Northern New Mexico (Las Vegas, Espanola, Chama: environment, lawyer, relocating)

[Vinegaroon]

If you are thinking of moving to Northern New Mexico, and especially if you are some outsider thinking that the land there looks really pretty, and the acreage cheaper than most places, make sure you know what you are getting into.

I have known far too many outsiders that move to some of the towns up north and have bad experiences. The locals are friendly for the most part, but there always seems to be a bunch of bad apples in every community that make it their job to bother newcomers.

Ditch Associations will tell you they can run laterals across your property with impudence. Neighbors will get into disputes with you as to boundaries, water rights, and anything else they can think of. This is not even to mention the drug abuse and alcoholism that runs rampant.

Most of New Mexico is fine to move to. However, be very careful if you are thinking of moving to places like Chama, Tierra Amarilla, Las Vegas, Espanola, or any of the various little towns or rural areas near them. A decision to move to the wrong area in New Mexico is one you may regret for a long time.

[ThatTNGuy]

Is this hearsay, or did you experience something similar?

[GregW]

That sort of behavior is not limited to NM. Some people will always be nasty to newcomers no mattter where they are.

[mortimer]

Refer to the Ute Lake thread and the pictures of the houses there.

Now transfer one of those places to a location with a lot of history. People who have lived there simply (lived a simple life) for generations don't respond very well when the "outsider" comes in and tries to mold a large part of that area into something different.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by Vinegaroon

If you are thinking of moving to Northern New Mexico, and especially if you are some outsider thinking that the land there looks really pretty, and the acreage cheaper than most places, make sure you know what you are getting into.

I have known far too many outsiders that move to some of the towns up north and have bad experiences. The locals are friendly for the most part, but there always seems to be a bunch of bad apples in every community that make it their job to bother newcomers.

Ditch Associations will tell you they can run laterals across your property with impudence. Neighbors will get into disputes with you as to boundaries, water rights, and anything else they can think of. This is not even to mention the drug abuse and alcoholism that runs rampant.

Most of New Mexico is fine to move to. However, be very careful if you are thinking of moving to places like Chama, Tierra Amarilla, Las Vegas, Espanola, or any of the various little towns or rural areas near them. A decision to move to the wrong area in New Mexico is one you may regret for a long time.

As one who has been going to that area for four decades now, I will largely agree with what Vinegaroon has said. Rural northern New Mexico was, until fairly recently, very economically, socially, and geographically isolated. Not surprisingly, a very tight-knit social structure developed among the local residents--much of which continues to this day. Throw in some quite stark and significant ethnic and economic divisions between the long-time residents and those moving there now, and the potential for some strife and conflict is high. People relocating to those areas who are not willing to accept the area and its people on its own terms (and who try to remake it into something else) are quite likely going to get a very chilly reception.

I know a number of people who have relocated to those rural areas of northern New Mexico. The ones who have fared well are the ones who have made a concerted effort to assimilate into the local community and the local community ways. The ones who have gone there with the attitude that "their ways" are better than the locals' have generally been pretty miserable--and usually wind up leaving after a few years. As I have posted before, if someone moves into northern New Mexico (or the similar areas in far southern Colorado) with a big yuppie chip on their shoulder, it will likely get knocked off.

[Vinegaroon]

I agree with the chip on your shoulder part. It is funny that you use the term "big Yuppie chip". I was recently up north talking to an old-timer who is quite upset with some neighbors for various reasons. He told me "the problem with it up here is that too many outsiders are moving in." In talking with him, I told him he probably should be a bit careful blaming outsiders, because the outsiders might take that as him being racist or something dumb.

The next time I see the guy, he is all worked up about some more stuff with his neighbors. This time he says "the problem with this place is all the f----ing Yuppies moving in." I thought it was hilarious that "outsider" was synonymous with "Yuppies".

[Pintada Kid]

Read the Book.. North From Mexico by Carey McWilliams taught in some colleges to teach the True History of the Southwest to learn about Northern N.M. and Latinos in the Southwest. Northern N.M. is Spanish Country and some places towards the center of N.M. and lots of Spanish Grant Lands and people are not that Friendly because over half of their Grant Lands have be Stolen by Bad Surveyors,False Government Imposed Taxes, Bad Lawyers and Rich Wealthy Landowners. If your not from There your not from There. Especially if you try to take over their way of Life or be Rude or interrupt their space they dont like it. el pintada kid

[mike0421]

This is quite a read about the Espanola valley: Jordan Green: Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, New Mexico

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by mike0421

This is quite a read about the Espanola valley: Jordan Green: Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, New Mexico

I noticed that the cited article was from 2004, though I don't think a whole lot has changed. I really love northern New Mexico, but Espanola is not a place I would consider to live. All one has to do is read the local newspaper to know that town has some real "issues." Years ago, one of my ex-wife's co-workers took a job as an emergency room doctor at the Espanola hospital. He allowed the what he saw in the emergency room there was probably as frightening as what one would see in an ER in East LA or the roughest parts of New York City.

One thing I disagree with in the article is the inference that a century-plus of grinding poverty and injustice has led to the proliferation of black tar heroin and cocaine. To be sure, poverty and injustices have occurred in parts of northern New Mexico for a long-time, but the ascendance of a drug culture and the associated problems is more attributable, I think, to growing outside influences on the local population--those outside influences growing steadily since probably back in the 1940's. Outside influences like cheap gasoline, automobiles, TV, and influxes of outsiders moving to the region has had a great influence on the local social structure--as they have in many rural places across the US. It would be nice to think that all of those influences are positive--but often some are not. Sometimes that kind of disturbance can upset the social order in very harmful ways. The easy availability of illicit drugs is one example.

Unfortunately, the drug culture is far too common in many rural places in the Rocky Mountain West. One of the worst type of breeding grounds for it is where there is a relatively poor area or community in close proximity to some real toney resorts. In that environment, you have people desperate to make some money at anything they can combined with an affluent "customer base" to purchase illicit drugs. While those kinds of places don't make the news like the heroin problem in Rio Arriba County, they create crime and corruption issues quite similar. I personally know of several areas in Colorado that fit this profile quite well, and have been that way since the late 1960's. All of that is a "dirty little secret" that the Chamber of Commerce and realtor types in many rural Rocky Mountain places sure don't want to tell prospective residents.

People thinking of moving to the rural Rocky Mountain West with the idea that they are relocating to a low-crime or crime-free utopia full of nothing but happy, law-abiding neighbors and an always-friendly welcoming population of locals need to "get real." The reality--and that is what it is, reality--is often something quite different.

[debbie at bouontiful]

I just love chama. The area I have been pricing is right i the middle of the land grant problems. Talking about drugs....I own a cattle ranch in a rural area of Eastern Oklahoma, in the hill or Ozark type area and the meth problem here is very well known. I had a Mac Truck Driver with filled with salt water llike 80 ton type thing lose control going around a curve, taking out my mail box and flying through the air and landing side ways in my creek. He is alive because he was stone and didn't even use his brakes. Mind you I live on a 35 mile an hour road, he was at about 60 miles an hour. Took 3 wreckers to pull him off my property. So I guess drugs are everywhere.