Culture of New Mexico

Its large Latino population includes Hispanos descended from settlers during the Spanish era, and later groups of Mexican Americans since the 19th century.

The state bears some of the oldest evidence of human habitation, with thousands of years of indigenous heritage giving way to centuries of successive migration and settlement by Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American colonists.

[9] Many indigenous New Mexicans have moved to urban areas throughout the state, and some cities such as Gallup are major hubs of Native American culture.

[10] New Mexico is also a hub for indigenous communities beyond its borders: the annual Gathering of Nations, which began in 1983, has been described as the largest pow wow in the U.S., drawing hundreds of native tribes from across North America.

[11] Compared to other Western states, New Mexico's Spanish and Mexican heritage remain more visible and enduring, due to it having been the oldest, most populous, and most important province in New Spain's northern periphery.

[10] The state's vast and diverse geography, sparse population, and abundance of ghost towns have contributed to its enduring frontier image and atmosphere.

[23][24] The earliest New Mexico artists whose work survives today are the Mimbres Indians, whose black and white pottery could be mistaken for modern art, except for the fact that it was produced before 1130 CE.

[26] Santa Fe has long hosted a thriving artistic community, which has included such prominent figures as Bruce Nauman, Richard Tuttle, John Connell, Steina Vasulka and Ned Bittinger.

In August, the city hosts the annual Santa Fe Indian Market, which is the oldest and largest juried Native American art showcase in the world.

As New Mexico's largest city, Albuquerque hosts many of the state's leading cultural events and institutions, including the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, and the famed annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Among the more notable authors were: Angélico Chávez, Nina Otero-Warren, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, Aurelio Espinosa, Cleofas Jaramillo, Juan Bautista Rael, and Aurora Lucero-White Lea.

New Mexico's strong Spanish, Anglo, and Wild West frontier motifs have contributed to a unique body of literature, represented by internationally recognized authors such as Rudolfo Anaya, Tony Hillerman, and Daniel Abraham.

[36] Western fiction folk heroes Billy the Kid, Elfego Baca, Geronimo, and Pat Garrett originate in New Mexico.

[46] Silver City, originally a mining town, is now a major hub and exhibition center for large numbers of artists, visual and otherwise.

[47] Another former mining town turned art haven is Madrid, New Mexico, which was brought to national fame as the filming location for the 2007 movie Wild Hogs.

Various seasons of the A&E/Netflix series Longmire were filmed in several New Mexico locations, including Las Vegas, Santa Fe, Eagle Nest, and Red River.

[53][54][55] New Mexico is known for its unique and eclectic culinary scene,[56] which fuses various indigenous cuisines with those of Spanish and Mexican Hispanos originating in Nuevo México.

[62]: 109 [63][64] Distinguishing characteristics include the use of local spices, herbs, flavors, and vegetables, particularly red and green New Mexico chile peppers,[65][66][67] anise (used in bizcochitos),[68] and piñon (pine nuts).

[70][71][72] The state is also the epicenter of a burgeoning Native American culinary movement, in which chefs of indigenous descent serve traditional cuisine through food trucks.

[75][page needed][76][77][78][page needed][79] Due to New Mexico's unique political history and over 400 years of relative geographic isolation, New Mexican Spanish is unique within Hispanic America,[74] with the closest similarities found only in certain rural areas of northern Mexico and Texas;[80] it has been described as unlike any form of Spanish in the world.

The presence of such deletion in areas close and historically connected to New Mexico makes it unlikely that New Mexicans independently developed this feature.

Included in this collection are hundreds of personal interviews and countless examples of corridos and inditas (local ballads), children's games and songs, folktales, chistes (anecdotes), jokes, home remedies, recipes, narratives dealing with local events, proverbs, riddles, songs, versos (rhymed quatrains), and witch stories and accounts of witchcraft.

THE SPANISH SPOKEN in rural areas of New Mexico and southern Colorado can be described as a regional type of language made up of archaic (sixteenth- and seventeenth-century) Spanish; Mexican Indian words, mostly from the Náhuatl; a few indigenous Rio Grande Indian words; words and idiomatic expressions peculiar to the Spanish of Mexico (the so-called mexicanismos); local New Mexico and southern Colorado vocabulary; and countless language items from English which the Spanish-speaking segment of the population has borrowed and adapted for everyday use.

New Mexico and southern Colorado Spanish, quite uniform over the whole geographical area, has survived by word of mouth for over four hundred years in a land that until very recent times was almost completely isolated from other Spanish-speaking centers.

... in the 1980s, the dialect is losing its struggle for existence because English is the official language of the area (notwithstanding state constitutional articles or amendments to the contrary–especially in New Mexico).

[80]Among the distinctive features of New Mexican Spanish are the preservation of archaic forms and vocabulary from colonial-era Spanish (such as haiga instead of haya or Yo seigo, instead of Yo soy);[85] the borrowing of words from Puebloan languages,[101] in addition to the Nahuatl loanwords brought by some colonists (such as chimayó, or "obsidian flake", from Tewa and cíbolo, or buffalo, from Zuni);[102] independent lexical and morphological innovations;[86] and a large proportion of English loanwords, particularly for technology (such as bos, troca, and telefón).

[80] Today, the language can be heard in a popular folk genre called New Mexico music and preserved in the traditions of New Mexican cuisine.

The state hosts several baseball teams of the Pecos League: the Roswell Invaders, Ruidoso Osos, Santa Fe Fuego and the White Sands Pupfish.

[108] New Mexico is a major hub for various shooting sports, mainly concentrated in the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, which is largest and most comprehensive competitive shooting range and training facility in the U.S.[109] Owing to its millennia of habitation and over two centuries of Spanish colonial rule, New Mexico features a significant number of sites with historical and cultural significance.

[111] The monuments include some of the earliest to have been created: El Morro and Gila Cliff Dwellings, proclaimed in 1906 and 1907, respectively; both preserve the state's ancient indigenous heritage.