ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Abe Peña writes about the people of San Mateo and other nearby
places from the 1920s to 1950s. Pena, who lives in Grants, grew up on a
sheep ranch near San Mateo, immersed in the traditional Hispanic
culture of west-central New Mexico. He ran the family ranch for many
years before serving 12 years in Latin America in foreign service
positions. Peña writes about traditional events such as Los
Pastores, the shepherds’ pageant performed at Christmas time. He
remembers Spanish-speaking Lebanese immigrant children who proudly
proclaimed, “Yo soy Mexicano, casi” (I’m Hispanic, almost). He tells of
villagers who in a drought paraded a statue of their patron saint in
hopes of rain. When hail fell instead, they took him out of the church
again to show him “the mess he made.” “Peña has a good ear for a
story,” says historian Marc Simmons, who wrote the book’s introduction.
“The engaging men and women who walk so freely through his pages seemed
infused with the elixir of southwestern air and landscape and with the
tonic of their own vibrant cultural history.”
