New Mexican Chiles Sentinels of Hispano Identity and Cultural Heritage

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Erika Derkas

Abstract

Over the last several decades, there has been an explosion in research on food, identity, gendered relationships, and cultural heritage. Scholarship documents the centrality of food, consumption, and preparation in expressing and maintaining various aspects of identity. By considering chile, this paper contributes to ongoing research on food and identity through its exploration of Hispano in the specific region of northern New Mexico.


To explore the ways in which Hispanos symbolically use and relate to green chile and how green chile is incorporated into a sense of ethnic identity, I conducted semi-structured telephone and face-to-face interviews with people living in rural northern New Mexico, Albuquerque, and southern Colorado. Data from informal interviews and over ten years of participant observation of funciones, fiestas, Lent rituals, and ‘topic related’ conferences/workshops were verified by speaking with key informants, including artists, teachers, retirees, local residents, business owners, and scholars specializing in New Mexican history.

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Lead Essays