New Mexico became the 47th state in 1912, and all this year centennial celebrations will be taking place. You can read more about events all over the state at this website.
We kicked off the celebration in January here in Las Cruces with an amazing parade. Each decade in our century of statehood was represented, and it seemed as though almost everyone took part.
I loved seeing the school children dancing, singing, chanting, and marching by, school by school, decade by decade.
Parts of the state, including the land where my adobe house now sits, belonged at one time to old Mexico.
The parade made it clear that "multiculturalism" has always been a part of New Mexico's history. We tend to say that our population is made up of Native Americans, Hispanics, and Anglos. However, as we learned at a recent history lecture, many other cultures have an important place in the state's history. I hope to write a post soon about those cultures, as well as some of the other things that we learned from the history classes we attended.
I loved looking at the faces of the people in the parade and those watching.
Read more about the parade: Centennial Parade Las Cruces
See a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoK0zdM9d1w
See some more photos on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattie/sets/72157628765834281/with/6655824457/
4 comments:
Happy Birthday to your beautiful State! What a nice parade that was -- and I look forward to your further posts on NM's multiculturalism -- which is one of the reasons why we loved it!
My father was just a boy when New Mexico became a state...He told me about the celebration in Alamogordo and the flags and cheering. So I actually knew someone who witnessed the first celebration. That's kind of exciting. Thanks for all the great pictures.
What fun just to see all the colors and multi cultural dress. Wonderful photos of the events.
super post about an absolutely homespun and lovely celebration of our state's 200th. Thanks
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