New Mexico Office of the State Historian

New Mexico History is worth remembering. To remember is to call something to mind, pass it back through your heart, make it whole and finally it is, as the Spanish word “recordar’ implies, to awaken. Here, remembering the past is like opening a gift. Remembering invites us to listen to what we hear and to look at what we see, it also invites us to pull back the layers that make it contested — people, places, moments in time and the stories that reveal the fullness of the human condition. Yet, like any gift worth holding onto, it also carries a responsibility. We must be able to learn from those that have gone before us and we must be able to teach our children to appreciate the value of this historical understanding. It will invite them, in turn, to make History that is also worth remembering.

—Dr. Estevan Rael-Gálvez,
New Mexico State Historian