. Because Gus lied to them.

Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address and daytime phone number via e-mail to letters@alibi.com. They can also be faxed to (505) 256-9651. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium; we regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.