Reconstructing Identity/Revising Resistance: A History of Nuevomexicano/a Students at New Mexico Highlands University, 1910-1973

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the development of Nuevomexicano/a student identity at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU) during three periods: (1) New Mexico's Territorial period and early statehood, (2) the 1940s, and (3) the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nuevomexicano/a student identity was shaped through a process of accommodating to and resisting institutional powers. Since 1898, Nuevomexicano/a students have been active members of the university community, despite periods when they constituted a small portion of the student body and the institution's frequent disregard for Nuevomexicano/a culture and language. As they participated in campus activities, Nuevomexicano/as reconstructed their individual and collective identities, appropriating terms such as Spanish or Chicano/a, as a rhetorical strategy to revise their relationships with the university. Extralocal institutions, including government institutions, national protest movements, and international organizations shaped public conversations about cultural identity. During the first two periods, students employed subtle strategies of resistance that included presenting speeches and reorganizing student government. Often labeled as accommodationist, these strategies represent viable rhetorical strategies that provided students access to dominant literacies, which were used to promote social change. In the 1970s, Chicano/a students utilized more aggressive practices, such as a weeklong sit-in, to radically alter the institutional culture at NMHU. In the forty years since the sit-in, NMHU has developed into a university that supports its Nuevomexicano/a students and incorporates elements of their culture into the university's social fabric.