Author Archives: Tom Miles

National Extension Leadership Development Conference talk

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Talk about social networking — I got a FaceBook note last week asking if I could present the Timeline at the annual National Extension Leadership Development Conference here in Albuquerque! This came from the conference organizer from Purdue University who happened to come across the 5 Perspectives on Albuquerque video on YouTube.

I can’t quite say how tickled I am to have the opportunity to tell them some Albuquerque and New Mexico stories from the timeline. This is what I put the two years in for – so there would be a one-stop-shop for 600 years of our histories and cultures for people who would like such a summary. I’ll be taking one of the 2 ft x 8 ft copies to speak from, mounted on a plastic backing board so it can stand on two easels, and leaving it there the whole day so the 44 attendees from 13 North Central states can read it more closely on their breaks. Interestingly, their mission statement is … to build leadership in Cooperative Extension at all levels and provide current and future Extension leaders with the vision, courage, and tools to lead in a changing world.

I hope to get some pix of the event that I can post later this week.

Your very own 2 ft x 8 ft copy of the Albuquerque Timeline

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A number of people ask me, “Where and how can I buy a copy of the Timeline?” Here is the info if you are one of those folks and have a couple of hundred bucks lying around – and – a large wall space to fill.

There are a couple of things you will want to know if you would like to purchase your very own  copy of the Albuquerque Historical Timeline:

  • the 2 ft x 8 ft size is the smallest that is easily eye-readable
  • each copy is a full-color exact replica of the 4 ft x 16 ft Convention Center original
  • each copy has a very resilient laminate protecting it
  • a single copy reproduction  goes for $200, and that includes any tax and shipping

New Mexico Big Prints are the good folks that produced the 4 ft x 16 ft copies of the Timeline at the Convention Center and at the Airport. They also produced the smaller, 2 ft x 8 ft copies for high school and middle school use throughout Albuquerque and the Archdiocese, and it’s this size that is available for  purchase. I suppose you could order a 4 ft x 16 ft size, but expect to come up with about $3,750 or so per copy.

The URL to contact the good folks at New Mexico Big Prints is http://www.nmbigprints.com/index3.html.

Mexican Immigration – Paul Rodriguez video

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tomsausalitoIn doing research for the Mexican Immigration video, I Googled across this video viewpoint by Paul Rodriguez on the topic. The explanatory text comes from the YouTube link.

New America Foundation, December, 2007 — CA Event: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America

In the recently published, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds, Gregory Rodriguez takes an in-depth look at the largest immigrant group in American history. Rodriguez examines the complexities of the heritage and the racial and cultural synthesis–mestizaje–that has defined the Mexican people since the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. Vis-a-vis the present era of Mexican American confidence, Rodriguez argues that the rapidly expanding Mexican American integration in to the mainstream is changing not only how Americans think about race but how we envision our nation.

Gregory Rodriguez is an Irvine Senior Fellow and Director of the California Fellows Program at the New America Foundation. Rodriguez has written widely on issues of national identity, social cohesion, assimilation, race relations, religion, immigration, ethnicity, demographics, and social and political trends in such leading publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, where he is an op-ed columnist.

I hope you enjoy the watching … and the pondering. It seemed to fit very well with the video I just posted Mexican Immigration Through New Mexico And The Southwest. Please feel free to leave your comments; I’d love to know who’s out there listening/reading/watching.

New video: Mexican Immigration

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I just put the finishing touches on this video overview of Mexican Immigration through New Mexico and the Southwest and uploaded it to YouTube at  http://twurl.nl/gmqs07 . This was about a month in the making, what with the researching, scripting, recording, editing and all, but it holds together pretty well. It’s a nine-minute summary or overview “from 30,000 feet,” so it covers quite a lot of ground in a short time.

It follows the 600-year period from 1400 to 2009 covered by the Albuquerque, New Mexico Historical Timeline, and correlates historical events in Mexico, New Mexico and the Southwest. It begins with the thousand years of native populations trading from New Mexico into Mexico and over to the coastal areas that would become California. It covers the northward pull of silver mining from Mexico City to Zacatecas and Chihuaha in the 1500s, and Oñate’s extension of El Camino Real an additional 700 miles northward, establishing the first permanent settlement in Nuevo Mexìco in 1598. Other events affecting Mexican immigration in this period include:
•    The 1803 Louisiana Purchase
•    1821 Independence from Spain and the Mexican Republic period
•    Creation of the Lone Star Republic of Texas in 1835
•    The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo’s massive land transfer
•    Railroads arriving in the 1880s
•    The Mexican Revolutionary period from 1910 to 1930
•    The Great Depression and the Mexican Repatriation Program
•    The Bracero “guest worker” program from 1942 to 1964
•    Operation Wetback in 1954
•    The Maquiladora Program from 1964 to now
•    1994 NAFTA
•    Corporate globalization
•    The 2005 California Apology Act for the 1930s Mexican Repatriation Program
•    The effects of the current economic downturn

In these events, you can see a “we want you – we don’t want you” pendulum swinging for over 150 years, and some acknowledged racial profiling of U.S. citizens of Mexican descent in the Mexican Repatriation Program of the ‘30s and Operation Wetback in 1954.

