Contested Terrains || The Socorro Mission: Culture, Economic Development, and the Politics of Historic Preservation along the Río Grande/Río Bravo

The Socorro Mission: Culture, Economic Development, and the Politics of HistoricPreservation along the Río Grande/Río BravoAuthor(s): Howard CampbellSource: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 32, No. 6, Contested Terrains (Nov., 2005), pp. 8-27Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30040264 .

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The Socorro Mission

8

Culture, Economic Development, and the Politics of Historic Preservation

along the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo by

Howard Campbell

El Paso is an archetypical part of what many North Americans consider the "Old West." Though not as famous as the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone Park, El Paso is strongly associated in the American imaginary with western expansion and adventures among wild lands and primitive peoples (Fox, 1999; King, 2004). In U.S. cultural mythology, American history is the glori- ous march of Euro-American culture from its east-coast founding by the Pil- grims to its culmination on the golden shores of California (Zinn, 2003). What this triumphal history usually neglects is the struggles of nonwhite, non-Anglo, often nonmale "Others" (Limerick, 1988). Since El Paso history is also part of Latin American history and the contemporary residents of El Paso are primarily of "Latin" and indigenous descent, its history must be rethought from multiple angles.

Howard Campbell is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Texas-El Paso. He is the author or editor of five volumes about Mexico. He also conducts research on U.S.- Mexico border culture. This research was funded by an ARP/ATP grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and an NEH Faculty Research Award. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Various phases of the author's research in the El Paso Lower Valley were supported by a faculty development leave from the University of Texas-El Paso and the U.S. Census Bureau's project on ethnographic barriers to the census in colonias. The author has also conducted related ethnographic research for the Piro-Manso-Tiwa Tribe as part of its petition for federal recognition. All information in the text regarding the tribe is a result of that research. All ethnographic interviews or oral histories cited or discussed in the text were conducted by the author or his student Stella Yarbrough. The author also had access to the findings of archaeological excavations concerned with the architectural history of the Socorro Mis- sion and the results of David Camarena's thesis research (including archival and archaeological data) on mestizaje at the mission. He thanks John Peterson, who helped create the Socorro Mis- sion Preservation Project (SMPP) and directed anthropological work at Socorro for many years, for his support. He also thanks Pat Taylor, director of the SMPP, Stephen Mbutu, Jean Fulton, Skip Clark, and Gary Williams.

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 145, Vol. 32 No. 6, November 2005 8-27 DOI: 10.1177/0094582X05281110 O 2005 Latin American Perspectives



Campbell / THE SOCORRO MISSION 9

This article examines how we might envision history differently (Gable, Handler, and Lawson, 1992; Gable and Handler, 1996). It addresses how historic preservation projects and cultural heritage sites confront the dual task of presenting history in a balanced and "just" fashion-while being cognizant of the constructed and relativistic dimensions of representations of history- and contributing to economic development (Logan and Molotch, 1987; Han- dler and Gable, 1997). It takes up these issues through a study of participatory policy making (Hackenberg, 2002) and the politics of historic restoration in El Paso's Socorro Mission Preservation Project (SMPP). The SMPP is central to plans to promote the local missions as heritage tourism sites and thus stimulate economic development in the predominantly impoverished His- panic Lower Valley region of El Paso. Since 2002 I have directed anthropological research associated with the mission in coordination with the SMPP.

The Socorro Mission was constructed in 1691 by Piro Indians under the direction of Franciscan missionaries as one of a chain of Spanish missions and presidios built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries along the Camino Real or Royal Road that connected central New Spain and New Mexico (Weber, 1991; Timmons, 1990). The missions represented the religious front of Spain's colonial expansion north from the Valley of Mexico. In Deeds's words (2003: 8), the missions were "transactional and transitional crossroads where ethnic identities, subsistence patterns, cultural beliefs, and gender relations were forged and changed over time in a frontier only slowly conquered by non-Indians." The SMPP, begun in 1998, is attempting to restore the mission building and preserve elements of this complex history, which involves Indians and Spaniards and eventually Mestizos, Anglos, and Mexican-Americans. The practical politics of cultural heritage management and economic development at Socorro involve a complex negotiation among multiple social and ethnic groups with diverging interests and views of local history.

In the El Paso area of which Socorro is a part, promoters of economic development debate whether the border is primarily an American growth pole of capitalist free trade, a reserve of cheap (Mexican) labor, or a potential hot site for tourism concerned with Mexican and border culture and the Spanish-American experience. Unresolved in these discussions are the place of Native Americans in predominantly mestizo communities (Field, 2002) and the claims of multiple ethnic groups to the same historic places and economic resources (Dombrowski, 2002). In a rapidly hybridizing and differen- tiating cultural world, which traditions and identities can or should be embraced by contemporary individuals and communities as they attempt to promote economic development is problematic (Sturm, 2002). This article



10 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

illustrates the challenges of historic preservation in such a setting and shows the relevance of anthropological understandings to this work.

