Thread: Hispanic Activists Angle To Get Their Land Back

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Activists Angle to Get Land Back

May 16, 2005

Ben Neary

The loss of millions of acres of land-grant holdings by Hispanics in New Mexico in the 1800s continues to reverberate through the state today, land-grant activists say. Among the lasting effects, they say, are poverty, drug abuse and loss of language and culture.

And while politicians at the state and federal level are now talking louder than ever about taking action to address the issue, activists say they will save any celebration for the day when they see some concrete action to return the lands.

Former New Mexico Lt. Gov. Roberto Mondragn is a member of both the New Mexico Land Grant Forum and the Mexicano Land Educational and Conservation Trust. A member of the Anton Chico Land Grant, he's been active in the land-grant movement for decades.

Mondragn concedes the movement suffered a blow last year when the U.S. General Accounting Office concluded the federal government had afforded land-grant heirs constitutional due process in weighing, and in many cases denying, their claims.

Nonetheless, he says, it's clear that many government officials, including judges, made unfair decisions that stripped people of their lands. Now, he says, it's time for Congress to address the issue.

Meanwhile, Mondragn says he sees the loss of land-grant lands grinding away at the psyche of Hispanics in Northern New Mexico.

"The thing that keeps us together is the tradition," Mondragn said, "the culture, the language, the way of life, the ties to the roots, which includes the water and the land."

'We Want the Land'

Juan Sanchez has served as lobbyist with the New Mexico Land Grant Forum for the past three years. He went to Washington, D.C., last month to meet with members of the state's congressional delegation.

"We want to reclaim the land," he said. "We don't want compensation for anybody to get rich or for anybody to make money off of it."

While New Mexico's congressional representatives can say they want to surrender federal land, Sanchez said, "that doesn't mean it's going to convince the others that are in Congress."

Sanchez said he pressed the delegation to sponsor legislation to create a $2.7 billion trust fund for land-grant heirs. Interest from the fund could go to buy lands to reconstitute grants in the state by buying historic land-grant properties from private owners as well as provide educational and economic-development opportunities for
heirs.

Of 9.38 million acres claimed as grants in New Mexico, The GAO found, the U.S. government ultimately recognized 105 grants totaling just under 6 million acres.

Land-grant activists arrived at their optimistic $2.7 billion figure by taking the amount of land claims not approved by Congress - - 3.4 million acres -- and multiplying it by $200 an acre, and then adding interest for the past century or so.

Sanchez said he spoke with representatives from several congressional offices recently. While he got no firm commitments about legislation, he said, he heard the trust-fund concept "is not too far off."

While the money wouldn't be appropriated in one chunk, he said, "they're willing to work with us so maybe within a few years we could actually get up to the $2.7 billion."

While some might argue that it makes no sense to buy back something that was stolen, Sanchez said, "that is probably the only way that we're going to get the land back."

But while the land-grant community takes it as an article of faith that the 3.4 million acres in claims never confirmed by Congress was legitimate acreage "lost" to the land grants, the GAO report casts serious doubt on that claim.

The report notes that among the claims the government denied in the New Mexico territory were several that lacked any supporting documents, such as statements from the claimants, to prove that anyone was entitled to the land.

The U.S. government rejected outright 49 requests to recognize community land grants. Of those, 27 were rejected either because the claimants never pursued their claims or because the claimed land fell within other existing land grants already confirmed by
Congress. Eight more claims were rejected because the purported grants had been made by unauthorized Mexican officials, the GAO said.

However, the report also states the federal government denied some claims purely on technical or legal grounds, without addressing the underlying validity of the claims. For example, the government declined to confirm the 25,000-acre Embudo Land Grant and 43,961-
acre La Cieneguilla Land Grant because it found that copies of grant documents had been created by officials who lacked authority to do so.

Activists Angle to Get Land Back
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And in many other cases, the government recognized small parcels of land granted to individuals, but refused to confirm as grant lands the common areas that communities had used collectively for grazing and wood gathering.

A History of Injustices

As tangled, difficult and unfair as the federal grant- confirmation process was, in fact it marked more the beginning of the erosion of New Mexico's land grants than the end of it.

Most of New Mexico's land grants have either dissolved or shrunk considerably through tax auctions, private sales and legal maneuverings.

Some land-grant heirs continue to hold that the federal government had an obligation to keep the grants intact, much as the government is responsible for American Indian lands. But the GAO, in a critical finding, concluded that it did not.

Sanchez said members of the Chilili Land Grant, southeast of Albuquerque, currently pay taxes on just 8,000 acres, down from the original 44,481 acres. In some cases, he conceded, land-grant heirs sold their lands to nonheirs.

But most land taken out of land grants, he said, has been removed "through the delinquent-taxes process."

Sanchez doesn't maintain that land grants shouldn't have been taxed by the state. But the state never told land-grant trustees that taxes were being levied among the common lands.

"A lot of it had to do with the state's fault, not informing the board of trustees that taxes were due," he said.

The land-grant community expects a fight from environmentalists and others if Congress seriously proposes turning over federal land to address past injustices, Sanchez said.

"There was over 2 million acres taken from community land grants that are now in the hands of the Forest Service," he said. "Realistically, I don't know if that would ever happen, if they would turn over 2 million acres.

"But there's always a way of working it so that the community land grants that bound the forest could actually be the stewards of the land and actually use it for the benefit of the community and not have to actually turn the land over to the land grant," Sanchez
said. "I've always said that's a possibility of working that way with the Forest Service."

Root of Many Problems

Rep. Miguel Garcia, D-Albuquerque, sponsored the joint memorial this past session calling on Congress to act on the land-grant issue. He has served as chairman and vice chairman of the legislative Land Grant Interim Committee.

An elementary-school teacher in Albuquerque's South Valley, Garcia has been active in the land-grant movement since the 1970s. He traces his ancestors to the Atrisco Land Grant, which has evolved into a private development company. He said he never chose to pursue becoming a shareholder in the company.

Speaking in a classroom decorated with Spanish-language teaching materials, Garcia said loss of grant lands has had grave effects on Hispanics around the state.

"If you look at where we have much need for housing, it's within some of these pockets of old land-grant heirs," Garcia said. "Look at some of these communities: Atrisco, Five Points, Armijo -- we have a fair number of fairly dilapidated houses. There's always a need for much housing rehab and affordable housing.

"And then there's the issue where you're the first generation totally dislodged from your land base," Garcia said. He said he sees substance abuse in the community as tied to loss of grant lands.

"Those people are some of the ones divorced from their community lands," Garcia said.

In addition, Garcia sees the loss of land grants contributing to the incidence of gangs and criminal behavior. Young people thirsting for cultural identity instead find themselves locked into criminal behavior, he said.

"They're trying to manifest themselves into this cultural identity, but they don't have the roots to do it," Garcia said.

A few young people direct their cultural longing into getting educated, Garcia said, becoming attorneys, elected officials and business people.

While the GAO report mentions the possibility of federal payments to land-grant heirs, Garcia says that's not where the land-grant movement is focused.

"With us, it's a matter of returning the land and gaining access to the land," Garcia said. "It's not so much an issue of a scholarship or a $20,000 one-time check; it's return of the land itself."

Source: (C) 2005 The Santa Fe New Mexican.

"With us, it's a matter of returning the land and gaining access to the land," Garcia said. "It's not so much an issue of a scholarship or a $20,000 one-time check; it's return of the land itself."

And as soon as you get it back, you should return it to the Indians that you took it from.