In the Country of Empty Crosses

The Story of a Hispano Protestant Family in Catholic New Mexico

Arturo Madrid

• Publisher: Trinity University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781595341310
• eBook ISBN:
  9781595341228
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Arturo Madrid's homeland is in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains in northern New Mexico, where each town seems a world apart from the next, and where family histories that extend back four centuries bind the people to the land and to one another.This New Mexico is a land of struggle and dispute, a place in which Madrid's ancestors predate those who landed at Plymouth Rock. In the Country of Empty Crosses is Madrid’s complex yet affirming memoir about lands before the advent of passable roads--places such as Tierra Amarilla, San Augustín [insert "u" and note accent on I], and Los Fuertes that were once among the most remote in the nation. Madrid grew up in a family that was doubly removed from the community: as Hispanic Protestants, they were a minority among the region's politically dominant Anglo Protestants and a minority within the overwhelmingly Catholic Hispanic populace.Madrid writes affectingly of the tensions, rifts, and disputes that punctuated the lives of his family as they negotiated prejudice and racism, casual and institutional, to advance and even thrive as farmers, ranchers, and teachers. His story is affectionate as well, embracing generations of ancestors who found their querencias—their beloved home places—in that beautiful if sometimes unforgiving landscape. The result is an account of New Mexico unlike any other, one in which humor and heartache comfortably coexist. Complemented by stunning images by acclaimed photographer Miguel Gandert -- ranging from intimate pictures of unkempt rural cemeteries to New Mexico's small villages and stunning vistas -- In the Country of Empty Crosses is a memoir of loss and survival, of hope and redemption, and a lyrical celebration of an often misunderstood native land and its people.

CAPTIONS

iiCamposanto de San José, Tierra Amarilla

vi–viiBig Six’s (Solomon Luna) compound, Tierra Amarilla

viiiFrozen apples on tree, San Pedro

4Flagstone grave markers, Camposanto de San Augustín

5Rock wall and gravestones, Camposanto de San Augustín

6Capilla de San Augustín

11Los Fuertes from the rim of the canyon; ruins are at upper right center

14Spanish Presbyterian mission church, Las Vegas

18Entrance to the lower Rio Chama Valley at Barranca

19Piedra Lumbre butte

21Camposanto de Bernal with Starvation Peak in the background

24Grave marker, Camposanto de San Augustín

25Camposanto de San Augustín

27Capilla de San Antonio, Cañoncito

28Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados, El Cerrito

29Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Villanueva

31El Cerrito plaza and church

34Ruins of dwelling, flagstone construction, Los Fuertes

35Capilla de La Concepción, Los Valles de San Augustín

39Chicos still on the cob, hung up to dry

41Gallinas River above Los Fuertes, late summer

42Los Fuertes and the lower Rio Gallinas Valley

43Mortar and pestle, Los Fuertes

47Solitary grave marker bearing initials R and M, Los Fuertes

48Perimeter wall ruins, Los Fuertes

50Remains of church, Los Fuertes

51Campohereje / camposanto, Las Vegas

53Freight train traversing the llano

55Pecos Pueblo ruins, now Pecos National Monument

57Cross and morada, Tecolote

61Stone wall, barbed wire, milpa, and orchard, San Augustín

63La Trementina

65Post office, Mills

66Windmill

68East-facing abandoned dwelling, Mills

71Ruins of Protestant church on the llano

73Old Town plaza, Las Vegas

77Presbyterian mission school, La Trementina

81First Presbyterian Church, Santa Fe

85My father loved trains

87“Homesick and unhappy, he watched...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Map
• And Where Are You From?
• Campohereje
• Interlopers
• Rio Arriba
• Los Valles de San Augustín
• El Cerrito and Las Vegas Grandes
• The Incident at Los Valles
• Lorenzo Gonzales, El Güero
• Los Fuertes
• Dos campos
• Albino Madrid
• Eden or Egypt
• The Interloper
• The Chosen People
• Myrtle, Mertola, Lala
• Angelina Gallegos
• Protestant and Poor
• Downstream, Then Upstream Again
• A Family of Readers
• The Garden at the Edge of the Prairie
• Cast Out of the Garden
• My Father Enters History
• The Scents of Home
• Canicas
• The Island of Protestants
• Mayordomo de aguas
• Católicos
• Marchante
• Don Ramos
• Las orillas del mundo
• El nuevo rorro
• La Tierra Amarilla
• Gabriela, Gabrielita, Gaby
• Los mercedarios
• Seasons
• Don Santiago y las Dolores
• Sharp-Tongued
• Por la ventana
• Regalé mis santos
• Santa Trinidad
• Camposanto
• Captions
• Copyright
• About the Authors