Fabiola Cabeza de Baca and The Good Life A Home Lands lecture

Tough economic times and persistent droughts were nothing new to Fabiola Cabeza de Baca. The native New Mexican, home economist and author saw them as an opportunity to thrive.

During the Depression, she worked for the New Mexico Agricultural Extension Service, helping Hispanic and Tewa women learn new gardening and poultry-raising techniques, along with how to can vegetables and fruits, use sewing machines, and make simple home repairs. She valued traditional ways and documented the recipes for everyday fare that would one day grace restaurant menus throughout the state.

At 2 pm on Sunday, July 10, Dr. Tey Diana Rebolledo, regents professor at the University of New Mexico, will speak on Cabeza de Baca’s life and legacy. Her lecture, “Fabiola Cabeza de Baca and the Good life,” in the History Museum Auditorium, is free with admission; Sundays are free to NM residents.

When Cabeza de Baca began working for the Extension Service, none of the other agents spoke Spanish, even though more than half of the state spoke no English. Working at first in Rio Arriba and Santa Fe counties, she traveled among towns from dawn until midnight. “Some of our counties are larger in area than many of our eastern states,” she once said. “We say so many miles to a person rather than persons to a mile.”

In the 1940s, Cabeza de Baca began writing – Extension Service bulletins, including “Noche Buena,” documenting traditional cultural practices; The Good Life, a fictional account of a family and recipes of their favorites foods; and We Fed Them Cactus, which told of her family’s four generations on the Llano Estacado, blending nostalgia with a critical view of how progress was affecting Southwestern Hispanics.

In her later years, Cabeza de Baca became an active member of La Sociedad Folklorica of Santa Fe, an organization dedicated to preserving Spanish culture. She died in 1991.

Rebolledo is a noted scholar of Chicana literature, along the way earning an NEH Fellowship, a Bogliasco Institute Fellowship, a Rockefeller Fellowship and a Danforth Fellowship. She has been named a Distinguished Professor, a UNM Regents' Professor and a New Mexico Eminent Scholar. Her publications include The Chronicles of Panchita Villa and Other Guerrilleras: Essays on Chicana/Latina Literature and Criticism (University of Texas Press, 2005); Women Singing in the Snow: An Analysis of Chicana Literature (University of Arizona Press, 1995); and, as co-author, Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (University of Arizona Press, 1993). She is also the co-editor of Nuestras Mujeres and Las Mujeres Hablan, as well as many journals and book chapters.

Home Lands: How Women Made the West (through Sept. 11) anchors the History Museum's exploration of women this summer. Originally organized by the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, it features additional materials from the History Museum’s collections.

The summer's full schedule of lectures and workshops; all are free and in the History Museum auditorium unless other noted:

Sunday, June 12, 2-4 pm: Symposium on “The Journey of the African American North,” including stories from Santa Fe and Española.

Sunday, June 26, 2 pm: “Captive Women in the Slave System of the Southwest Borderland.” Lecture by James F. Brooks, president of the School for Advanced Research and prize-winning author of Captives & Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands.

Sunday, July 10, 2 pm: “Fabiola Cabeza de Baca and The Good Life.” Lecture by Tey Diana Rebolledo, regents professor at the University of New Mexico.

Sunday, July 17, 2 pm: “Moving Around to Settle In: Women of the Plains and Range.” Lecture by Virginia Scharff, co-curator of Home Lands and director of UNM’s Center for the Southwest.

Monday, July 25, 9 am to 4:30 pm, and Tuesday, July 26, 9 am to 12 pm: "Planting Seeds:  Home, Healing and Horticulture." Conference in collaboration with the New Mexico Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. $25.

Sunday, Aug. 7, 2-4 pm: “Homespun: Northern New Mexico Spinning and Weaving Techniques.” Members of the Española Valley Fiber Arts Center demonstrate Pueblo, Navajo and Spanish techniques in the Palace Courtyard.

Friday, Aug. 12, 6 pm: “Through Her Eyes: An American Indian Woman’s Perspective.” Lecture by Eunice Petramala, park ranger at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site.

Sunday, Sept. 25, 2-4 pm: Symposium on “Entrepreneurship in the African American Community,” from barbers to caterers, mechanics to artists.

Home Lands is generously supported by Cam and Peter Starret, Ernst & Young, Eastman Kodak Company, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Unified Grocers, Wells Fargo, KCET and the Friends of the Autry. Local support is provided by Stanley S. and Karen Hubbard, the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, the Palace Guard and the Montezuma Ball.