The article is also relevant to Latin American studies because El Paso was historically part of Spain and later Mexico and its population is predominantly of "Latin" descent (including many Mexican nationals). Additionally, the problems discussed in this article occur with frequency in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. In Mexico, the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (INAH) and local groups often fight over issues con- cerning how history is portrayed and who controls archaeological sites. A positive development involves native groups' controlling such sites and gen- erating revenue for their people (Stephen Niblo, personal communication, January 18, 2005).

HISTORIC PRESERVATION AND THE POLITICS OF MEMORY

The issues raised by the project are illuminated by the anthropological literature on the "politics of memory" (Rappaport, 1990; Sturken, 1997; Climo and Cattell, 2003). In recent anthropology, this trend was provoked by Hobsbawm and Ranger's (1983) concept of the "invention of tradition." This approach sparked many valuable studies but was often used indiscriminately to deny continuity to contemporary cultural processes, in some cases damag- ing "indigenous" interests, and to deconstruct "authenticity" without offer- ing anything in its place (Campbell, 1993; Briggs, 1996). Rather than adopt a dualistic position that separates the "real" from the "invented" past, it is pref- erable to "simultaneously account for and relate historical process, on the one hand, to representations of the past, on the other" (Yelvington, 2002: 229; Trouillot, 1997). Buildings such as the Socorro Mission are important topics for such an analysis because, as Yelvington (2002: 232) points out, "Objects, museums, monuments, and places are particularly effective [as transmitters of views of the past], especially because they often escape scrutiny as history. Critical to this approach is an understanding of how particular views of history gain supremacy as a result of political and economic power."

I. L. Martinez (2002) discusses how history and community are imagined through "activities and practices." As in Martinez's work, at stake in the historic restoration of the Socorro Mission are definitions of contemporary cultural identity and political positioning. Thus, in Foucault's terms, the Socorro Mission is a "heterotopic" space of power arrangements-a place for the interpretation of history and "the production of new subjectivities" (De Jorio,




2002: 51; Foucault, 1997). What makes such work difficult is the fact that multiple groups may have historical memories connected to a site. Repre- senting these different interests fairly and accurately (i.e., in a way that recog- nizes complexity and relativity, not "just the facts") is a serious challenge for preservationists. (By using the term "accurately," I am implying not one true version of history but a pursuit of at least "partial truths" [Clifford, 1986] through scholarly integrity.) Negotiating the cultural complexities of these issues at heritage sites is also critical to their contribution to economic development. Therefore this article is of direct practical relevance to cultural heritage management.

The literature on memory and history in anthropology is vast and has become so stylish that it has, at times, lapsed into imprecisely grounded research with limited implications (Yelvington, 2002: 236). Fortunately, two of the most important contributions to this literature concern a Texas site, the Alamo, that was originally also a mission. For Flores, the Alamo is the "master symbol" of Anglo oppression of Mexicans, a defining symbol of Texas and the United States. According to Flores (2002: 161), "the West-as a project of modernity . . . -emerges full force with the cultural birth of the Alamo." Trouillot (1997) discusses the "second battle" waged over the facts and interpretations of the Alamo. Flores carefully dissects the Alamo myth, which he finds enormously powerful despite or rather because of its distor- tion of history. Contrary to the nationalist discourse that frames the Alamo as a battle between white Texans and Mexicans, Flores concludes that Mexicans fought on both sides. As an "icon of cultural memory," the Alamo discourse became the ideological justification for what he calls "Texas Modern," the assignment of Mexicans and Anglos to "an emerging social order brought forth by the material and ideological forces that gripped Texas between 1880 and 1920." In the new commercial/industrial regime that superseded the agro-pastoralism of the nineteenth century, "Anglos" and "Mexicans" would become sharply separated, essentialized ethnic categories with Anglos on the top.

Similarly, in the case of the Socorro Mission official discourses engage in selective erasures and the politicizing of social memories and history, but there are important differences between the two sites. Most important, the Alamo is an internationally famous place, a prominent national landmark, and a household word. The Socorro Mission, in contrast, is a relatively obscure, still-functioning local church. Additionally, the El Paso public has been far less engaged in the historical controversies that have prompted such acrimony and debate in San Antonio (Trouillot, 1997). Furthermore, the Alamo is primarily a locus of contention between Anglos and Mexicans. Analysis of the Socorro Mission must transcend this binary and examine the




complex relationships among multiple ethnic groups including various indigenous groups, a powerful minority Anglo population, Mexican nationals, and the majority (mestizo) Mexican-American population.

