La Entrada

Santa Fe loves a civic spectacle. Quirky parody parades, historic processions, period reenactments, religious festivals, candlelight walks -- the calendar is full of them.

The central plaza downtown is the perfect place to stage these events as well as open air concerts, special weekend art markets and holiday festivities.

But the most cherished and the most controversial is La Entrada. For a year now, since we moved here, the city has been grappling with what to do about the reenactment of the entry into Santa Fe and conquest of the area by Spain in 1692.


It's a parade that takes place during the annual Fiesta in early September. The Fiesta is a three day weekend festival of Spanish food, music, religious processions, special masses, art and jewelry vending -- a big party celebrating Spanish history.

In the national distress about Hispanic immigration, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that families from Spain have lived in this place since well before Pilgrims landed in New England. The Spanish founded the city. It's a rich and proud history. It's the origin tale of New Mexico.


But the Spanish were not the original people to live here, and their conquest of the native Indian pueblos was just that -- a conquest. Brutal at times, religiously intolerant, rife with conflict. There were wars and subjugation as well as a long history of assimilations and melding of cultures.

The conquest and defeat of the Indians is not something many people think should be glorified. The parade at 2 p.m. through the plaza, showcasing re-enactors playing De Vargas and his conquistadors on horseback and priests with crosses walking behind, is supposed to depict the peaceful entry into Santa Fe and the pacific introduction of the Catholic faith.


It was not historically bloodless, and the parade has long been controversial with Indian populations. This year it is canceled.

Canceling this spectacle has been a divisive town issue for a year.  Last year Jim and I witnessed protesters being hauled away by police as a ragtag remnant parade -- no horses, no pomp, no trumpets --  tried to process through hostile crowds on the plaza.


This year the parade is canceled entirely. All year long the papers were filled with articles about a substitute celebration. Pueblo councils worked with town fathers to come up with something else. Cooperation was encouraging. Letters to the editor were well reasoned, both for and against keeping the Entrada procession.

No one wants to give it up -- how they all love their colorful, boisterous civic pageants -- but no one knows how to properly celebrate the fact that the Spanish came here and created a rich culture while doing terrible things in defeating a native population. It's complex history, it happened, and it cannot be ignored or forgotten.

It's like the controversy over Confederate statues now roiling the country. How do you show an entangled, difficult history from both sides in a reductive, symbolic way?

History is hard.

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