Como esta usted? Como estas tu? Como estan ustedes?

Greetings and respect amongst New Mexicans that has gone by the wayside as we lose the ancient language of our forefathers and transition over to English.


I recalled the differences in the then and the now while reading the book titled "Canones, Values, Crisis, and Survival in a Northern New Mexico Village" written by Paul Kutsche and John R. Van Ness and published by the University of New Mexico Press in Albuquerque in 1981.


Here the authors state that "The rules for using tu and usted are clear, and still observed. Children call each other tu, adults call children tu, very close friends call each other tu with an important exception noted below. Strangers and casual acquaintances call each other usted. But usted carries another shade of meaning which over rides familiarity, it is a term of respect. Thus, compadres address each other as as usted no matter how close their friendship or degree of kinship may be , because they are required to show respect for each other, in fact, they may have called each other tu before becoming compadres and have to shift to the respectful term therafter".


 I clearly recall this. I did not even understand the reason for this at the time, but I recall what these folks write in this interesting book. My mothers brother baptized me, he was my padrino and his wife my madrina. As such they were not just my mother's brother and sister in law, they were also her compadre and comadre. And as such she refered to her brother as "usted". She used the same term for her comadre. Como esta usted! Instead as  the usual "como estas tu" that she used with her sisters and other brother.


All of this is going by the wayside. It is going, if it is not already gone. A sad chapter in our always transitioning culture.

More on Peones in New Mexico

Just reading the book titled "Canones, Values, Crisis, and Survival in a Northern New Mexico Village" written by Paul Kutsche and John R. Van Ness and published by the University of New Mexico Press in Albuquerque in 1981. So far I have read about 1/2 of the book and have found only one (1) thing I disagree with, and then only slightly. That in itself is amazing as I am a harsh critic of authors who pretend to know what they are writing about when writing about New Mexico and/or New Mexicans. This book is an excellent resource for the way life was back in the 1960's in Northern New Mexico villages for New Mexican Hispanos. I recommend it to anyone who has an interest.

We bought the book at the Angel Fire, New Mexico Library last week, it has been on the shelf there since 1981 until July of 2014 and has never been checked out, not once. Not a single time. That in itself speaks volumes.

Anyway, the authors mention that there is not nor probably ever were any stereotypical peones in Canones. Here I quote "There certainly is not and probably never has been a patron in Canones. There are, however, many patrones and many peones. A man who works for another man is his peon, and the employer is the patron." This is the way it really was for the great majority, regardless of what has been written or who has written it. The term peon was a proud term, both to the worker and to the one who hired him. Sometimes a man was a patron and sometimes a peon.

Check out previous post on this weblog on the subject at hand here.