HISTORIC PRESERVATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Although the Socorro Mission may help us understand "Texas Modern," the current preservation project must be viewed in the context of a frag- mented, consumerist twenty-first-century border culture (Campbell, 2005). In the current Texas moment, an apathetic, divided public largely ignores politics. Its attention is focused on economic survival, entertainment, and pop culture, albeit often with limited resources (Ritzer, 2003). While Hobsbawm, Benjamin, Foucault, and others provide insights into the discursive dimensions of sites of history and memory, an obsession with such debates may lead us to overestimate the impact of these sites (see Yelvington, Goslin, and Arriaga, 2002). I would argue that a common error in contemporary anthropology is the conflation of the political and identity concerns of social analysts with those of the marginalized social groups they write about. Furthermore, getting the cultural and historic story "right" (by which I mean presenting a balanced story that includes the views and perspectives of marginalized groups) or deconstructing, relativizing, and "complexifying" existing notions of local history does not resolve the problem of creating cul- turally compelling identities and stories for the promotion of heritage sites as part of economic development projects.

Thus, for example, Handler and Gable (1997) have skillfully dissected the politics of representation at Colonial Williamsburg, but these efforts do not in themselves improve the quality of life for Southern African-Americans. Likewise, poor people in El Paso (the majority of potential visitors to the Socorro Mission) may consider debates about the historical representation of colonial society less relevant to their lives than their practical economic, health, and quality-of-life needs. Moreover, highly complex, academically oriented presentations of history may not connect with the audiences they are meant to attract. Critiquing the politics of historical representation at cultural heritage sites is only half the battle. Anthropologists must also work with preservationists to develop projects and sites that will have broad appeal and contribute to the economic revitalization of communities. I do not suggest that the interests of political power holders, promoters of economic development, and diverse ethnic communities are necessarily compatible, but I do suggest that historic preservation projects closely connected to impoverished




ethnic communities can contribute to the economic development of those communities if they include their histories, cultural traditions, and contemporary needs.

COMMUNITY, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION

Historic preservation projects have transformative potential (Abraham- son, 1999; Ndegwa, 1996; Delcore, 2003). The SMPP connects with the larger issues facing El Paso and other communities today: What is a city's identity in the globalized, multicultural, capitalist twenty-first century? In a highly competitive heritage tourism market, cities must "brand" (i.e., construct) a marketable cultural identity (Logan and Molotch, 1987; Klein, 2002; Hargrove, 2002). The lack of such an identity has stymied the efforts of the tourist sector of El Paso and many other border cities. Community and shared meanings about history are extremely difficult to achieve (Smith, 1999: 225). The most fruitful direction for projects like the SMPP may be to combine social justice in historical depictions with concrete programs for economic betterment that are rooted in the culture and history of marginalized groups.

The cultural branding of El Paso history in heritage projects must be complex and multifaceted. Anglos are now a small minority of the city's population. Hispanics are the majority and are taking over many political offices. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are divided, and the largest Indian group is focused on maintaining a gambling casino. In this context, the values and meanings of history, community, and historic preservation are divisive and problematic and often ignored in political battles over hard cash. Thus projects like the SMPP must show that an interest in history is not just a symbolic concern but provides real economic benefits to the community. Projects can do this if they connect, in an inclusive way, the issue of social justice in historic preservation with communities' practical needs.

In addition to teaching people about the complex history of their community, historic preservation projects can teach them about their cultural heritage as an ongoing, viable approach to life rather than as a lifeless diorama. Concretely, in El Paso, this means teaching children about a diet of corn, beans, squash, chiles, and other native foods as opposed to Peter Piper Pizzas and Whataburgers, curing with herbs, massage, and "natural" means when possible instead of drugs, socializing with other people and taking part in the civic and ceremonial life of their community rather than atomized individual- ism, and communing with nature instead of staring at television all day. It




also means deriving development plans from local history and culture. This may include projects to construct adobe houses instead of trailers, protect river-basin land, sand hills, and desert, renovate plazas and historic buildings, create museums and other heritage tourism sites, and promote farming instead of succumbing to urban sprawl.

The SMPP cannot resolve every dilemma of economic development and heritage management in El Paso. However, to the extent that the project connects local mestizo people with their Indian roots and subtly presents the complex history of indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican occupations and inter- actions in the region, it can make a vital contribution to the economic development of the region that emerges from these histories and cultures rather than slavishly following existing American economic development models. The material that follows illustrates these issues as played out in the SMPP and suggests directions for new approaches to cultural heritage preservation and promotion.

