Gregorio Gonzales

Si Eres Genízaro: Race, Indigeneity, and Belonging in Northern New Mexico

This project examines the politics of racialization, representation, and subject formation in northern New Mexico and the U.S. Southwest Borderlands through an anthropological study of Genízaro identity in the Chama and Taos valleys. Genízaros remain historical figures of study, yet modern individuals, families, and communities experience Genízaro identity as a part of their lives and culture. Using a rigorous research agenda, Gonzales’ analytical and methodological movements focus on particular histories and experiences of Genízaro social life within both valley communities. His study interrogates the structuration of intelligible, distinctly Indigenous existence vis-à-vis settler state and Indigenous power structures. Gonzales examines why Abiquiú youth were enrolled and expelled from Indian boarding schools between 1890 and 1940; how Genízaro cultural representations were conceptualized within Native-specific performative spaces on the National Mall in 1992; how both communities continue reproducing cultural forms; and considers how each community now approaches the politics of Indigenous recognition.