The intent of the video is to bring some hopefully neutral historical information and perspective to the current discussion of immigration. If you have comments or observations, I would appreciate your sharing them with me on this blog post so  interested individuals may see and appreciate them.

If you’d like to know more about the Timeline itself, click on 5 Perspectives On Albuquerque or Creating The Timeline.

Chronology versus Timeline

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tomsausalito

While I acknowledge this is a bit of a quibble, I’d like to see if I can explain and defend the differences and distinctions between a ‘Chronology‘ and a ‘Timeline.’

To me, the distinctions have to do with the different insights, understandings, and experiences that arise from viewing information in one format versus the other.

Let me show you what I mean with a simple example using the same basic dates and information displayed in the two formats:

Chronology

  • 1598 – Juan de Onate creates first permanent settlement
  • 1706 – Albuquerque area settled and named
  • 1821 – Mexican Independence
  • 1848 – U. S. Territorial era begins

and then —

Timeline

1598•••••••••••••••••••1706••••••••••••••••••••••1821•1848
•Onate creates                  •Albuquerque                           •Mexican               first permanent                 area   settled                          independence          settlement                         and named                                      •US Territorial

To my eye, the time context of the dates seem to tell a different, and somehow more effective, story in the timeline format. I believe one gets a deeper feeling for the relative periods of time and cultural influence  from this format.

That is why I chose to use a timeline format, even though it required a lot (a lot) of trial and error to:

  • get all the information into a single coordinated format
  • keep the overall physical length to 16 feet
  • figure out where to use 100-, 50-, 20- and 10-year visual time segments
  • see that adding a true-time-scale at the bottom was necessary to really  effectively visually represent the relative time frames for the 600 year timeline period

From most comments, it seems to work OK and support individuals in seeing the fascinating interactions between time, geography, demography and culture.

Welcome to the Albuquerque, New Mexico Timeline Blog

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tomsausalito Welcome to the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Historical and Cultural Timeline blog.

The idea for  the Albuquerque Historical and Cultural Timeline arose from a 2004 conversation with Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez. His mention of the upcoming 300th birthday of the founding and naming of Albuquerque stimulated me to put two years into creating the Albuquerque Historical and Cultural Timeline, correlating and displaying 600 years of historical and cultural events across New Mexico, the U.S., Mexico, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

I need to express deep appreciation here for the following individuals who very graciously provided information, assistance, support and guidance  throughout:

  • Elizabeth Chestnut – Historian, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
  • Dr. Linda Hall – History Professor, UNM
  • Scott Meredith – History PhD candidate, UNM
  • Dr. Cynthia Radding – Director of Latin American & Iberian Institute, UNM
  • Rubén Saláz – Historian, author, Tri-Centennial History Task Force
  • Dr. Joseph P. Sánchez – Superintendent of the Spanish Colonial Research Center, a partnership between the National Park Service and the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque
  • Joe S. Sando – Historian, author, Archive Director for Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
  • Deb Slaney – Curator of History – Albuquerque Museum of Art and History
  • Dr. Jane Slaughter – Professor and Chair of History Department, UNM
  • Juan M. Solana – Mexican Consul and Alberto Bernal Acero – Deputy Mexican Consul
  • Claude Stephenson – State Folklorist and author of The Albuquerque Arts Alliance “Albuquerque Cultural Survey”
  • Sandia Laboratories Graphic Arts Department
  • Don Couchman – Historian and Chairman of the Tricentennial History Task Force
  • Craig Newbill – Executive Director, New Mexico Humanities Council
  • Jerry Geist and Vicky Osborne – El Jefe and La Jefecita of the Tricentennial Committee

Without their support and assistance, the Timeline would not be visible to the public in the East Wing of the Convention Center and in the passenger waiting area of the Albuquerque International Sunport.

I intend through this blog to explore and present interesting historical and cultural stories contained within the Timeline in a series of blog-post and video formats. I hope you enjoy the very first video, “5 Perspectives on Albuquerque,” which is an overview of the structure and ‘how to read’ the timeline.

Your comments, thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Tom