HISTORY OF THE SOCORRO MISSION

Spanish priests arrived at Socorro in the wake of Juan de Ofiate's conquest of the region for Spain in the late 1500s. The Piros, Pueblo Indians from northern New Mexico, came to the El Paso area along with Tiwas (also Pueb- los), whose descendants became the Tigua Indian Tribe, after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, in which numerous Pueblo Indian villages united to over- throw Spanish colonial rulers in the regional capital of Santa Fe (0. Martinez, 2000; Houser, 1979). The aboriginal people of the El Paso area were the Sumas and the Mansos, groups that are extinct today except for some members of the contemporary Piro-Manso-Tiwa Indian Tribe of Las Cruces, New Mexico (Eickhoff, 1996).

The Piros and Tiwas associated with the Mansos and remnants of the Sumas, and this led to considerable intermarriage and cultural mixing in addition to the hybridization with the Hispanic overlords that continued after Mexican independence from Spain (0. Martinez, 2000). During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo1 floods destroyed the Socorro Mission as many as five times (Peterson and Brown, 1994). Today's majestic structure, built in 1843 during the "Mexican period" of local history, is located in Socorro, Texas (population 23,000), on the fringes of the El Paso urban complex and less than a mile from the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo. For- merly a tiny Hispanic farming community, Socorro has ballooned into a sprawling town of old adobe and "modern" houses surrounded by cotton farms, factories, junkyards, colonias (the irregular settlements that dot the




Lower Valley landscape), and trailer parks. The mission church is the symbolic heart of the traditional community. As a member of one of the community's founding families, Vicente Fresquez, put it, "The mission was the center of social life. The day started with morning mass, and the bells signified the start of mass."

The power of the church in the consciousness of long-time Socorro residents is encapsulated in the myth of San Miguel, its patron saint.2 According to local folklore, the church's current statue of San Miguel was being taken by wooden oxcart to its future home in a church in northern New Mexico. When the drivers of the oxcart reached Socorro, it was too late to go on, so they spent the night. In the morning, the oxen were unable to pull the cart; the saint was too heavy. Local people decided that San Miguel wanted to stay in Socorro, and so the statue was placed in the church and has been there ever since. According to Juan Fresquez, sacristdn of the Socorro church for many years, who told me this story, the devotion of local people to their saint was such that when a priest attempted to take the San Miguel statue out of the church in 1936 there was a great public outcry. Some people signed a petition to keep the saint in the church; others offered to use their own money to pay for repairs so long as the statue stayed put; still others armed themselves with guns to prevent its departure. Ultimately the statue stayed, but the fear that outsiders would gain control of the church and its accouterments persisted, especially when certain religious objects and art disappeared.

In addition to the San Miguel statue, the mission building has intrinsic value. It is built of adobe bricks with five-foot-thick walls, indigenous cotton- wood or cypress beams (vigas), and a classic cruciform layout. Bright beams of desert sunlight flooding through the clerestory beautifully illuminate its lime-plastered adobe walls. The Socorro Mission church, a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark site that is also on the National Register of Historic Places, serves the oldest continuously functioning parish in the United States. Thus, when it began to deteriorate, church officials and townspeople sought help in restoring and preserving the building.

PARTICIPATORY HERITAGE MANAGEMENT ON THE BORDER

Cornerstones Community Partnerships Inc., the main sponsoring organization of the SMPP, is a nonprofit group dedicated to the preservation of adobe buildings. Founded in 1986, its mission is "working in partnership with communities to restore historic structures, encourage traditional building practices, and support cultural values."3 Pat Taylor, coordinator of the




SMPP, began restoration work on the church in 1998. A New Mexican with deep roots (Hispanic and Anglo) in the region, Taylor benefited from a remarkable coalition of international, state, and local groups created by Texas State Senator Elliot Shapleigh and the archaeologist John Peterson to rebuild the mission. Participating organizations and individuals in the Socorro Collaborative include, in addition to Senator Shapleigh's office, the City and School District of Socorro, the El Paso Community Foundation, various archaeologists, the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, the Tigua Indian Tribe,4 and the Texas Historical Commission.5 Grants and donations totaling $2 million have paid for equipment, materials, and the salaries of Taylor and his capable assistant, Jean Fulton. Hundreds of volunteers-including "at- risk" high school students from a rehabilitation program (Keys Academy) and underemployed laborers-have made up the shifting workforce. Taylor, Fulton, and Dennis Wearmouth (director of Keys) arrive at the mission every morning dressed in worn, dusty blue jeans and hard hats and toil with amaz- ing bonhomie, coordinating myriad activities and negotiating personality conflicts. In the extreme desert heat they mount scaffolds, shape adobe bricks, patch walls, and resolve architectural dilemmas with admirable dedi- cation. Taylor sees himself as "a tool of the community" and his work as a cooperative endeavor in which community members share cultural knowledge and architectural methods with specialists. The specialists teach local people about their history and how to restore their buildings using traditional materials and techniques. In Taylor's words, the project is a "training and preservation program, not a build-it-fast construction site." The end product will be an edifice that resembles the original structure or one of its later historical phases in most respects but is more durable and resilient.

