The Madness of Memory

We probably don’t need to re-litigate the famous obelisk toppling of 2020 except to remind everyone it was a logical conclusion to years of non-action on the part of the city—including a public gathering during which Mayor Alan Webber famously said he’d help bring the thing down only to, y’know, not do that.

As everyone reading certainly knows, once the obelisk came down, we all woke up to the truth and everything was peaceful and harmonious forever. All across the city we embraced as true brothers, sisters and nonbinary siblings. Nah, just kidding, but seriously—as a nation and as a city, we were totally unprepared for the conversation that followed, one which continues to this day online, in-person and through the city’s Culture Healing Art Reconciliation and Truth (or CHART) process. As it turns out, the majority of us don’t know the purpose or history of the monuments sprinkled across Santa Fe’s historic district. What’s a town to do?

At an upcoming virtual panel discussion, Santa Fe’s School for Advanced Research (SAR), in partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities, is looking to the future of monuments in Santa Fe and beyond, and whether there’s a way we can preserve public memory without celebrating past wrongs and atrocities.

Regina Chen of the MASS Design Group, where architects use design as a means for community healing, and Kaitlin Murphy of the University of Arizona will lead the talk. Former state historian and senior vice president of historic sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation Estevan Rael-Gálvez moderates. The three are looking at ways forward for Santa Fe’s Plaza and other sites by examining various histories and success stories from across the world.

“I think we really missed an opportunity to provide a pathway to move past these mythologies,” Rael-Gálvez tells SFR. “Community input isn’t easy, but I do believe in it. But it isn’t just one meeting—it’s a process, and part of that process is telling stories. Stories that make us uncomfortable.”

It may be frustrating for Santa Feans to continue debating the obelisk, but the monument fits into a worthy discussion template. Decisions made long ago continue to haunt a very different world, as Rael-Gálvez wrote in his detailed analysis, “Centering Truths, Not So Evident,” before the obelisk became a crumbling ruin, and his take might introduce many to larger factoids rarely considered: Originally intended as a monument to the New Mexican men killed fighting for the Union, a lack of funding found the proposed monument before the state Legislature between 1867-1868, and the legislators of the day had their own ideas as to what ought to be memorialized. They added the four plaques on each side, one of which commended the soldiers who fought against the “Savage Indians”—or, as Rael-Gálvez says, the Native people whom over half the legislators had been personally enslaving.

“It’s the irony of the monument as a whole,” he explains. “It was envisioned to remember the men who fought to dismantle Black slavery in America, and then it became a reminder of Indigenous slavery.”

It will surprise no one the history is more complex than some John Ford cosplay and two sides fighting over a way of life. Rael-Gálvez is a leading scholar in Indigenous slavery, with a major focus on the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. The Southwest had its own trade network of Native slaves that has often been brushed off, or even entirely forgotten. He’d know, too—he’s currently leading a first-of-its-kind $1.5 million dollar project funded by the Mellon Foundation to document the names of every enslaved Indigenous person in the western hemisphere. Yeah, the entire hemisphere. As big as the project is, merely discovering the names can help us begin to humanize the people who built the foundations of our modern economies.

Santa Fe’s deep roots can make looking forward seem a hopeless endeavor, but there are examples from which we can learn. Rael-Gálvez points to New Orleans, the great cultural powerhouse of the American South, as a possible model for Santa Fe’s future path toward healing. Citing then-mayor Mitch Landrieu’s 2015 call to remove three prominent confederate monuments within the city, Rael-Gálvez says, the Lousiana politician managed to succeed in the removal despite court challenges and political attacks. In addition to political courage, the organization Paper Monuments brought paper wall art into community spaces where intimidating soldiers on horseback once looked over passers-by. Nature cuts down paper pretty quickly, but such an action brings the conversation to the public rather than waiting for the public to come around—and public input should help mold the direction of the community; the transient nature of just such a project means a memorial can contain fluid elements evolving alongside the community in which it stands.

It’s worth noting the obvious caveats—the SAR talk isn’t going to solve deep-rooted generational beliefs, nor is anyone going to come out proclaiming we’ve fixed all our woes. But such talks can form the building-blocks to something greater. Rael-Gálvez sees the future of memorials as something entirely different, something beyond the worship of individuals.

“People can do great things, but people like Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. did what they did within a community,” Rael-Gálvez notes. “Politicians shouldn’t get statues dedicated to them just because they did their job. [The obelisk] is gone now. We have a responsibility to think harder about that center. Let’s not only think, let’s do—let’s move past the permanence. I think SAR’s talk is going to invite us all to really think hard about the future.”

Creative Thought Forum Event: Rethinking Monuments and Memorials: 2 pm Thursday, June 2. Free (but donate). tinyurl.com/mwre8p6y