La Cautiva Marcelina

Very interesting song:

https://vimeo.com/70437646

Sung by Virginia Bernal of Raton many years (1960's - 1970's) ago.

There were two (2) different women named Virginia Bernal who had ties to the Raton area, and were somewhat close in age. Not real sure that they were both in the area at the time the song was recorded.

One was born 25 January 1915 and died  9 August 2001 in Raton, New Mexico and came by her surname from her husband, Cristobal Bernal. I have not been able to find her birth parents.

The other one was the daughter of Juan Pablo Bernal and Teresina Lopez and was born 7 August 1920 in Tinaja, NM in Colfax County just a few miles from Raton. She died on 2 May 2002.

Both women had close ties to Tinaja and may very well been related by either blood or marriage or both.

I am not sure which one sang the song, it could have been either but most likely the first one noted here. She seems to have lived in the area when the song was recorded.

If you can help out, drop me a note and help out solving the mystery.

Identity Switching And Displacement And/Or Dissaperarance Of New Mexican Hispanos

It happens folks, it happens all of the time and it happens a lot. It is happening more and more as we progress in time. I do not mean the multiple personality disorder either. I do not mean the Clark Kent and Superman type of identity switching. I mean New Mexican Hispanos wanting to be something they are not. The phenomena is not really new but it is accelerating at a pace that combined with other things happening with the demographics will cause New Mexican Hispanos to essentially disappear from New Mexico. I would guess that the process will be complete by 2099, that is about 82 years. I offer several examples;

1. New Mexicans identifying as something other than New Mexican Hispanos. The number of folks wanting to identify as Jewish is probably the newest, the most common and the most numerous at the current time. There is no, I repeat no, evidence to substantiate this. But it has not, and probably will not, stop the trend. There are other New Mexicans identifying as someone else but nothing close to this new phenomena that started not long ago. DNA testing is no answer.
2. Assimilation caused by intermarriage with non Hispanos. There is a lot of this and it started well before the American occupation when women were marrying French and later American trappers. It accelerated around Santa Fe and the Ft. Union area later when the Americans got here. The Las Vegas, Mora County, Taos and Santa Fe areas of the period attest to this.  Just look, even if casually, at the free 1880 US Federal Census.
3. Immigration - We all know what happened here. We were over run, and I do mean over run by folks from "the States", non Hispanos from 1846 to the present. If you do not believe this look at the folks dying. I have seen days when not a single Hispanic out of 10 - 25 obituaries in both the Albuquerque Journal and the Santa Fe New Mexican were New Mexican Hispanic. Now there are even other Hispanos from other countries, mostly Mexico but others as well, who contribute to the decline of the natives.
4.  New Mexicans leaving New Mexico - Even I left for over 20 years. I would venture a guess that over 1,000,000 former New Mexicans or their offspring live in states other than New Mexico. they left, never to return.

There is really nothing we can do, maybe nothing we ought to do, but you have to agree it is an interesting phenomena. It is happening and I may be off on the number of years till it comes to pass for sure, but there is no argument it will happen. New Mexican Hispanos will join the multitude of "Heinz 57" type folks out there that do not know or do not identify with their New Mexican roots.