Adobe, vigas, latillas (cross members) and lime, used wisely, are ecologically gentle, thermally effective, and long-lasting. The main architectural challenges faced by Taylor at the Socorro Mission have been removing the cement collar that was poured around the walls in the 1940s, which retained moisture and weakened the adobe bricks and walls, replacing parts of the roof, bell tower, and choir loft and many of the adobes, stabilizing the walls, removing and replacing a recently installed, nontraditional wooden floor, and plastering the outer walls with lime. Archaeological and architectural investigations are being conducted to ascertain historical features and cultural uses of the building. This knowledge is being incorporated into the remodeled facility. A major challenge is to match the original, hybrid Indian/ Hispanic building materials with "compatible" local soils, woods, and minerals.

On paper, the project's philosophy sounds ideal, and Taylor, Fulton, and Wearmouth's talent and sensitivity to the needs of participants in a complex




grassroots project are evident. Yet the SMPP has been beset by conflict since its inception. Some Socorro townspeople question why a New Mexico restoration organization was brought in instead of a local group. Another source of controversy was the removal of air conditioning and heating systems (that damaged the adobe) and the cement collar and the replacement of a wooden floor with dirt. To some Socorrenses, these changes seem like steps backward imposed by outsiders. Others, unaware of the project's efforts to maintain historical accuracy, view any changes suggested by "outsiders" with suspi- cion. One interested party complained, "The mission was what it was when they [Cornerstones] came here, and it should have been renovated and left according to what it was when they came here, period!"

A pillar of support for the project has been the La Purisima Restoration Committee, a group of Socorro parishioners led by Arturo Morales. Morales reflects,

All my ancestors were born and raised here ... this was their pride and joy. It used to be that everyone was involved in the mission. Las seinoras del altar did the clean-up before services and arranged the bazaars. My father would haul dirt for the church on weekends. Older men would lime-plaster the walls. After mass the older folks would work on the roof. Today few people volunteer, only my wife and I, the rest are outsiders. The old Socorrenses are dying off. New people are moving into Socorro. Their heart is not in the mission.

Another supporter with deep roots in the community and an interest in historic preservation is Sam Sinchez: "I think it is good that we [i.e., the mission] are listed in the historical record. I think it is important because it pre- serves the community and not too much change will come to it. We don't want to have a Wal-Mart or parking lot in front of it. Instead we want to keep our placita and traditions, and so the guidelines will preserve it."

Yet the Socorro community has not spoken in one voice for the project. One division within Socorro is that between "old families" such as the Fresquezes, who claim several hundred years' residence in the area, and recent immigrants from Mexico residing in the colonias. Colonia residents, lacking piped water, sewer systems, and other public services, have allied themselves with the El Paso Inter-religious Sponsoring Organization (EPISO), a Catholic activist group involved in pursuing the provision of services for poor people. Father Ed Roden, pastor of the Socorro church during the late 1980s and for a time co-chair of EPISO, says, "We were not going to rest until water serviced every house in the colonias, and we fought for better job wages for the people of the colonias." Members of the old political estab- lishment of Socorro, feeling betrayed because new colonias received piped water and they did not, view EPISO as a threat and oppose its efforts. They




also have opposed changes to the mission. Sometimes this insider discourse, directed at the priests in charge of the mission or at other "outsiders" intent on modifying the church and its decorations, takes a xenophobic turn.

Members of Historic Missions Restoration Inc. (HMRI), a committee established by the Diocese of El Paso to raise money and oversee the preservation project, have consistently clashed with Taylor over the length of time it has taken to preserve the mission, the expense of the project, the merit of the Cornerstones training program, and the involvement of archaeologists. In particular, some board members see the use of unskilled young people as inefficient and irrelevant to the goal of capitalizing on the mission's commercial potential. Some of these disputes are stylistic and personal-conflicts between liberal activists and conservative businessmen-but they also high- light larger issues about whose history and whose culture are embodied in cultural preservation projects. Are such projects important primarily for their inherent cultural properties or because they can exploit the economic potential of heritage tourism? Whose histories do such projects represent and empower?

HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CONFLICT IN EL PASO

Any discussion of these issues must confront the "facts" of El Paso history, the discourses regarding these "facts," and the role of these discourses in ongoing cultural and economic processes. When the SMPP remodels a colonial-era church using original materials, is it in fact restoring a "mestizo" structure, because the architecture contains both Indian and Hispanic elements, or is it celebrating a Catholic, European heritage and "silencing" (Trouillot, 1997) the Indian past? Do we want to strengthen religious institu- tions that have been implicated in the spiritual and geopolitical conquest of Native Americans?

The Mansos, despite the Spanish connotation ("tame") of their name, fought colonial Hispanics on numerous occasions before being conquered ultimately, and built the Guadalupe Mission church in Ciudad Juirez (then "El Paso del Norte"). Today the Suma and Manso heritage is almost never mentioned. No businesses are named after them, and schoolchildren are not taught about them. Only the Piro-Manso-Tiwa Indian Tribe in Las Cruces, New Mexico, maintains a Manso identity, while fighting an uphill battle for recognition by the federal government (on unrecognized tribes, see Sider, 1993; Clifford, 1988: 277-346; Field, 2003). If local Indians appear at all in public discourses or presentations it is usually Tigua, Tarahumara (of Chi- huahua), or Apache (from New Mexico). Most public treatments of the El




Paso past either ignore or homogenize them into generic "natives," lamenting the Apache's raids, celebrating the Spanish conquest, applauding the rich- ness of Mexican culture, or praising the Anglo "civilizing" project. Only the Tigua, a recently federally recognized tribe, are regularly acknowledged (Wright, 1993). Lately the state government's treatment of the tribe has taken the form of denying it permission to run a profitable casino.

The complexity of the politics of identities on the border is evident when we consider that the Tigua's new income allowed them to donate large sums to candidates for elected office from both the Republican and Democratic parties and to the SMPP. Although the Texas state government has shut down the Tigua casino, alleging violations of the law, the tribe continues to press its claims for land and cultural recognition.6 This scenario, in which one native group has federal legitimacy as "indigenous" and another closely related one does not, is unfortunately all too common and, as Dombrowski (2002: 1062) shows, a product of "long-term historical dynamics of state power under industrial capitalist development." These dynamics also create inequalities within native groups.

Seemingly oblivious to its potential negative impact on local racial relations, the City of El Paso has approved the Twelve Travelers Project, which involves the installation of 12 large bronze statues that commemorate primarily the European dimension of local history. The first statue was Fray Garcia de San Francisco, the Spanish priest who established the area's first mission. The second, now nearly completed, will become the largest equestrian statue in North America. The 36-foot-high metal horse will bear none other than Juan de Oiiate, the conqueror of the Southwest, who is known at Acoma Pueblo for punishing the local Indian men for rebellion by chopping off their feet (O. Martinez, 2001).

The construction of the statue has provoked tremendous controversy locally and is likely to cause national and international protests by native groups when it is finished. Critics have argued that even if Ofiate was a creole and part of the emerging mestizo society that is now the majority in the region, the statue celebrates the European conquest of Indians. Its mammoth size is symbolic of the way the history of Spanish colonialism has dominated public commemoration of El Paso's past and a statement of where history begins according to the local authorities. It is a clear example of what Trouillot (1997) calls the production of historical narratives that silence particular histories.

In cultural heritage projects like the Ofiate statue and at the Socorro Mis- sion, the absent Indians hover like a ghostly presence above or beneath the El Paso community. At Socorro $2 million has been spent to remodel the Span- ish Catholic mission while the original pueblo of the Piros, the group for




which the mission was created in the first place, lies nearby abandoned and ignored. This erasure shows what matters in contemporary El Paso. Andrew Roybal of the Piro-Manso-Tiwa Tribe feels that his tribe has been left out of the Socorro restoration because "to include us would go against the written history that claims that there are no living Piro descendants and no recogniz- able Piro tribe today. Thus our mere existence throws a monkey wrench into the situation. This begs the question of what to do if there really are Piros alive today."

Additionally, the most recent version of the mission was built during the "Mexican period" of local history, and Mexico has little say in its restoration. Taylor has attempted to remedy this by frequent consultations with preservation specialists from the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia y Historia. A related erasure is the lack of discussion of the politics of mestizaje in the Paso del Norte region (Thompson and Morales, 1998: 39). Obviously, Juan de Ofiate cannot function as a symbol of the harmonious blending of Indian and Spanish. Nonetheless, even though in many contexts notions of racial/ cultural hybridity have been manipulated by elites to maintain oppressive political and economic structures, they could also be used to mobilize support for contemporary indigenous struggles. The polarization between Indian advocates and celebrants of Spanish heritage neglects the extent to which New Spain, including El Paso, was a mixed society. The vast majority of the El Paso area population today is of both Indian and Spanish descent.

