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351 q J q Prominent New Mexico writer Cleofas Jaramillo, circa 1898– 1900. Courtesy of the Museum of New Mexico, Neg. no. 9927. JARAMILLO, CLEOFAS MARTÍNEZ (1878–1956) In 1955 Cleofas Martínez Jaramillo wrote Romance of a Little Village Girl, her autobiography, in which she stated, “I feel that I have accomplished one thing—preserved in writing our vanishing Spanish folk customs.” Spanning seventy years, Jaramillo’s autobiography is also a history of Nuevomexicano culture. Writing the history of Nuevomexicanos was extremely important to Jaramillo, because she saw her world changing in the face of new populations and the twentieth century. She thus tried to maintain the cultural traditions that she held dear to her heart through writing and through preservation. Jaramillo was born in 1878 in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico, to Julian Antonio Martínez and Martina Lucero Martínez. In 1906 she left the small village and attended the Loretto Convent School in Taos, New Mexico . She later attended Loretto Academy in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1898 she married Venceslao Jaramillo, a politician and businessman. As Venceslao Jaramillo’s wife, she rose in status when he was elected to the New Mexico legislature. With Jaramillo she bore three children , but only one daughter, Angelina, survived infancy . When Venceslao Jaramillo died, Cleofas Jaramillo faced a new future as a widow. Because Venceslao had never shared his business dealings with his wife, Cleofas Jaramillo was shocked to discover herself in debt after his death. To survive financially, she sold some of her personal belongings, gave up her home to move into a two-bedroom apartment, and took her only daughter, Angelina, out of private boarding school. It was Jaramillo’s custom to link her personal experiences to the overall experiences of Nuevomexicanos in the same era. Thus in Romance of a Little Village Girl Jaramillo wrote about the death of her husband, “Yes, a big man had disappeared from the political and social scene of New Mexico, and for me, the happiest epoch of my life had ended. . . . During his life the people had lived in peace and harmony, but a few years after he departed this life, plunder, burning of buildings, and murder disturbed the peace that had reigned before.” She saw her world as changing. The historical circumstances , in which Euro-Americans took over the land once owned by native Nuevomexicanos, caused Jaramillo to believe that the culture she had known as a child and for much of her adult life had ended. Thus Jaramillo clung to a Spanish heritage both as a weapon in the struggle to retain a sense of the community and culture that she perceived as lost, and as a method for her to hold an exalted status over Euro-Americans, when in financial reality Jaramillo had none. For Jaramillo, an accurate depiction of Nuevomexicanos and their culture became essential. For example, Jiménez, María de los Angeles 352 q Jaramillo decided to write her cookbook, The Genuine New Mexico Tasty Recipes, because of the “deficiencies” she saw in Spanish cookbooks written by EuroAmericans . She wrote, “And still these smart Americans make money with their writing, and we who know the correct way sit back and listen.” In addition, Jaramillo became involved in planning the Santa Fe Fiesta activities because Anglos had botched earlier events. In this same spirit Jaramillo penned her other two books, Cuentos del Hogar (1939) and Shadows of the Past (1941), and founded la Sociedad Folklorica (the Folkloric Society). An educated Nuevomexicana, Jaramillo tried to resist the total domination of Hispano land by EuroAmericans . She perceived the consequences of the opening of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821, the annexation of New Mexico by the government of the United States in 1848, and the growing immigration and modernization of New Mexico in the 1880s as fatal to the traditional way of life. In many ways her world had changed forever. She saw that Nuevomexicanos no longer owned much of the land on which their families had lived. As a Nuevomexicana, she believed that land tied people together and fostered their way of life. This loss of land compelled her to preserve her own vision of Nuevomexicano culture and traditions, one that she passed on to future generations. SOURCES: Jaramillo, Cleofas M. 1939. Cuentos del hogar (Spanish Fairy Tales). El Campo, TX: Citizen Press; ———. 1939. The Genuine New Mexico Tasty Recipes. Santa Fe: Seton Village Press; ———. 1941. Shadows of the Past/Sombras del pasado. Santa Fe: Seton...

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