A New Mexico Primer
If you live "out East" and are thinking of moving to New Mexico, there are a few things you ought to know. I had to find out the hard way.
1. You might want to come visit us first, just to see if it's for you. No, you don't need a passport. Contrary to many, New Mexico really is part of the United States.
2. If you live anywhere east of the New Mexico-Oklahoma border, you may think that where you live has a distinct name, like "Missouri" or "Tenesee" or "Rhode Island." It doesn't. In New Mexico, where you live is referred to simply as "out East." Once you move here, you'll henceforth be required to refer to the place you came from as "back East." Furthermore, you, and all your kinfolk, are "Easterners." Nevermind that people from Arkansas would rather eat undercooked roadkill (and they really, would, too!) than refer to themselves as an Easterner, that is what they are to people in New Mexico.
3. Yes, that really is the New Mexico state seal. There's a reason why it's usually really small, so you can't quite make it out.
4. New Mexico is the fifth largest state (again, it is a state) in the U.S., but is 36th in population with less than two million people spread over 121,000 square miles. (That's two megapeople spread over 315,000 square kilometers, for those of you who use metric.) That gives us a density of about 15 people per square mile. Compare this to even a rural state, like Missouri, which has over 80 people per square mile. In other words, we're damned near empty.
I was actually driving to a conference in Hobbs, New Mexico, with a co-worker once, passing the vast expanse of nothingness that that is the stretch between Vaughn and Roswell, and she commented that there couldn't really be a population problem in the world as long as there was still this much empty space. "Millions of people could live out here!" she exclaimed. "Yes," I said, "but they'd get awfully thirsty."
5. Yes, Hobbs has conferences. Don't ask me why.
6. Not everyone in New Mexico believes in U.F.O.'s, but don't tell the tourism bureau that. They're actually counting Little Green Men in their visitor statistics.
7. New Mexico has a love-hate relationship with Texas. A couple of years ago, it was discovered that a sliver of the border area that had long been thought to be in Texas was actually in New Mexico, and subsequently all of the residents in that area suddenly became New Mexican citizens. A New Mexican legislator opined that adding that many Texans at once to the population of New Mexico would cause the state's average I.Q. to drop. On the other hand, a lot of New Mexicans are originally from Texas, so you'll find a lot of sympathy here for them, too. Texan refugees are usually identified by their accents.
8. Here's how you dress for a typical day in New Mexico: put on everything you own, and gradually take it all off over the course of a day. This morning when I went to work there was frost on my windshield. This afternoon it got to almost 80°F. Good luck planning for that.
9. Here's how you dress for a wedding in New Mexico. Wear a dark suit, preferrably three-piece, with a silk tie. Or, wear cut-off jeans, a Hawaiian shirt, and flip-flops, whichever you prefer. If you want to class up the latter ensemble, throw on a bolo tie.
10. Chili isn't what you think it is. Being from almost anywhere else in the country, if you order chili, you are probably picturing something with meat, beans, tomatoes, and various seasonings in a chunky, stew-like preparation. Chili is actually a sauce that is served over almost everything, and if you order anything in a restaurant in New Mexico, the question from the waitress's mouth will be, "Red or Green?" This has officially been designated as "the state question." This refers to chili sauce made from red chiles or green chiles. Be prepared to answer this question.
Red chili is somewhat spicier than green, usually, but many believe green chili has more flavor. If you aren't sure, most places will let you order it "Christmas" style, which is red and green together. In some restaurants, this is referred to as "de colores."
Chiles and piñones (a type of pine nut) can be bought from roadside vendors all across the state, and there are a lot of places you can go and get freshly roasted chiles.
However you get your chili, I hope you like it, because if you move to New Mexico you will be eating it with every meal, every day, for the rest of your life.
11. We aren't Arizona. For some reason, if people know enough about New Mexico to know that we are a state, they picture us as being full of saguaro cacti and being one big wasteland of desert and tumbleweeds. First, New Mexico doesn't have saguaros. That's Arizona. Second, as I mentioned, New Mexico is big. Very big. If you can think of a terrain type that occurs in the continental United States, you can find it somewhere in the state of New Mexico. However, don't be disappointed if you had hoped to see tumbleweeds, because we have them. We have many, many of them. You can come look at my back yard, if you want to see tumbleweeds.
12. Just because there is a road doesn't mean that your car can go there.
13. That's not Klingon they're speaking. It's Navajo.
14. New Mexico has the highest number of PhD's per capita in the country. All of them live in Los Alamos. Okay, there are a couple dozen in Albuquerque, and five or six spread through the rest of the state, but for the most part they live in Los Alamos, building quarks or something like that. Occasionally, they venture out through the rest of the state, pointing and laughing at the rest of us.
15. Glowing in the dark is perfectly natural. It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you live on top of an abandoned uranium mine.
16. Yes, that really is a junked-out 1960's model camper trailer out in the middle of the sagebrush with no water or electricity and tires on the roof to keep it from blowing away. It's also someone's home. Don't feel bad for them; they like it there.
17. If you live in Santa Fe or Albuquerque, congratulations! Your vote counts.
18. New Mexico is a land of extremes. For instance, we have highest numbers of any state of Mormons with drinking problems and Baptist with sexual addiction of anywhere in the country.
19. Despite what you learned in your high school Spanish class, "mañana" doesn't mean "tomorrow." It means "next Tuesday." Ironically, "next Tuesday" means "when Mel Gibson is elected Prime Minister of Israel."
20. Gasoline is more expensive the closer you live to a refinery. That's because the gas is "fresh."
21. Finally, New Mexico is a diverse, beautiful, extreme, wild place, and a damn fun place to live. Don't worry, you'll love it. Just, don't tell anyone where you're moving to. They'll try to talk you out of it.
Comments
Good summary!
22. You don't have to be crazy to live here. But it helps.
Just over two years, now. It's been an interesting time.
Thought I would share: 'Burque Haiku'
Orale Burque!
Why you gotta be like that?
Eeehh, see how you are!
- Matthew Villegas
Hee. Great job. I'm a NM native, and I have to say this is pretty accurate, although certainly there are things you failed to mention. If it's red chile, it had better be Chimayo Red; if it's green, it had better be from Hatch. No other chiles are worth eating. When we NM natives leave our fair home state, we go to great and sometimes absurd lengths to get these shipped to us.
Have you ever read Red Sky at Morning, by any chance?
#2 It's spelled Tennessee
#7Not all Texans have accents...
Everyone: Thanks for the positive comments!
Cutestcookie: Green chile, check.
GinBaby: What about Deming red chile?
Soleilmoon: #1, I've never actually met anyone who didn't know that New Mexico is part of the United States, but it seems to be popular here to think that the rest of the country doesn't know we are part of the U.S. Kind of a martyrdom complex, I guess. #2, Thanks - that's what I get for typing too fast. #7, I beg to differ - everyone has an accent to someone else. :->
This is excellent. Thanks. I lived in CO for three years. Never made it down to NM and was sorry I didn't. i loved the wild areas, but couldn't tolerate the dryness. I am now in Seattle, which is probably NM climate opposite. Thanks for the humor.
Lucy
Green is good!