This population is generally ambivalent about indigenous identity, sometimes hostile toward the Tigua and sometimes sympathetic to Indian causes. It is my view that the SMPP best serves native causes if it identifies the indigenous dimensions of local history and shows how a mestizo experience has emerged. If local mestizos identify with their indigenous heritage and see Indians as cultural and political allies rather than competitors for resources, then the possibilities for social justice are increased. For historic preservation projects to be successful they must address these thorny issues, topics about which anthropologists have special expertise.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION

As the demography of El Paso shifts and Mexican-Americans, most of whom are mestizo heirs to the history discussed above, gain political and economic power, border history will have to be viewed in new, more creative and balanced ways. The mere accession of Mexican-Americans to positions of authority is no guarantee of social justice in border communities, as is




evidenced by the widely touted Operation Blockade initiated by the former Border Patrol Chief Silvestre Reyes. Vila's (2000) research in El Paso/ Ciudad Juirez demonstrated the often antagonistic character of relations between Mexican-Americans and Mexicans and between established families and new immigrants. Nor should we ignore the historical conflicts between mestizo or Hispanicized people, Anglos, and Indians in various parts of the Southwest and northern Mexico. Homeland Security, the U.S.A. Patriot Act, and other U.S. government initiatives undertaken in the after- math of 9/11 will only further politicize issues of cultural citizenship.

Conflicts over how to reconstruct the Socorro Mission are important because they are battles over the symbolic representation of the place of different ethnic groups in society. To critique existing ways of representing history at Socorro or elsewhere in El Paso is not to imply that there is one politically correct solution. For example, who has the right to speak for the old Piro Pueblo site in Socorro if there is no Piro community there today? How can the original Piro Pueblo be restored if all that remains is the footprint of an adobe structure? Would an academically sophisticated, detailed, historically accu- rate presentation of Piro history be ignored by the public because it was too complex or lacked visual appeal? To avoid these questions and seek refuge in a reverent, blindly innocent celebration of an Anglo, Spanish, or mestizo heritage is no solution. Furthermore, history should not be confined to museums and dusty books. As Dennis Wearmouth, who has directed the hands-on work of hundreds of young people in the reconstruction of the mission, put it, the SMPP is ultimately about "patrimonio ... teaching kids to value cultural heritage, what is your responsibility to your culture ... 'This is your family, your culture, not the gangs.'"

The contemporary importance of the Socorro Mission to the El Paso Lower Valley cannot be overestimated. The mission is not a hollow monu- ment with merely symbolic value but a living entity, the pulsing heart of an ancient community. It is also a powerful metaphor and model for a kind of economic development that is nondestructive and rich in culture and heritage. For Taylor, the historic preservation plan is not an architectural blue- print etched in stone but "a living document" that is modified and trans- formed in order to address community and other needs. Just as adobe has its own cycles of expansion and contraction, absorbing and releasing moisture and energy, buildings and communities have dynamic relationships with the natural environment-a reality often ignored by engineers and commercial developers. As a structure, the mission represents a living form of building construction that is environmentally sound, thermally effective, visually appealing, and traditional and utilizes local raw materials. The project's




training program has taught local people how to preserve their own buildings and informed them about their history and customs.

Once the mission restoration is completed (possibly in 2005), the church building will again be available for masses, weddings, and baptisms, but it is important that the history embodied in it be made available as well. El Paso youth are generally unaware of the indigenous, colonial, and Mexican history of their community.7 The silencing of El Paso's Indian and Mexican past in the school system and public debates, coupled with the overarching power of the U.S. military and immigration and border police in El Paso and associated ideological domination, have much to do with the public's apathy vis-a- vis cultural heritage projects. Thus work must be done on two levels: social justice in historical depictions and the teaching of history and the promotion of social justice within the contemporary political economy.

Concerns about fairness in historic preservation do not have to be in conflict with or irrelevant to economic growth. In fact, a beautifully restored Socorro Mission accompanied by a visitors' center, cultural exhibits, and interpretive history displays could spur heritage tourism along the Camino Real. In an impoverished community like Socorro, both the economic potential of preservation projects and debates about the presentation of history are important. At the Socorro Mission, religious heritage tourism could be com- bined with the preservation of farm, river, and desert lands as well as strengthening ethnic communities and customs. While suburban development still has connotations of a bucolic alternative to city life, the reality in El Paso and elsewhere often has been one of car-dependency, obesity and other maladies, and anomie (McKee, 2003). These problems are magnified in the case of the low-income suburbanization of the Lower Valley. Thus, to be successful, the SMPP must connect historic preservation issues with economic, ecological, and cultural development.

