Nearly sixty years ago, a small group of activists led by Reies López Tijerina stormed the courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, an event that would come to symbolize deep divisions in the American Southwest. In Shaking Rio Arriba Down: The Courthouse Raid, veteran journalist Larry Joseph Calloway revisits the dramatic 1967 uprising and its enduring impact on politics, culture, and identity in the region. Through a reporter’s eye and historian’s depth, Calloway traces how a movement born of centuries-old land disputes and cultural marginalization escalated into confrontation. Drawing from firsthand experience and meticulous research, he offers an unflinching account of the men and women who sought justice through rebellion, and of a state caught between its past and its future. Part history, part memoir, this book sheds light on how the fight for recognition among Hispanic communities in northern New Mexico foreshadowed broader debates on ethnicity, language, and belonging that continue today. Shaking Rio Arriba Down is both a personal reflection and a compelling reminder that the stories of the Southwest are inseparable from the larger story of America itself.
“GUIDE TO THE LOST MOUNTAINS” is my homage to Colorado in the form of a mystery novel set deep in the San Juan Mountains. Some of my characters would feel out of place in an homage, but not Siam Shawn, quixotic publisher of the Animas City Times, a strange weekly in a strange surrounded town. Shawn has returned to Colorado after a long self-exile. He wants to recapture the old days in his memory and the really old days in his imagination. (Or is it imagination?}
He publishes a personal column that eventually alienates: the mining company, the ski corporation, the gun club, environmentally-correct politicians, SUV drivers, creationists, academics—everybody. A radio talk show host advocates his arrest for capital crimes Siam is attracted by river guide Katherine Tower, a bright and beautiful soul mate with an agenda. They run off to the wilderness and have deep discussions beside El Rio De Las Animas Perdidas.
Yes, a river runs through it. But so does a narrow-gauge railroad. The trains come through full of tourists shooting pictures in all directions. In the old days there was only one train, run by the evil conductor, Mr. Blackstone, who carried a big gold railroad watch where his heart should have been. Anyway, someone gets killed, or so it seems, now or a long time ago. It´s a new story often told.