CONCLUSIONS

One lesson of the SMPP is that inclusive grassroots processes including the critical representation of all relevant ethnic or cultural groups is essential to successful cultural heritage management. One way to do this is to empower marginalized groups to produce their own interpretations of their histories. Anthropologists can become a part of this process and perhaps play a collaborative role in mediating the interests and concerns of various groups, as long as this is acceptable to the participants (Clifford, 2004). If local people, historic preservation specialists, anthropologists, politicians, and others




work together, the result is more likely to be satisfactory to the parties concerned than if they work alone.

Concomitantly, the complex matrix of identities in the binational El Paso/ Ciudad Juirez border metroplex (Vila, 2000) militates against simple cultural heritage representations or restorations of a community and its history-the sorts of simplifications that are the essence of "branding" for heritage tourism and economic development programs. Within such settings, easy interpellations of ideology and identity and one-to-one mapping of ethnic identity and worldview are highly problematic. Yet clarity and simplicity are vital to the cultural marketing involved in heritage tourism.

Historic preservationists and anthropologists can work to create representations that are both multifaceted and understandable to the public. In His- panic-majority regions like El Paso this may entail articulating some mestizo aspects of local histories (alongside articulations of native history) to encourage people to see that their background contains multiple cultural traditions and common interests that are ignored in ethnic identity politics. An inclusive attitude among the majority population of the El Paso region could provide support for the political and cultural struggle of the Piro-Manso-Tiwa and the Tigua. Unfortunately, the mestizaje issue may be dangerous for unrecognized tribes that must describe their identities to the Bureau of Indian Affairs Branch of Acknowledgment and Research in neatly bounded, essentialized terms (Field, 2003: 80-81). But, as Dombrowski (2002: 1063) has demonstrated, the politics of indigeneity can also produce outcomes that are counter to the interests of some native people and preclude "much broader struggle" for economic democracy. Anthropologists and preservationists must therefore navigate the complexities of both indigeneity and mestizaje in cultural heritage projects.

In the case examined here, long-time Mexican-American residents of Socorro feel that their connection to the mission is closer than that of recent immigrants from Mexico. Piro-Manso-Tiwa feel that they are the only legiti- mate heirs to the Piro history of Socorro, but they are unrecognized by the federal government and reside in New Mexico. The Tigua are federally recognized and live near the mission site. The local community and cultures are themselves divided, making it difficult to produce a clear-cut "branded" culture for heritage tourism purposes and economic development. But inaction only perpetuates the status quo, whereas the approach advocated here, while not pleasing everyone in the El Paso community, at least addresses the interests of the most marginalized.

What is needed is a rearticulation of the issues emphasizing social justice in history and contemporary life. Historic preservation and community development must go hand in hand; one cannot prosper without the other.




The most fruitful, though still contested, resolution, as evidenced in aspects of the SMPP, is to incorporate the multiethnic diversity of the El Paso region into historic preservation and make the practices of these multiple cultural groups the models for ecologically and economically sustainable development (Williams, 2001). In that way we can make cultural heritage preservation res- onate more broadly with diverse peoples in a divided, materialistic world.

NOTES

1. The two names for one river are emblematic of the divisions between Anglos and Hispan- ics, a cultural divide rooted in collective memory.

2. According to one local account, during a battle between local insurgents and Texas Rang- ers San Miguel appeared on a beautiful white horse accompanied by angels and scared off the Rangers.

3. This quote and other references to the Cornerstones philosophy and activities come from internal documents given to me by the project coordinators or interviews with them at the Socorro Mission.

4. Also known as the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. 5. John Peterson and Gary Williams played especially important leadership roles in the first

few years of the collaborative. The preservation project has benefited from the generous contributions of time and effort of the archaeologists John Peterson, Steve Mbutu, and Skip Clark and the El Paso Archaeological Society. Marc Thompson also provided support. Peterson was influ- ential in obtaining numerous grants for research at the mission, including an ARP/ATP grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and a Criminal Justice Division grant from the Office of the Governor of Texas.

6. The legal conflict between the Tigua and the state of Texas over the licensing of gambling is a fascinating public-policy corollary to the struggle to incorporate native history into historic preservation projects at the Socorro Mission and elsewhere in El Paso. In April 2004 there were proposals in the Texas legislature to allow the Tigua to have slot machine gambling provided that the tribe paid a multimillion-dollar fee and/or was subjected to high rates of taxation to support the state educational system.

7. Texas is a place in which even in 2004 the Daughters of the Republic of Texas El Paso Rio Grande Chapter could grant their prize in a Texas-history essay contest to a submission entitled "Stephen F. Austin and the Texas Rangers, Restoring Order to Texas" (El Paso Times, April 30, 2004).

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Documents

Contested Terrains || The Socorro Mission: Culture, Economic Development, and the Politics of Historic Preservation along the Río Grande/Río Bravo